Berwin Kell

Is this a greater or lesser controversy than Arch not appearing in the Nintendo game?

Say what you will about Billy and his inability to get 11 guys lined up on special teams in different jersey numbers, his players are beacons of moral light and ethical correctness in the Gainesville community. Graham Mertz, for example, is well known for helping his landlady carry out her garbage.

I say he's overpaid as long as his players continue to terrorize the good citizens of Athens with their high speed drunken foolishness.

Lane Kiffin will convince him to stay at UF in any case (I don't see Jedd Fisch leaving UW after one year, but you never know. Seattle is nicer than Gainesville in the summer, but Gainesville is nicer in the winter). I'd be concerned about who Lane poaches from UGA next portal season.

I've been trying to get UF's graphics team to put up a 100 foot billboard in Times Square this summer to announce the start of Graham's Heisman campaign, but they said the football program spent the money on a second assistant analyst for 3rd and 16 situations.

Mullen - a man ahead of his time. Using the portal before everyone else and then cashing out his buyout to play golf and talk on TV. Expect that to be the next trend.

It’s amazing to think we have a QB room right now that will produce two more statues in front of BHG. Graham’s statue will be him pointing while running like he did to that Vol defender he juked. DJ’s will feature an actual rocket launcher for an arm.

It’s kind of surprising not to see the Mertzinator on this list. Most CFB prognosticators have him as one of their leading Heisman contenders this year.

May he enjoy his year in Athens before transferring to a MAC school.

"I was wrong about Graham Mertz last year." And so far you're wrong this year too. Graham is easily a top 5 SEC starting QB and having Lagway is the best backup situation you could hope for. I'll give you that Texas and Georgia an edge over UF, but the Gators at #8 is absurd.

Is the video game decision thing still holding him back or has that outrageously callous and selfish decision on his part been forgotten?

We got guys with good wingspans now, if that makes sense. Right?

Get ready for an onslaught of these silly season fake controversies. All you need to know is this: Mertz is the starter. Mertz will be the starter. Mertz will finish the season as the starter, barring injury. Lagway will play in every game. Lagway has an enormous amount of work and development in front of him.

Yeah, but the Mannings drive Japanese cars almost exclusively.

The number of grown men losing their minds over a video game is something to behold. This is why Japan is kicking our rear ends.

What Napier really needs to do is find guys with good wingspans relative to the rest of the conference, if that makes sense.

I quite seriously doubt he'll ever regret it.

Plus, if Tate Rodemaker was the world beater that everyone says he is - remember Jordan Travis saying he wished he'd broken his leg earlier so everyone could see how great Rodemaker is - why the heck is he is transferring? What's going on in Tally that they'd let a future NFL Hall of Famer walk just like that? If Rodemaker doesn't transfer to a blue blood program and win the starting job and become a first team All American, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to stop believing some of the things I read online.

Why has almost the entire apparatus of the national CFB media kicked into high gear since December 3 to express their outrage and defend over FSU being left out of the playoff? Other than clicks? Matt Hayes and Chris Wright are the only two CFB writers I know of offhand who have stated unapologetically that FSU had NO business in the playoffs after the Jordan Travis injury. For most everyone else, it really has the feeling of being the type of performative virtue signaling that people take to online whenever Some Really Bad Thing happens. As a reminder: being an undefeated Power 5 conference champion does not you earn an automatic bid, contrary to what so many mistakenly are saying. And like Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven before putting Little Bill out of his misery, "Deserve's got nothing to do with it" either.

Class of 98, FSU originally tried to pretend this year's 5-7 Florida Gators under Hot Seat Billy were were the '85 Chicago Bears. Boy did they love telling people how they went 2-0 against the SEC this year (it's actually 2-1 now!).

The Jameis curse is real. It's no coincidence that Jimbo got fired the same year FSU got left out of the beauty pageant.

"One way to look at that would be to see a balanced outfit stepping up in the face of adversity to take care of its business against a couple of legit opponents without its star." So one of the worst teams in Florida Gator history, playing with its own backup QB - by the way (and also consistently denigrated all year by the author of this piece) - is now "legit?" This has been an awful season for Florida football, but seeing FSU fans trying to turn us into the '85 Chicago Bears all of the sudden has been a rare bright spot. Let's go Dawgs and we'll see you in Jax next year with the Mertzinator!

I like Napier and want him to succeed, but even if he gets his offense firing on all cylinders after bringing in the talent he requires to run it, I don't know that the Gator Nation will be excited by an old school, smash mouth style of offense.

I think it's fair to say that our November matchup in the Swamp will have some major implications for some very low level bowls.

It's time to bring Kerwin Bell home and give him the keys to the program.

I think the site might actually melt down from the inside when Mertz outplays Beck in the Cocktail Party and Florida moves to 7-1.

11. Graham Mertz has the highest completion percentage among SEC QBs.

Did Matt Hayes seriously just suggest that if your team is about to go into a hostile environment against a program with vastly more talent, then your best move as a coach is to make witticisms on social media that will so intimidate your opponent's coach that he'll lay down out of fear or play scared and lose focus? Does Hayes really think that Nick Saban spent any time worrying over Taylor Swift lyrics last week?

Florida's current rivals are 1) Georgia; 2) Florida State; 3) Tennessee; 4) LSU; and from the old days 5) Miami and 6) Auburn. I don't know of any Gator fans, coaches, current players, former players or beat writers who consider Kentucky a rival. I'm not taking anything away from Kentucky and what Mark Stoops has built there. We would never have had the Kyle Trask era were it not for Kentucky, because God knows Mullen hated to put his actual best players on the field. Kentucky has whupped us in recent years and probably should have 2-3 more wins, but it's not a rivalry if one side doesn't consider it to be such.

Agreed. This is lazy media bandwagoning where a certain narrative takes hold and the whole media mindlessly parrots it: “Mertz bad at Wisconsin! Mertz bad! Mertz not good!” They did the same thing to Trask when they said “Who cares if he destroys every secondary he goes up against in the SEC, he didn’t even start at his high own school!” I guarantee that Nick Saban would take Mertz right now over any QB on his roster.