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The Big College Football Weekend aproaches

By David Bloom

The big Florida Gators vs Tennessee Volunteers weekend is approaching and we will keep it locked in on that channel from now to kickoff at 8pm Saturday night in Knoxville. Our game follows the big SEC West showdown where the LSU Tigers visit the Auburn Tigers.

The Vols had a tough weekend on the injury front as two of their starters are out for the season in DL Justin Harell and CB Inky Johnson.

From Saturday's game against UCF, I'll be the first to say we put on one of our best performances in a long while. But, lets keep in mind that we had better athletes across the board, and we were playing at home in a game that does not have the pressure we will have on us playing under the lights this weekend. Instead of the crowd being on our side, we'll have the noise from the screaming Vols fans to deal with. This will be our first road test of the year. Say what you want about Cal being overhyped, Tennessee is an improved team from last year, and this Cuttcliffe fellow has done wonders for Erik Ainge.

Now lets look at numbers here on Tennessee the first two weeks.

Erik Ainge vs Cal

11-17 291Yds 4TD 1 INT

Erik Ainge vs Air Force

24-29 333Yds 3TD 1 INT

As good as all those numbers look for Vols, the Vols were exposed a little in fourth quarter against Air Force on the defensive side of the ball.

Air Force trailed by 14 points in the 4th quarter but thanks to two Ryan Williams touchdowns the Falcons found themselves trailing by one point with just over 90 seconds remaining. Rather than kick the extra point and possibly head to overtime Air Force head coach Fisher DeBerry decided to go for the lead. Air Force tried to go right with the triple option but Chad Hall was tackled at the five.
You got to give it up to Air Force going for the win rather than the tie. The Vols escpaed this game but the defense allowed this to happen. If the Vols defense had better break down the game tape from the Gators offensive outburst the past few weeks because I can tell you Gators have more weapons to choose from than Air Force does.

Our defense is unstested against a big time opponent but based on what we have seen the past few weeks they will be ready to take on the new and improved Ainge.

The Gators are heading into this game alot more healthy than Vols.

My take is that the Vols talent overall is not up to the par that we saw in the mind 90s. There has been a drop off. I see Gators talent better overall. But, this game will come down to who plays a better game given the game time environment.

What always scares me against Tennessee is the big play ability. We need to be prepared so that does not happen.

Our running game is improved. We don't use the traditional one featured back offense. We us alot of players out of the backfield which includes Percy Harvin out of the slot.

These are my initial thoughts going into this game. I am looking forward to the challenge and would like to see the improvement continue from week to week.