40 replies to this topic

[Go Gators]

Congratulations to the newest NCAA Football National Champions, the Florida Gators.  It is also the first time in history that a school has won a basketball and football national championship in the same year.  What a great year for the Gators and the entire State of Florida!

GO GATORS!!

Edited by Go Gators, 08 January 2007 - 11:15 PM.

[TheSuperPope]

Being the offspring of two UF grads (I went to South Carolina, making a few days out of the year kind of interesting) I have to say
Congratulations to UF and the whole state of Florida, you played amazingly tonight!

[krazeeboi]

Wow, UF is on a roll....a basketball title, now a football title. Congrats!

[g-man430]

I was rooting for the gators. Congratulations on becoming national champions.

[Spartan]

Congrats to the Gators! I was glad to see that kind of beating to Ohio St. This was the only time that I have pulled for Florida... just remember, USC should have won that game. I'm glad we just barely lost to the national champs

[convulso]

drove from auburn (yes) to gainesville last night on a whim and listened to the game on the radio. was anticipating florida winning (don't know why), so i figured i'd drive south unless they started losing. got into gainseville as time expired, and the town was in uproar. traffic jams, person jams, etc. people were so thick on university that, if you got up in the cut, then you got the sweaty torso-crushing-can-i-breathe feeling you may have gotten at an enthusiastic small-venue-sardine concert.

some guys started a literal mosh pit at the intersection of university and whatever it is that university intersects with (the block with the two-story restaurant bldg - pita pit, etc.) - they were slamdancing to some informal quasi-hatian-sounding bongo-playing whistle-blowing rhythm band. thrashing around and hitting each other and whatnot. also some semi-naked folks painted like street performers, plenty of drunks, not too much gratuitous vandalism, tons of law enforcement - including mounted patrol -  mardis gras-like impulsive behavior whenever a stranger's camera would point one's way, etc. intense. mardis gras is a pretty apt comparison, were it only a couple of blocks in extent. i was told by a UF fan that last year's b-ball championship produced real campus vandalism - overturned cars; that sort of thing. i did notice a couple of wayward benches last night.

i'm not the kind of football fan that would do the SEC proud - i've never been to any game - but i figured, hey - i might as well get to see what a rabid football town looks like when its team wins a national championship, since i've never seen it here (and probably won't). there aren't many schools that would surpass UF in football zeal. probably only a few even match it, and most of those are in the south, so, as a sampling, i feel i got my money's worth.

i live almost directly on top of toomer's corner in auburn (the traditional hell-raising ground zero for athletic successes), but i've only strolled through to watch fans roll the oak tree there maybe twice in the three years i've been in this apartment. you take the celebretory congestion for granted in your own town - especially when the history department triumphantly names another eminent scholar and the streets fill with orange and blue (no, no, no). for some reason i got the urge to see the same sort of thing in gainesville. can't explain why. it's.....inexplicable. but i'm glad i did. 'twas at a higher pitch than i'd seen before.

took pics, but predictably almost every one of them was blurry to the point of embarrassment. the jostling was just too intense for my little non-SLR canon. one or two turned out, and of course they're worthless - crystal-clear shots of, like, a taillight or some guy's noggin or whatall.

i know a lot of you were probably there, so apologies for a narrative of what was essentially a sexless (so far as i saw) orgy at which you were present and with which you are more familiar. just thought i'd throw down a brief outsider's take (though most SEC schools have never actually made me feel like an outsider). people were nice, of course - they usually are in the south - and i enjoyed the campus (second visit).

anybody go out and get pics? i may post a couple if i can force photoshop to tame them. losing battle.

go gators...

[Dale]

What an a@@-beating.

[JRS1]

yes it was.  and a glorious one at that.

[Dale]

Lot of crow-eating going on now among the national media. It's sweet.

[convulso]

here're some pics from the post-game celebration in gainesville. blurry (i couldn't hold the camera steady with all the jostling), but the best i could do at the time. 'twas a fun night.

. . . . .
an overview of the hordes:


. . . . .
some drunk gator fans:


. . . . .
fans milling around:


. . . . .
these guys are of the opinion that the SEC is the strongest conference (sorry for the blur):


. . . . .
a drunk fool...i warned him if i took his pic he'd end up on the internet. didn't seem to phase him, though. girls walking past this guy gave him a wide berth of personal space. check how he's rockin' the gator crotch:


. . . . .
some fist-pumping action:


. . . . .
cops on a roof along university. hard to see, but they're on the left. they were leading the crowd in cheers (aren't they supposed to disperse crowds?):


. . . . .

go gators!

Edited by convulso, 10 January 2007 - 04:10 PM.

[JRS1]

LOL!!!!!

those cops were leading the crowd in cheers!!!  that's great!  I wonder if one of them is Mr. Two Bits in disguise.

[Dale]

I'm down in Orlando now, but my sister drove my mom down to University Ave., and students to high-fiving my mom and saying stuff like, "Yeah, grandma!"  

[sunshine]

Just the cops? Where are the Indian and the cowboy?

[JRS1]

sunshine, on Jan 12 2007, 10:36 AM, said:

Just the cops? Where are the Indian and the cowboy?

Felipe Rose!!!   LOL!   you are a trip.

well, the construction worker is at the PTP site, and the biker is at... hmmm... Main St. Daytona, Parliament House Orlando... man, he can be anywhere.

[Dale]

Gators dominating in the NFL playoffs too.

It's a Gator world.

[JRS1]

I went to Gainesville on Sat.  it was a great gathering at el swampe.

[RestedTraveler]

And let's not forget Emmit Smith winning "Dancing with the Stars," too.  God is certainly smiling on the Gators this year....and with Rex and the Bears winning today and the Patriots ahead, looks like we're gonna see a superbowl full 'o Gators, too.

[Florida]

RestedTraveler, on Jan 21 2007, 08:19 PM, said:

And let's not forget Emmit Smith winning "Dancing with the Stars," too.  God is certainly smiling on the Gators this year....and with Rex and the Bears winning today and the Patriots ahead, looks like we're gonna see a superbowl full 'o Gators, too.

That's too bad about those patriots. At least the Colts have a nice color Blue you all could enjoy!!

[JRS1]

TaureanJ, on Jan 22 2007, 09:54 AM, said:

That's too bad about those patriots. At least the Colts have a nice color Blue you all could enjoy!!

know what... you're right.  never noticed that before...

so... Da Gators got Rex, Ian Scott, and Alex Brown playing in Miami, for a certain team, from a certain town, a team, otherwise known as... Da Bears.  Devin Hester's gonna be playing a home game down there too.

[JRS1]

as of right now, Rivals.com and Scout.com rank UF's recruiting class as No. 1, since Monday's signing of that 6-7 240 lb. defensive tackle.  Last year's class was No. 1 in one of those polls.  THe one before that was a Top 10 class with only 17 recruits.  The No. 1 class of USC had over 22 recruits.  If Meyer would have given more scholarships, the raw score would have jumped UF to probably 1 or 2.  He's not messing around.