Oliver Barry CRS, GRI
Begin forwarded message:
From: Shane Ford <goufgators@bellsouth.net>
Date: October 8, 2016 at 9:18:04 AM CDT
To: GatorNews <gatornews@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [gatornews] [SUN]: Dooley: On SEC football - Rational thinking wins the day
Reply-To: gatornews+owners@googlegroups.com
--Dooley: On SEC football
Rational thinking wins the day
Published: Saturday, October 8, 2016 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, October 7, 2016 at 10:28 p.m.
In theory, Jeremy Foley should have been able to spend this week starting a new book, sipping red wine with his feet up in the mountains of Vermont.
His ultra-successful stint as Florida's athletic director should have ended when the Gator football team landed in Gainesville after a win over Vanderbilt. But because UF made a late hire for its new AD, Foley was still working this week.
And when you are an athletic director, you have to make difficult decisions that bring the second-guessers and uninformed critics out from under their rocks.
So many media and fans are attacking Florida because the Florida-LSU game has been postponed. The decision ultimately came down to the commissioner's office, but Foley is getting the arrows because it has been assumed he used his influence to keep the game from happening.
To think Florida did not want to play against LSU in Gainesville today is ignorant. The physical condition of either of the two teams is irrelevant. Florida loves having LSU come to town because it creates buzz, sells the stadium out and means big bucks for the community.
Don't forget that it was LSU AD Joe Alleva who complained two years ago when the league wouldn't allow LSU to dump Florida as its permanent crossover opponent.
"I am very disappointed that the leaders of the SEC disregard the competitive advantage that permanent partners award to certain schools," Alleva said after the vote.
Foley has told me numerous times how much he wants to keep LSU as the permanent crossover.
But what seems to have riled up the fans around the SEC and many of the media is that Florida didn't take one for the team and play in Baton Rouge.
The most venomous attacks came from Glenn Guilbeau, a writer who covers LSU for Gannett. This Tweet says it all — "Florida AD Jeremy Foley finessed and fooled SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who fumbled Florida fiasco."
It wasn't enough because he wrote an entire column ripping Foley and Sankey.
Tim Brando, the legendary broadcaster, tweeted, "Jeremy Foley exerted his control & power and Alleva (not unexpectedly) does not get what he wants. A young Commish says it's Institutional."
Then we had Tennessee coach Butch Jones getting upset because it looks as if the game isn't going to be played. I guess he plans to lose these next two SEC games.
The theory among the LSU illuminati is that Foley delayed the decision as long as possible so that a game in Baton Rouge would not be possible. He twisted Sankey's arm, begged him for a farewell gift and got his way, right?
If you are a Gator fan and you believe Foley avoided a trip to Baton Rouge for his football team, then you should consider this the final great act of his career.
An athletic director's job is to take care of his school's athletic programs. How anyone thinks that piling your team on a plane, making it play a Sunday game to give it a short week for the next game, sending the players into a difficult environment when they thought they were going to play at home would be good for UF is beyond me.
Florida wanted to play LSU. In Gainesville. Anybody who thinks anything else doesn't know much about, well, anything.
UF didn't want to play LSU in Baton Rouge when it was scheduled for a home game.
It didn't want to play LSU three straight years in Baton Rouge. Who would?
Just like LSU doesn't want to play three straight road games to close this season and play Texas A&M five days after tangling with Florida on the road. That's why the game isn't being moved to Nov. 19.
Alleva, the LSU AD, is looking out for his program by refusing to accept that proposal. It's what an AD is supposed to do.
Just like Foley.
Florida and the SEC office have been monitoring this since Tuesday and as of Wednesday they still thought there was a chance Hurricane Matthew could veer right or weaken and the game could be played.
But it juked to the left, intensified and that was that.
This wasn't like the South Carolina situation a year ago when the Gamecocks moved a home game to Baton Rouge. Then, they knew exactly what the situation was with the flooding and contaminated water. It had already happened. Hurricanes are as unpredictable as freshman quarterbacks.
Florida and LSU could not play in Gainesville on Saturday or Sunday. That is not debatable, unless you think a stadium with 90,000 fans needs no security or emergency services. UF was told no law enforcement or EMS personnel would be available all weekend.
(I talked to several people in South Carolina who said the local law enforcement could handle everything for the USC-Georgia game Sunday. Why is it different? Have you seen the damage in St. Augustine?)
It's way more important that families who have relatives who were evacuated to Shands have hotel rooms all weekend than football fans.
There are people screaming about the integrity of the SEC standings and how it's not right that a team could have an advantage by not playing a game.
I'm sure those people who are burying their loved ones or rebuilding their homes this week are concerned with the integrity of the SEC standings.
Contact Pat Dooley at 352-374-5053 or at pat.dooley@gvillesun.com. And follow at Twitter.com/Pat_Dooley.
Sent From Shane's iPhoneGo Gators! & Skål Vikes!ALPCA #8756Europlate #1045
--
GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY!
1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions |
Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007)
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GatorNews" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to gatornews+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment