That said, the Gators did protect Tebow during the grind-out 13-3 win they had over LSU Saturday night.  The Gators started slow, obviously giving Tebow some time to adjust to the game again after having sat out for a seven to nine day stretch.  But once he got back into the rhythm, the smash-mouth Tebow running style came out of the bag of tricks.  After a few plays of hesitancy, one could see him settle in and get comfortable, and LSU didn’t have a chance against the Florida defense.

The SEC championship game is shaping up to be a rematch of last year, with both the East and West’s undefeated juggernauts on a collision course for their spot in the BCS National Championship.  The Florida Gators vs. the Alabama Crimson Tide is in many ways becoming the national championship, with little doubt that the winner of the contest will go on to claim it all.

Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin and many Gator-Nation haters have jumped on the bandwagon saying Florida was exposed as being vulnerable, and the “excuse” Urban gave to the press was nothing more than a cheap way to say his team was playing poorly.

Then came Saturday in Lexington Kentucky, with the Gators playing with several more players suffering from various bugs affecting either respiratory and/or gastrointestinal systems.  Many wondered if Tebow would be on the field after having to take a separate flight to Kentucky from contracting a bug himself.

Tebow indeed was on field and played like the bug decided to take a break and let the “Football Jesus” make the University of Kentucky look like the Red Sea as he split between their defenders and lead the Gators to a huge 31-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Then the unthinkable happened with the Gators deep in the Kentucky territory and threatening to score.

Tebow wassackedhard, and as he fell, his head smashed against the knee of his offensive lineman, whipping his head forward and leaving him laying on the field unconscious.  After a few minutes, he was able to rise and be assisted off the field and was taken to the hospital, diagnosed with a concussion.

What this will mean to the Gators is unknown.  The Gators lucked out and have a bye week next week before they play LSU.

Tebow is the kind of player that does everything in his power, with a little divine intervention, to make sure he’s ready to rock and roll in two weeks.  The injury has simply added another dimension to upcoming showdown in Louisiana.

Yes, it’s football season again, and the teams came out swinging the opening day of action, literally.

Boise State, ranked No. 14 in the preseason poll, hosted the Pac-10’s No. 16 ranked, Oregon, in what was supposed to be a shootout to determine what team is going to be in the BCS talks for the remainder of the season.  

Boise State vs. Oregon was billed as one of the big battles of the early season, and was supposed to have all sorts of bowl game implications, sending a message to those who doubted Boise State’s ability to compete.

So Boise State beats Oregon in the exact opposite way the game was thought to have gone; a terribly executed slop fest, with both teams making terrible errors on every drive and the high powered Oregon offense looking as delicious as a brick of old bread: stale.  

Even with the game going to Boise State and the reason to celebrate seemingly present, the game itself was overshadowed by the drama of the night.  LeGarrette Blount, Oregon’s best playmaker, was quoted before the game saying that Oregon “owed these guys an ass whooping.”  Obviously the quote was nowhere near the outcome, but the true drama happened after the game, when a Boise State lineman walked up to Blount, tapped him on the shoulder, jawed at him, and was instead met by a closed fist right handed haymaker of a punch from the Oregon player, which dropped the 241-pound lineman on his back.

It took 60 plus minutes of ugly football to finally get some fireworks.

God, I love football season.

But Meyer’s just within the top five highest paid college coaches.

Speaking of Notre Dame, Urban Meyer has expressed that a head coaching job for the Fighting Irish would be his dream job.  Notre Dame can obviously pay him more, since the school is one of the most profitable institutions in the nation, with some $6 billion in endowments and a $9 billion NBC contract.  

The UF athletic director has made it clear that Notre Dame won’t get the highly sought after coach without a fight, and that UF intends to keep its programs successful by any means necessary, even with past financial difficulties.

Whether or not we will see Urban Meyer in Gainesville through the 2015 season remains to be seen, since he only has a $500,000 buyout on his contract.  If Notre Dame wished to buy him out of it, the money would hardly be missed and would likely be considered a great investment in the future of the football program.  

Meyer has had plenty of success with the Gators, forming a legacy that no coach other than Steve Spurrier can claim to compete with, so any decision he makes will be one that is carefully balanced with the full understanding that betrayal in Gator Nation comes with a lot of baggage.

As it stands now, the SEC caps the number of players a team can sign at 25. However, most schools sign 28 to 30, and according to ESPN, this is a common practice. The schools then cut the roster down to 25 by reporting day in August.

The proposal is to set a hard cap at 28, giving more room for these teams to work, and to avoid over-signing players.

Ole Miss signed 37 players in the last class, which is 12 greater than the cap, and it did so knowing that most of these kids wouldn’t even qualify to play based on their poor academics.

Now, why would any college worth its weight even bother signing players it knows won’t make the cut? Maybe I should mention that the University of Florida rarely, if ever, exceeds the current cap for signing players and it’s won two national titles in three years.

Perhaps if Ole Miss and the rest of the SEC spent more time signing players worth investing some attention in, there would be more competition in the southeast.