You know, I'm not sure how good a team we really are

Oct 23, 2013, 1:48 PM

right now, and I think that makes this loss so much harder to swallow. We know our potential and we also evidently know how to choke under pressure. But this wasn't just Tajh choking. It was darn near the entire team. I would say the OL played the best out of anyone out there Saturday night. Tajh had plenty of time. He was pressured MUCH more by LSU and even UGA. But we had dropped passes, bad passes, turnovers, etc. And the defense was also exploited terribly. We got relatively little pressure on Jameis, and when we did he did what he does, just like he does it every week.

But the huge gaps in performance concern me more than anything else. I think our coaches, players, and even the athletic department itself got WAY to wrapped up in this game. Let's start with the AD. They let cameras on the buses. They advertised breaking the stadium noise record and paid some guy from the Guiness Book of World Records to be on hand. We had Game Day on campus. The AD even, for the first time EVER, had enough portojohns in Lot 2. They pulled out all the stops for this game. Then we have Dabo himself. He did several interviews in his office talking to whatever ESPN football babe was on duty that day. Dabo kept saying this was just another game, and then he goes on to show the ESPN football babe all the cool stuff in his office. And then we have the players doing interviews about the game, especially Tajh on ESPN, etc. and obviously watching and relishing all the coverage. All this stuff combines to create an atmosphere that this is not JUST another game.

To fix this problem Dabo needs to keep his players AWAY from ESPN the week before a big game like this, or every week as far as I am concerned. DO NOT allow interviews in your office. If ESPN wants to talk to you, they can do it on Tuesday with the rest of the media. And if you're going to try for a noise record, don't tell anyone. Heck, I would have even tolerated the usual inadequate number of portajohns for the game. All we needed was Dabo to mention to the fans about being loud, like Tommy did for the 2005 Miami game. And he could do that in his Tuesday meeting with the media.

Our players, on Saturday night, choked because everyone, from the players, to the coaches, to the athletic department, to the fans, did NOT treat this just like any other game.

The only question now is how do we respond...between the ears.