Those of you who had Florida -73 are probably pissed tonight as UF played at half speed, defeating Charleston Southern 62-3. Other than renewing our faith in Jeff Demps, Brandon James and Chris Rainey being really fast, nothing was accomplished. Carl Johnson was injured, which will test the depth of the offensive line. But since Florida only threw the ball 18 times, we didn't get to see who else wants to catch the ball. One of the bad things about these games is that once Florida is up big, you don't want to pitch it around and upset the Football Gods by running it up against a 1-AA team. Next week against Troy will be a more legitmate challenge. However, Troy lost this week to Bowling Green 31-14, allowing 31 unanswered points. That is not shaping up to be a challenge either.
As for Charleston Southern, I understand the benefits to Florida (gameday revenue and extra reps) and to Charleston ($450,000). But they looked like they were wearing high school jerseys and Florida was at half speed. The games against 1-AA teams are glorified scrimmages (save for Northern Iowa-Iowa and William&Mary-Virginia). If you try to find anything in this game to judge UF on, you're making a mistake. Save that for Troy and Tennessee in Hate Bowl 2009.