Looking Back to '03: Predicting the Success of Tyler Murphy

When Jeff Driskel was knocked out of the game due to injury with 10:05 left in the first quarter against Tennessee I figured the season had gone up in smoke. Sure, the defense and special teams might be overwhelming enough to eek out a win versus the Vols, but beyond that the prospects weren't going to be good. Turns out I was wrong. Not only did Tyler Murphy fill in admirably for the injured Driskel, he also provided hope that this season isn't entirely lost.

To be fair, Murphy didn't look great at first, and without the defense forcing back-to-back turnovers I'm not sure how the game plays out. However, that's exactly what this team was built to do. Play suffocating defense, run the ball, control the clock and not turn it over. When the offense needed extra snaps to calm everything down the defense pulled through. By halftime, Murphy had made the most of those snaps en route to a 17-7 lead for the Gators. At that point I felt like Murphy was running a very Chris Leak-esque offense, and based on how the team has struggled to move the ball at times in recent years, that isn't a bad thing.

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Five Things The Gators Need To Do Versus The Wildcats

On Saturday, the Florida Gators welcome the Kentucky Wildcats to The Swamp. I can't imagine that too many Gator fans are nervous about the team losing, and most of them probably want to see Will Muschamp and Co. put a large amount of points on the scoreboard. Honestly, I'm not as concerned with the score as I am with using the opportunity to really work on some key areas. For me, there are five items that I would like the Gators to actively work on during tomorrow's game. They are:

1. Get Andre Debose Involved
Seriously. I would like to say this list is in no particular order, but Debose is non-existent in the offense right now. With the kickoffs being moved up he's not going to do much damage there this season. Instead, he needs to use his speed and elusiveness during gameplay. I don't mind seeing him on Jet Sweeps, but would rather see him catching passes down the field. Please Brent Pease make this happen.

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Victory Formation: Gators Beat Volunteers

This image is so much better than the one in the post below. Thank you Coach Muschamp and Florida football players for providing us with this endlessly entertaining GIF(image courtesy SB Nation), and for coming home with a 37-20 win over the Tennessee Volunteers.

My original prediction of a 27-20 win for the Gators wasn't too far off, and I'm very happy those extra 10 points went up on the Florida side of the scoreboard. I felt relatively good that UF was only down four at halftime, even after settling for a field goal right before the half. However, I didn't expect a 27-6 scoring binge in favor of the Gators in the second half. Let's see how the Gators ended up with the victory, and how close my other predictions were.

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How And Why The Florida Gators Can Beat The Tennessee Volunteers

First, if Tyler Bray does this at all on Saturday night versus the Gators, I'm probably throwing a beer glass through my TV. With that out of the way here's why I'm optimistic that Florida can escape Knoxville with a win.

Florida Runs the Ball Better
If you've seen any of the recent Florida vs Tennessee games, then you've heard the stat that the team with the most rushing yards wins. I won't break down past rushing numbers, but looking each team's performance against their toughest opponent of 2012 I am confident that Florida is the better rushing team.

Comparing Florida's game versus Texas A&M to Tennessee's game versus N.C. State I noticed that Florida didn't have as many negative rushing plays. Shocking, I know. Here's the breakdown:

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2004, Tennessee Football & Petey Pablo

Realizing that Florida has rattled off seven straight wins against the Volunteers even surprised me a little bit. I knew that the Gators had been victorious in most of their recent contests with Tennessee, but it doesn't feel like seven wins. Just for perspective here's the song that was #1 on the radio(according to Billboard) the last time the Volunteers beat the Gators(September 18, 2004):

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Week 2 Fantasy Football Sleepers

Every week I'll scout players that are likely available in your fantasy football league, and provide  "sleepers" from the four key positions, quarterback, running back, wide receiver and tight end. I'll also provide one kicker and one team defense.

This is based on a 10 team PPR Yahoo! league that starts one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end and one flex(W/R) player. I'm denoting "sleeper" as less than 75% owned, though, there may be borderline players that I don't include because they're probably not available in most leagues. Also, this is only week two so you should still be starting most of the players you drafted, but if you feel like swinging for the fences with some boom or bust picks be my guest.

Quarterback
My Yahoo! league tells me that Joe Flacco is 74% owned. Technically, he's under that 75% bar, but I wouldn't consider him a sleeper after that Monday night performance.

Sam Bradford: Currently 22% ownership. Bradford was serviceable in his opener against Detroit going 17/25(68%) for 198 yards and 1 touchdown with no turnovers. His opponent this week, the Washington Redskins, got out to a quick start against the New Orleans Saints last Sunday and survived Drew Brees trying to pass his way back into a win. Here's the thing though, Washington's defense only had to defend 10 rushing attempts. Steven Jackson should rack up at least twice as many, and open up the field for Bradford. I can see Bradford passing for at least 250 yards and two scores.

Christian Ponder: Currently 12% owned. Ponder really didn't do much last week versus the Jaguars, but with AP rumbling for two touchdowns he didn't really need to. This week's opponent, the Indianapolis Colts, is fresh off giving up over 300 yards passing and two touchdowns to Jay Cutler. I expect to see much more impressive offense take the field for Minnesota this weekend, and Ponder should put up 300+ yards and two touchdowns.

Andy Dalton: Currently 50% owned. Cincinnati got torched by the Ravens on Monday night, but a lot of that was due to the defense's inability to stop Baltimore's offense. Joe Flacco only threw eight incompletions while hitting almost 300 yards and connecting for two touchdowns. Brandon Weeden will not do that this week, and I like Cincinnati to get rolling early in this game. I'd peg Dalton for 250 yards passing and at least two, maybe three, touchdowns.

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At It Again

Posts here have been sporadic over the past couple of years. Daily life got busy, and gobbled up more and more of the time that I usually carved out for researching and writing. However, I still very much enjoy that process, and I've decided to set aside the necessary time to get this thing going again. Hopefully, this becomes a place for insightful discourse on a variety of subjects.

FredEx Now Delivering Fraudulent Tax Returns

Former NFL wide receiver Freddie Mitchell has been indicted for allegedly assisting a couple with filing fraudulent tax returns for professional athletes. Apparently, the plan was to grossly inflate the tax refund due to the pro athlete, and back that up with fake documents. From the Orlando Sentinel:

Mitchell turned himself into authorities, but it is unclear when his next court appearance will be. His two co-defendants, Jamie Russ-Walls and her husband Richard Walls, were arrested in Pennsylvania and are scheduled to be arraigned in Orlando on Thursday. All three are accused of conspiring to defraud the IRS.

Russ-Walls or Walls prepared individual income-tax returns that falsely claimed the taxpayers were due significant refunds, in amounts ranging from $170,000 to $1.9 million, and created false documents to support their fraudulent claims, the indictment alleges.

From some quick research it looks like Mitchell was probably just the pipeline for contacting pro athletes because of his four year(yeah, I know, it seemed like a lot longer) NFL career. Wonder if he got into this racket after his BBQ restaurant went under?

The big question now is who is "A.G." that was hoodwinked by FredEx? I checked out the Philadelphia rosters from 01-04, but didn't see any players with those initials. Nothing on the '05 Chiefs either. Anyone have any ideas?

The Hit or Miss Nature of Fantasy Football

Fantasy football is anything but predictable, and I was reminded of this as one of my teams was eliminated from playoff contention over the weekend. While my team has suffered from having the 2nd most points scored against it(50 more than it's scored so far), the rest of the problems can be traced back to what I thought was a good draft. Altering just a few of my first picks on draft day probably would have had me in the hunt for a title.

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Is Meyer Behind the Newton Leak?

The Cam Newton eligibility saga got a little more interesting today. First, it was reported that Newton was caught cheating at Florida, and left the school before appearing in front of the Florida Student Conduct Committee. Then, it came out that the FBI was getting involved, and would like to speak with John Bond.

Throughout the day, one thing has remained constant, the murmurs that somehow Urban Meyer and/or someone on his staff is behind this entire thing. Some theories paint Meyer as a jilted former coach that wanted to thrust Florida back into the spotlight while diminishing Newton's accomplishments. Others have him just being a "bad guy" that's looking to get Newton declared ineligible prior to a possible Auburn vs Florida SEC Championship Game.

In any case, what would Urban Meyer gain from leaking this info?

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