Playboy model and Gator Lauren Anderson is very attractive. Speaking of attractive, Alligator Army will have a sexy new look tomorrow complete with added features like rosters, schedules, stats, and seventy percent more awesomeness. It will look like Burnt Orange Nation minus the good writing. Join us tomorrow. Update [2008-5-4 21:37:35 by mlmintampa]:Um, actually, the change will be for Tuesday morning. Get excited!

It's been a while, but the sports radio voice is going to make an appearance tonight on Sports Tap. I'm excited because people will be able to hear my New York accent when I say 'ball', 'Florida', and 'orange'. It makes me long for the days on Sports Scene and Cheap Seats when callers would tell me to go back up North.

October was a pretty rough month. What is normally a make-or-break time for the Gators football team was a break time this season. The Gators have now lost three of four games, all three losses to historic rivals. It has been a very trying time including the loss of a teammate.

But as the air finally cools and Fall starts to creep into Gainesville, this is a chance for football and the entire athletic department to achieve success. The football team still has a distance shot at the SEC East title and important conference games remain. The month ends with Florida State, a game we are already shining our brass knuckles for.

Basketball begins tonight as well. We spoke yesterday about what Donovan's return means to the school. Not only that, it will be interesting to see how patient people are with the Gators. When David Lee, Anthony Roberson, and Matt Walsh were running the offense, they were expected to win the league every year. But with two national titles in our pocket and the top six in our rotation gone, it seems just making the NCAAs will be a successful season.

We don't need to wait until January or March for postseason play though. Gator soccer has won seven consecutive SEC games and could win the regular season title. At 11-4-2 (7-2 SEC) it looks likely that the Gators will play deep into the NCAA tournament and host a few games in Gainesville too.

Our guilty pleasure, Gator volleyball, is still crushing opponents. With only one loss this season (to Arkansas), only a collapse will prevent them from winning another SEC regular season title. The NCAA regionals are in Gainesville this season, so it's very likely Mary Wise's girls spend the first four rounds of the tournament in the University City. With all that home cooking, and Angie McGinnis, possibly the best player in the nation, volleyball could add their first National Championship banner.

This site and the Gator Nation revolve around the football team. But in a rebuilding year, we'll have to look other places for successes. And November will provide that. At least, that's what I'm hoping for.

After casually talking about creating a sports blog for years, me and fellow Florida alum, Hanson, finally put the pen to the paper in April 2007 when we created the obnoxiously unedited site The Sporting Orange.

After a few months, our exploitation of attractive southern females and consistent harassment of other sports bloggers (most notably Orson Swindle at EDSBS)paid off, and we got the gig here at the luxurious SBNation.

As for us, we're not quite professional writers and not quite the guys in underwear in their parents' basement. Currently, Hanson works as an online producer for a Virginia TV station and I work for a minor league baseball team in Florida. At UF, both of us worked in sports for AM850 WRUF, Gatorzone productions, and WUFT-TV. Hanson also worked as a sports director at WUFT-TV. I have experience from the Independent Florida Alligator and spent a short time following graduation at WCJB-TV in Gainesville. And you'll soon realize that Hanson is a native Floridian and I'm originally from New York. Just don't hold that against me.

So now that we've introduced ourselves, we'd like to know more about you guys. Do you also hate FSU with an undying passion? Are you a transplant that has embraced Southern women, Sweet Tea, and SEC football? Then let us know in the comments section.

Welcome to Alligator Army. If you're here because you know this site as Swamp Ball, welcome too.

We want to create not only an informative Florida Gators blog, but an entertaining one too. Eventually, we'd like to be the first website you read in the morning or first after a game. But, we know that will take time. To get you keep reading, we plan on filling the upcoming months with analysis and sophomoric humor not found any where else. (Ok maybe in some places.)

If you have any comments, questions, or hate mail, let us know in the comments or send us an email at alligatorarmy@gmail.com. Thanks for reading, and Go Gators. - mlmintampa and hanson

Softball had their season ended by Texas A&M in the Super Regionals ... Baseball is finished after the Gators fell to South Carolina twice in the SEC tournament ... Billy Donovan says he's "focused on the University of Florida," but still has not signed an extension ... And Florida was once again the recipient of the SEC All-Sports Trophy.

So there has been news surrounding Gator athletics -- I just haven't had the motivation to place any of this content up on Swamp Ball over the last few weeks or so.  Why?  I have no clue, but for anyone who has been kind enough to stumble upon this site over the last few weeks, sorry to waste your time -- I know that even the five seconds it takes to click on a link, read that it's the same ole' top story and then move on to another site is valuable.

If you do read a nice tid-bit of information on our Gators, by all means, use the diaries on the right hand side of this page.  Your addition to the content here at Swamp Ball will be greatly appreciated.

Until next time, which is hopefully soon, Go Gators!

Tonight's podcast will feature Deadspin.com editor Will Leitch as a guest, talking about the puss-filled wound to sports that is ESPN, Brady Quinn wedding photos, and the growing number of sports-humor blogs on the Internets. Were also talking Brewers baseball, the stupor that is the NBA Conference Finals, and we continue to stick to our ban of Yankees coverage until they prove they are a real baseball team.

All that and more tonight on the SB Nation Sports Report, 9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific at NowLive.com, immediately following EDSBS Live, featuring Peter Bean and Orson Swindle.

So the Broncos picked up three former Gator defensive linemen over the course of the weekend: Jarvis Moss, Marcus Thomas and Steven Harris (UDFA).

Tonight I'll attempt to discuss these acquisitions with TheSportsGuru from Mile High Report, the SB Nation's Denver Broncos blog.

Please check out MHR Radio from 10-11 pm EST, and have a listen out for some talk regarding our former Gators.

Update - 10:30: My radio debut is complete. You'll be able to listen to the replay soon after tonight's show is completed. I'm sure there were several "uhs" and studdering, but I tried. Hope you enjoy.

Go Gators!

I know it would be silly to actually apologize to anyone who has stumbled upon Swamp Ball in the last few days and has noticed that the site has not been updated since Monday of this week; I just didn't have the energy throughout the week to get any new posting up, and with basketball being over, football spring practice being over, and a delay between our gymnastics team's bid at a national title, there just wasn't much to talk about regarding Gators athletics.

Blogging a college program takes a combination of two things, mostly:  One being actual news to report, and the other being creativity to come up with original content relevant to said program. The creativity part, something I haven't had over the last couple of weeks, is what I feel is really important -- because anyone could easily go any major news outlet and read stories about the Florida Gators.  If I'm just re-posting news that is coming from a second-hand source, what good is that?

My point in all this is to stay tuned.  I'm going to be trying to kick things into overdrive over the next few weeks -- weeks that could be considered "down weeks" in the eyes of college sports fans.  I just haven't had the time nor energy to get new content up lately, and I know that everytime you click a link to head to this site and see nothing new it may tempt you not to come back; Which, of course, is opposite to my goal of keeping Swamp Ball up and running.

Go Gators!

I know this is a sports blog dedicated to our Florida Gators.  But we all are well aware of the terrible tragedy that has occured today in Blacksburg at the campus of Virginia Tech, and it's impossible not to look past it.

I believe that I would speak for each individual associated with the University of Florida -- the students, faculty and staff, administration and athletic fans -- when I say that the horrible events of today will not be forgotten.  All of the victims, family and friends are in all of our thoughts and prayers, and will be over the course of time it takes to get past this.

It's unimaginable to me at this point the general disregard some have for human life.  It's downright sickening.  But now is not the time to think about that.