Apparently nobody told Florida’s Urban Meyer and Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin that the game is over.

Via ESPN.com:

In looking back at the game, Meyer said Sunday he probably should have opened up the defending national champs’ offense. But he said there was no reason to because of the Vols’ conservative approach to their own offense.

“When I saw them start handing the ball off, I didn’t feel like they were going after the win,” Meyer said.

“The way we lose a game there is throw an interception. Why put yourself in that position? Let’s find a way to win the game. We’re not trying to impress the pollsters.

We’re trying to win the game. A lot of it had to do with the way they were playing. It made our life a little easier.”

Kiffin said he put his Volunteers in the best position they could be in to beat Florida. Then he took one more shot at Meyer, who said several of his players had been hit by the flu.

Asked whether he was worried about the flu also hitting Tennessee, Kiffin said: “I don’t know. I guess we’ll wait and after we’re not excited about a performance, we’ll tell you everybody was sick.”

“They wanted to shorten the game. I remember looking out there and there’s 10 minutes left in the game and there’s no no-huddle, they are down, I think it was 23-6 and [there's no] urgency,” he said.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but I actually side with Kiffin here. This sounds like Meyer is trying to make excuses and deflect attention away from the fact that his team didn’t give Tennessee the beating of a lifetime when everyone expected them to. Watching Florida defeat Tennessee by 10 points was like waiting all week in school to watch a huge fight at the flagpole and instead both kids exchanging blows, they came out slapping each other.

The Gators may have won, but they weren’t impressive. And as I wrote after the game, maybe that’s the medias fault for hyping up a Tennessee massacre but the bottom line is that thanks to Monte Kiffin’s defense (and Tim Tebow’s second half fumble), the Vols were able to keep things relatively close.

As far as Tennessee not showing any urgency, Kiffin is right – he put the game in the hands of his tailbacks, which were the only offensive production the Vols had. Kiffin knew that defense and his running game were the only things that were going to get him a win, so he stuck to that plan.

Meyer should move on. Florida got the win and that’s the most important thing. Maybe the massacre at the flagpole will come next year.

It’s my own fault, really. I figured that after Lane Kiffin spent the majority of the offseason running his mouth and making false claims about Urban Meyer that Florida would come out and tear Tennessee a new one when the two teams met in Week 3.

But I came away feeling awfully unsatisfied by the Gators’ 23-13 win over the Vols in Gainesville on Saturday. In fact, I was more impressed with Lane Kiffin’s defense than I was with anything Florida did today. His front four pressured Tim Tebow all game and safety Eric Berry once again proved that he’s one of the best defenders in the nation, if not the best. I thought I was watching Bob Sanders of the Colts with the way Berry played sideline-to-sideline today. I could watch him and Tebow go at it every Saturday. (Did you see that collision in the first half?!)

Again, this was the media’s fault. We all figured that Meyer, a man who had no issue with his team hanging 63 points on Kentucky last year, would put together some magical game plan that would embarrass Kiffin and serve notice that he and Florida aren’t to be f’d with.

But there was no magical game plan. Tebow was good (115 passing yards, 76 rushing yards and a TD on 24 carries), but far from great as he threw an interception in the first half that led to a UT field goal and fumbled in the fourth quarter, which produced a Vols’ touchdown. Florida’s lack of playmakers in the passing game was on full display and it’s apparent that the Gators are hurting without Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy.

Florida’s defense was great again, although Tennessee’s offense is vanilla as it comes. Montario Hardesty is all they have and the passing game is non-existent with Jonathan Crompton under center.

I’m not a Florida fan, but I expected more. I expected the Gators to be up by 30 late in the fourth quarter and tack on another touchdown just for good measure. Instead, I’m left wondering if Florida won’t get knocked off again at some point this year. I know had Tebow not fumbled and the Gators went on to score in that drive, this probably would have been written differently. But if Tennessee had more playmakers on the offensive side of the ball, it’s not unfathomable to think they could have pulled off the upset.

Tennessee (1-1) at No. 1 Florida (2-0), 3:30PM ET
Don’t think for a second that Urban Meyer won’t be extra motivated for this game after Lane Kiffin accused him of violating NCAA recruiting rules back in February. Kiffin better hope that his power running game will help keep this one close, because Florida’s defense is going to terrorize quarterback Jonathan Crompton if Tennessee becomes too one-dimensional. Crompton made several poor decisions last week in UT’s loss to UCLA, a game in which he threw three interceptions. If he turns the ball over against the Gators, this game will be out of reach by halftime. Of course, if Monte Kiffin’s defense can generate some pressure on Tim Tebow, the Vols could make things interesting. But so far, Kiffin hasn’t gotten much production out of his front four and it has forced him to blitz in order to get pressure. Tebow will recognize that and pick UT’s defense apart. This one could get ugly.
Odds: Florida -30
Prediction: Florida 41, Tennessee 10.

Texas Tech (2-0) at No. 2 Texas (2-0), 8:00PM ET
Mack Brown still has nightmares of Michael Crabtree scoring the winning touchdown in last year’s thriller in Lubbock. But Crabtree and Graham Harrell have both moved on and although Raiders quarterback Taylor Potts (861 yards, 9 TDs) is off to a great start this year, it’s hard to imagine that Tech will pull off the upset this year. Colt McCoy won’t allow Texas to lose at home and the Longhorn back seven is too good to let Potts to beat them for four quarters.
Odds: Texas -17.5
Prediction: Texas 52, Texas Tech 28.

No. 23 Georgia at Arkansas, 7:45PM ET
The last time these two teams met was back in October of 2005 when the Dawgs barely edged the Razorbacks 23-20 in Athens. Bobby Petrino’s team is fresh coming off a bye week (which followed an easy 48-10 victory over FCS foe Missouri State), while Georgia fought tooth and nail for their 41-37 win over South Carolina. Petrino admitted that the Razorbacks have been game planning for this matchup since August and he even held senior Michael Smith to only four carries in the win over Missouri State so that the running back would be fresh for this week’s matchup vs. UGA. The Dawgs have given up 61 points in their first two outings and considering Arkansas’s offense is starting to come together under Petrino, I see the Razorbacks securing a nice home win.
Odds: Arkansas -1
Prediction: Arkansas 31, Georgia 28.

West Virginia at Auburn, 7:45PM ET
The Tigers will be seeking a measure of revenge after the Mountaineers soundly beat them in Morgantown last year. Although both teams have started off the season on the right foot, West Virginia could have a hard time corralling Auburn running backs Brandon Tate and Onterio McCalebb. The duo has combined to rush for over 530 yards in two games and will provide a challenge that the Mountaineers’ run-defense didn’t receive in their first two games. As long as the Auburn defense can contain Noel Devine and senior quarterback Jarrett Brown, they should be able to get their revenge on West Virginia and start the ’09 season 3-0.
Odds: Auburn -7
Prediction: Auburn 38, West Virginia 24.

One of the greatest unsolved crimes in sports history now has a resolution. We can now put our children to bed at night without this shroud of mystery hanging over our heads and breathe a sigh of relief knowing that a major villain has been outed for his crime against humanity.

That’s right, folks: We now know the one person who didn’t vote for Florida’s Tim Tebow as All-SEC quarterback. And it wasn’t that punk Lane Kiffin, nor was it that weasel Bobby Petrino either. Hell, it wasn’t even Nick Saban, who can’t step one foot inside Baton Rouge or Miami without somebody wanting to shove a first down marker where the sun don’t shine.

Nope, it was Steve Spurrier…well, kind of. Apparently it wasn’t actually him, but the director of football operations he had vote for him. Whoops.

Spurrier explained that his director of football operations had filled out the ballot and brought it in to him. Spurrier said he glanced at it, signed off on it, and then realized his mistake much later.

The ballot submitted to the SEC from South Carolina had Mississippi’s Jevan Snead as the first-team quarterback, and not Tebow.

“I take full responsibility,” he said, emphasizing that he believed Tebow to be one of the best quarterbacks in Florida history. “I’m embarrassed about it, I feel badly about it … I apologize to Tim Tebow.”

SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom confirmed to ESPN.com that Spurrier called within the past 24 hours and asked that his ballot be changed to include Tebow as the first-team quarterback. Spurrier told Bloom that his initial ballot, with Snead as the first-team quarterback, was a mistake.

If you couldn’t tell by the sarcasm I used at start of this article, I don’t think this is a big deal. It’s just a preseason honor and I highly doubt Tebow is losing sleep over this. It’s nice that Spurrier tried to correct the mistake and owns up to it, but again, this is hardly worth getting upset about.

But perhaps an underlying issue (and Pat Forde touched on it in the ESPN article) here, is that these coaches continue to let other people in their programs vote for things like all-conference nominations and even the USA Today Coaches Poll. So you have a director of operations having a stake in which teams could potentially play for a national title, and not the coaches themselves.

This is just reason No. 1,900,340,000 why the BCS system is an absolutely joke. We need a playoff.

By the way, how does Jevan Snead feel right about now? If I’m him I’m like, “A mistake? Gee, thanks Spurrier – tell me how you really feel you son of a bit…”

The SEC recently released its preseason coaches All-SEC team and unsurprisingly, Florida’s Tim Tebow was everyone’s choice as first team quarterback.

Well, not everyone’s choice apparently.

Only three players were unanimous choices on the first team: LSU offensive lineman Ciron Black, Tennessee defensive back Eric Berry and Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones. Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner who led the Gators to a national championship in 2008, was not a unanimous choice.

Coaches weren’t allowed to vote for their own players, so a unanimous pick got 11 of 12 votes. Tebow got 10 of 12 votes, which means one of the SEC coaches doesn’t think that he’ll be the best quarterback in the conference this season. But which coach that was is uncertain.

Of all the quarterbacks in the SEC, the only one who might draw a vote away from Tebow is Ole Miss’ signal caller Jevan Snead. But if the Rebels’ Houston Nutt couldn’t vote for him, then who did?

If we could hold a blame storming session for a second, I’d like to blame either Lane Kiffin or Bobby Petrino – Kiffin because he’s proven to be a pimple on every SEC coaches’ ass since becoming head coach at Tennessee, and Petrino because he’s essentially the Hans Gruber of the college football world.

Not that this is a huge deal because after all, it’s just a preseason All-SEC team. But any time we get the opportunity to throw Petrino under the bus for something, it must be fully taken advantage of.

Apparently Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin wasn’t too pleased with Alshon Jeffrey’s (one of the nation’s best high school wide receivers) decision to play for South Carolina next year, and told him so.

According to Jeffrey and Wilson, Kiffin told Jeffrey that if he chose the Gamecocks, he would end up pumping gas for the rest of his life like all the other players from that state who had gone to South Carolina.

Jeffrey was doing his best to stay awake at that point, but that comment from Kiffin woke him up. He clearly hasn’t forgotten it, either.

“He said it, but it’s not worth talking about,” Jeffrey said.

Wilson was a little more diplomatic. He wrote it off as Kiffin pulling out all of the stops and simply not wanting to concede defeat. Wilson acknowledged that’s about as negative as it got that morning.

“It was his last resort. That’s all it was,” said Wilson, who also attended high school in South Carolina.

“When you get pushed against the wall and your back is there, you’re going to come out with something. You should have heard coach Carroll. He was wide awake at 3 o’clock in the morning. Remember, he was on West Coast time and fighting to get Alshon to the very end.

“But the war was over at that point.”

I’m sure college recruiters have said much worse to recruits, but Kiffin’s act is starting to wear a little thin. He’s already pissed off several of the SEC coaches and now he’s not endearing himself to future prospects. Maybe he should relax a little and win a few games at Tennessee before pissing everyone off.

Lane Kiffin hasn’t even held the Tennessee head-coaching job for three months and already he’s managed to tick off fellow SEC coaches Urban Meyer (Florida), Nick Saban (Alabama), Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) and Mark Richt (Georgia).

That kind of preaching-to-the-choir comment fit perfectly into the rhetoric of his first press conference. I doubt it got much of a rise in Gainesville, since the Gators have owned the Vols in recent seasons.

What really irked Florida Coach Urban Meyer was that Kiffin continued to attempt to hire — unsuccessfully, as it turned out — receivers coach Billy Gonzales while the Gators were preparing for the national championship game.

More recently, Kiffin has gotten on the nerves of Alabama Coach Nick Saban to the extent that Saban is asking players who already have committed to the Crimson Tide not to take official visits to UT.
This is in response to Kiffin’s hiring of Lance Thompson off Saban’s staff. Thompson, considered Alabama’s best recruiter, got a big raise to jump to the Vols just two weeks before signing day.
Considering that UT is a combined 1-6 since Meyer and Saban arrived at Florida and Alabama, you have to take your victories wherever you can find them.

And don’t forget that Kiffin also has tugged on Steve Spurrier’s visor. First Kiffin hired his brother-in-law, David Reaves, off the South Carolina staff. Then Kiffin and Spurrier exchanged comments in the press about recruiting.

While we’re at it, Kiffin also threw a $400,000 offer at super recruiter Rodney Garner in an attempt to lure him off Mark Richt’s staff at Georgia. Garner chose to stay at Georgia.

For those keeping score, Kiffin has kicked sand at Meyer, Saban, Spurrier and Richt. It’s no coincidence that those are the coaches of the four most important opponents on UT’s schedule every year. Those are also four programs that the Vols must match in recruiting if they are to regain relevance in the SEC.

Obviously this is all part of Kiffin’s plan to breathe a little life into a Tennessee program that could use a shot in the arm. Is he going about it the right way? Probably not, although that won’t matter if he wins.

If pissing off your fellow conference coaches motivates the program and players, then go for it. But if nothing changes and the Vols get flattened by all of these teams next year, then Kiffin is just going to look like a pompous ass who got what was coming to him.

With their 31-24 loss to the Oakland Raiders on Sunday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers officially completed the worst second half collapse of the 2008 NFL Season. And with their loss, the 2007 NFC South Champions were eliminated from postseason contention.

So what happened? How did this team fall from 9-3 to 9-7 in the blink of an eye? Well, it would be impossible to point to just one thing because several factors contributed to the Bucs’ freefall. But there seems to be three main factors that contributed in their collapse.

One of the biggest reasons for their demise was injuries along the defensive line. As soon as the team lost defensive tackles Jovan Haye and Chris Hovan three weeks ago, the Bucs were gashed by opponents’ running games. In their four game losing streak to close out the season, Tampa gave up a total of 710 rushing yards, or an average of 177.5 yards per game.

Another huge factor was losing Earnest Graham for the rest of the season after he was injured in a Week 11 win over Minnesota. Graham provided Tampa with a power running game to help balance what Warrick Dunn and Cadillac Williams brought to the table in terms of speed. Graham was also an unselfish player and a solid leader, willing to play any position (including fullback) to help his team win.

The nail in the coffin for this team seemed to be when defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin’s son was hired at the University of Tennessee. As soon as Lane Kiffin was hired, speculation grew that Monte would join him, which he eventually announced that he would following the season. Even though Monte is the ultimate professional and wouldn’t skate on his responsibilities as Tampa’s DC, there’s no denying that his announcement to leave at the end of the year created a distraction. In fact, the Bucs didn’t win one game following Tennessee’s decision to hire Monte’s son.

When you throw all three of those ingredients into a pot and mix them up, you’ve got the makings of bad stew. The writing has been on the wall for weeks, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that the Bucs couldn’t even muster a victory at home against the hapless Raiders with the playoffs on the line.

While every year has its own host of surprises, there are always those stories that simply fit the trend. Sure, it can get repetitive, but if we don’t look back at history aren’t we only doomed to repeat it? Every year has its fair share of stories that fell into this category, and 2008 was no different.

Our list of things we already knew this year includes the BCS’ continued suckiness (Texas-Oklahoma), how teamwork wins championships (KG, Pierce and Ray-Ray), and the #1 rule for carrying a handgun into a nightclub – don’t use your sweatpants as a holster. (Come on, Plax. Really? Sweatpants?)

Don’t miss the other two parts of our 2008 Year-End Sports Review: “What We Learnedâ€� and “What We Think Might Happen.â€�

Brett Favre can’t make up his mind.

The biggest story of the summer was all the drama surrounding Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. This saga has been covered to death, but there’s one detail that never seemed to get that much play. At the start, it looked like the Packers were making a bad decision by moving on so quickly even when Favre decided he wanted to return. But when the news broke about Favre’s near-unretirement in March, the Packers stance became much more clear. They were ready to take him back after the owners’ meetings, but he called it off at the last minute. At that point, the Packer brass was understandably finished with Brett Favre, much to the chagrin of a good portion of the Packer faithful. – John Paulsen

The Chicago Cubs’ title drought is not a fans-only phenomenon.

The 2008 Cubs were easily the best team the franchise has assembled in decades, but they still couldn’t win a single game in the playoffs, and the reason is simple: the pressure finally got to them. Sure, they said the right things to the press about how they didn’t care about what had happened in the past, but don’t believe a word of it; there wasn’t a single person in that dugout that wasn’t fantasizing about being part of the team that finally, mercifully, ended the longest title drought in sports history. Once ESPN picked them to win it all, however, they were doomed. Ryan Dempster walked seven batters in Game 1, which matched his total for the month of September. The entire infield, including the sure-handed Derrek Lee, committed errors in Game 2. Alfonso Soriano went 1-14 with four strikeouts in the leadoff spot, while the team as a whole drew six walks and struck out 24 times. The team with so much balance in the regular season suddenly became the most one-dimensional team in baseball; take Game 1 from them, then sit back and watch them choke. And now that this group has lost six straight playoff games (the team has lost nine straight dating back to 2003), it isn’t about to get any easier. Get a helmet, Cubs fans. – David Medsker

If you’re going to wear sweatpants to a nightclub, leave the gun at home.

If winning a Super Bowl is the pinnacle of an NFL player’s career, than shooting yourself with your own gun in a nightclub has to be rock bottom. Case in point: Plaxico Antonio Burress. Just 10 months after helping the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg while at a nightclub. Apparently the (unregistered) gun was slipping down his leg and when he tried to grab it to keep it from falling, the lucky bastard wound up pulling the trigger and shooting himself. And that wasn’t the worst of it because as Plaxico found out, New York has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. He was arrested, but posted bail of $100,000 and is scheduled to return to court on March 31, 2009. If convicted of carrying a weapon without a license, he faces up to three and a half years in jail. He shouldn’t expect special treatment, either. The mayor of New York wants to be sure that Burress is prosecuted just like any other resident of NYC. The Giants, meanwhile, placed him on their reserve/non-football injury list and effectively ended his season. While “Plax� definitely deserves “Boner of the Week� consideration for his stupidity, what’s sad is that in the wake of Washington Redskins’ safety Sean Taylor’s death, most NFL players feel the need to arm themselves when they go out. Maybe players can learn from not only Taylor’s death, but also Burress’s accident so further incidents can be avoided. – Anthony Stalter

Here’s something to think about – since Lane Kiffin was hired as the head coach at Tennessee, the Buccaneers are 0-3.

Coincidence? Absolutely. We have no reason to believe that just because Lane was hired at Tennessee that his father Monte (who told the Bucs last week he would join his son at UT as their defensive coordinator next year) has quit on his team. But it is ironic how Tampa’s defense has been in a tailspin ever since Lane was hired as the next head coach of the Vols.

Three weeks ago the Bucs gave up 299 rushing yards in a loss to Carolina. Two weeks ago they were shredded by Michael Turner and the Atlanta Falcons in a 13-10 overtime loss. And then on Sunday, the San Diego Chargers marched into Raymond James Stadium and treated Tampa’s defense like their personal chew toy, marching up and down the field at will in route to an impressive 41-24 victory.

So what happened?

Well injuries along the defensive line happened first, but that’s no excuse for the Bucs to miss countless tackles and forget their general assignments. I mean, this is a unit that has flat out forgotten how to make plays and now Tampa might not even make the postseason.

And even if they do make the playoffs, can their fan base feel good about what they’ve seen over the past three weeks? Defense has been a staple for this team for years and now in the final games of Monte Kiffin’s career in Tampa, it has been the source of their demise. That’s pretty ironic considering the major knock on the Bucs has been the lack of offensive playmakers. Now Antonio Bryant is dominating opponents and the Tampa defense is giving up 30-plus points at home to a mediocre Chargers squad.

After such a fantastic career, Monte Kiffin owes nothing to the Buccaneer organization. But he has just one game left in Tampa and it’s against the Oakland Raiders next week at the James. Think he can draw up a defensive game plan to shut down Da Raiders and get the Bucs into the playoffs? Or are his thoughts already on Georgia, Florida and the rest of the SEC?