Monday Skull Session

Why so serious, Buckeye fans?

If you stopped by Twitter or 11W Saturday, you saw a lot of angst following the closer-than-imagined victory over Cal. I've always held that a win is a win and I will gladly take them all, but I can see why some fans may be fretting. It was no different under Bruce, Cooper and Tressel. With Meyer, though, it seems as if the worry is amplified.

I think a huge part of that is because Buckeye fans have always viewed Meyer as death – a destroyer of worlds – thanks in no small part to a night to forget in January 2007. Now, Urban Meyer is an amazing coach. His two national championships, rivalry record and BCS bowl game record attest to this. But, as any Gator fan will tell you, even his great teams played close games against teams that had no business staying with them.

Let's hit the wayback machine, shall we?

2005 Florida Gators: 9-3 with an Outback Bowl win over Iowa

Meyer's first Gator team was a good, but not great bunch that finished in a tie for second place in the SEC East.

This Gator squad escaped with a 49-42 overtime win over a 5-6 Vanderbilt team (a team that lost to Middle Tennessee State) in Gainesville. Later, they lost 30-22 to a 7-5 South Carolina team and Gator fans were yet again nostalgic for the Spurrier days.

2006 Florida Gators: 13-1 with a national championship drubbing of your beloved Buckeyes

This is the team that scarred your childhood/formative years/adulthood. They also slipped past a 4-8 Vandy team, 25-19, after holding a 19-point fourth quarter lead. This team survived an 8-5 South Carolina at home, 17-16, and managed to upend a 7-6 Florida State team, 21-14, in November.

Granted the FSU game was a rivalry game, so you have to overlook the records a bit, but that same Seminole team lost games to North Carolina State, Boston College and Maryland. Oh, they were also shutout, 30-0, by Wake Forest.

2008 Florida Gators: 13-1 with a national championship win over Oklahoma

The 2008 Gators were Meyer's best in Gainesville. Heisman winner Tim Tebow played alongside Percy Harvin, Brandon Spikes, Carlos Dunlap, Joe Haden, Mike Pouncey and an entire two-deep stocked with four and five-stars.

All of the team's 13 wins were by double digits and they annihilated ranked teams: 51-21 over #4 LSU, 49-10 over #8 Georgia, 56-6 over #24 South Carolina, 45-15 over #23 FSU and 31-20 over #1 Alabama in the SEC Championship Game.

Yet, they still lost their SEC opener to unranked Ole Miss. At home. After entering the game as 22-point favorites.

2009 Florida Gators: 13-1 with a win over UC in the Sugar Bowl

Although not quite as good as the '08 Gators, the 2009 team still finished #3 in the final polls after another 13-win season. Like the previous squad, they clobbered most of the teams they faced, but still played a couple of teams close.

They snuck by an 8-5 Arkansas team – on homecoming, no less – and then had to rally to put away a 5-7 Mississippi State team.

This Buckeye team is a young team featuring 29 freshmen or sophomores on the two-deep and they're coming off a 6-7 season. There will be growing pains.

What we saw Saturday was an inexperienced team taking their foot off the gas once they had their opponent down in the first half. This is not the first time this has happened in sports and it won't be the last. Young teams, as part of their maturation process, learn how to deliver knockouts.

This team will soon be delivering those knockouts, but in the meantime, enjoy these wins, whether they come with style points or not.

Threw a chair at the cruiser (via @OhioStateHoops).

RESPECT. We touched on this a bit Saturday, but wanted to circle back because a) getting inducted into the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame is a huge honor, b) the 2012 class was stacked and c) BOBBY FREAKIN' KNIGHT.

Ohio State has a great photo gallery up, here's a photo of Knight (begrudgingly) acknowledging the stadium crowd (taken sometime before he was fake arrested by Columbus' finest) and Kyle grabbed great video of Knight holding court with reporters at his Hall of Fame presser.

Knight on coaching against Ohio State in the Big Ten:

"When I was coaching in the Big Ten, I didn't like losing and I didn't like losing [in Columbus] any more than anywhere else. But I didn't like winning here, either. I didn't like that. I always lost when we came here when Coach Taylor was coaching. Now after that, I didn't mind winning here. I wasn't happy because they beat us, either, when he was coaching. It was a hard thing. I think that was the hardest thing I had to deal with in coaching."

Among the other former Buckeyes honored was defensive line coach Mike Vrabel. His family happily stood in for the former end during the ceremony halftime. From the looks of it, there's a good chance we'll see another Vrabel playing in the Shoe in the not-so-distant future.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE U. BUT ONLY IF THE U REPRESENTS UNOCCUPIED. So, about the announced attendance of 39,435 for Miami's 38-10 win over Bethune Cookman on Saturday...

Yeah. You may want to put the ol' fog machine on ice until you can fill the seats a little better, Canes.

I realize ticket price increases have far outstripped inflation lately and the economy could be better, but Florida State, a top five team no less, had trouble filling its stadium for a league game against Wake Forest and the Florida Gators had empty seats for their opener and had to return 4,000 tickets to Tennessee last week. Is this what Florida college football has become?

It really does make you thankful for the 100,000+ that pack Ohio Stadium regardless of the team's win-loss record or the quality of the opponent.

ALWAYS SUCH AN UPBEAT BRO, BUT THEN SATURDAY HAPPENED. This is what it looks like when you're forced to answer questions after losing your fourth-straight game to Stanford:

I'm sure his coach throwing him under the bus didn't help things, either.

ETC. Without a doubt, Ole Miss Gunny was the highlight of the weekend. NOT IN MY END ZONE, YANDERSTAND DAT?!... Three generations of pride... A streaker hit the field for Ole Miss-Texas and he suffered the typical streaker fate... When you see it... 2,000 students were evacuated from Park-Stradley Hall Sunday night after a water main broke... A bad early sign for USC.