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Shane Matthews Needs To Get Over Himself

I am not a Good Ol' Boy Gator, so I have no attachment to Shane Matthews or really any player pre-Wuerffel (sorry Terry Dean). Which is why I get upset when I see Matthews criticize the Gators' offense. From Mark Schlabach's ESPN column this week...

"The first couple of years, I wasn't sure the spread offense would work in the SEC...Honestly, it didn't work until last year, when he had the right personnel running his offense."

Couple? You mean the first two years? Does Matthews know UF won the National Championship in Urban's second season? Of the four years Meyer has been in command, only the first year was bad offensively when they tried to make Chris Leak into Alex Smith. By year two, Meyer changed the playbook and they won a National Championship. In year three, he changed it again and centered it around Tebow. In year four, he changed it again and centered it around a stable of running backs.

Matthews continues in Schlabach's column to imply that Meyer benefits from following Ron Zook and not Steve Spurrier. On that account, we agree. Rarely is one successful guy followed by an equally successful guy. You need a mental midget in the middle.

For Matthews, that is the closest he will get to complimenting Meyer. Following the Ole Miss game, Matthews leaned into Meyer and Dan Mullen for not exploiting the man coverage the Rebels used. Matthews apparently missed Ole Miss blitzing nearly every down, a strategy that won them the Cotton Bowl. Matthews also takes the Kiper/McShay route and goes after Tebow's mechanics. Et tu, Shane?

Ripping a guy in January for comments he made in October is a bit much, but the comments in the Schlabach column show that nothing has changed. I don't expect Matthews to be a mouthpiece for the football team, but he is not honest about it. Matthews criticism of Meyer is directly from Matthews having problems with the way Meyer and Mullen operate, i.e. without Matthews' influence. Meyer has embraced former players (Emmitt Smith, Wuerffel) and Florida's traditions, so Matthews can't play that card. He is simply angry that Meyer won't pay attention to him. If he would just man up and say, "I don't like Urban Meyer, no matter how many games he wins," at least people would respect that.

Matthews needs to get over it. Besides, he should stick to coaching his non-existant Team Florida in the AAFL now that Florida has hired a pro-style quarterbacks coach.

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Shane's World

I was at UF at the same time as Shane Matthews. I respect him because he wasn’t the best QB out there, but he listened to Spurrier, took all the yelling and crticism and was rewarded by being the first Gator QB to lead us to an SEC Championship. He also basically re-wrote the UF passing record book.

That said, I am surprised that he said anything about the Gators or just anything in general. I worked as a busboy for the sorority that Shane’s girlfriend was in at UF. He came to dinner a few times and to some of the socials. He wasn’t what you would call an outspoken guy. He appeared to be afraid of people and was very meek and didn’t talk to anyone at all.

Maybe he is hoping for a career in coaching after the folding of that alumni league and thinks that speaking out will show people he knows some xs and os?

I will say that the spread absolutely did not work in ’06 when we won the title. We won it because of defense. Period. Our defense was awesome and helped us pull out all the close ones. I remember basically pulling my hair out the entire year watching the spread sputter under Leak. I was hoping that we would just play Tebow because he was a spread QB. We used to call it the Mickey Mouse offense. It is great now with teh right QB, but it was awful with a slow pocket passer.

I am a little concerned about that fact with Brantly. He doesn’t appear mobile enough to run Meyer’s vesion of the spread.

Go Gators.

by skigator93 on Jan 7, 2009 2:30 PM EST reply actions  

Pro-style QB coach is here for 2 reasons it seems.

Help Tebow and convert offense to Brantley. Unless Cam decides that he doesn’t really need a laptop for that class.

Clutch: A measurement of how much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/glossary/

by bdalebs on Jan 7, 2009 8:25 PM EST up reply actions  

Umm... what about Emmitt?

Or Kerwin? Or Jack? Or Spurrier? Or Alvarez? Or Reeves?

Clutch: A measurement of how much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/glossary/

by bdalebs on Jan 7, 2009 8:23 PM EST reply actions  

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