About Last Night's Gators vs. Hurricanes Football Game

The University of Florida football team usually starts its seasons with one or two home games against smaller college opponents, but of late they've been including major schools: yesterday's game in Orlando against the University of Miami is an example.  The Gators started this season ranked #8, for all that is worth, and the Hurricanes, hoping to bounce back from a disappointing season last year, were the clear underdogs.  But extremely sloppy play by UF...including 225 yards in penalties and 4 turnovers, the last one a foolish underthrown pass by junior Gator quarterback Feleipe Franks deep in his own territory while trying to protect a flimsy 24-20 lead late in the game...threatened their chances at victory.  Still, the Florida defense stood up and stymied Miami's inspired offense when it mattered most, after suffering through a plethora of missed tackles for much of the game.  Gators sacked the UM quarterback 10 times and held them to losses on several other downs.  And Franks had his moments as well, accurately throwing two 60+ yard bombs...his long-distance passing ability is something Florida had been lacking since Tim Tebow's tenure there. As for the penalties, I understand how a defensive player might inadvertently carry his own momentum into the ball carrier once they were already out-of-bounds, especially when they sometimes will choose to instead make a sideline cut to stay in...that can be a difficult call to make and better decisions along those lines can be made in future games.  But the offensive holding calls trouble me a bit, since Franks was already usually pressured and their running game was sporadic at best against the Hurricanes defense.  But that just might also be due to Miami's defense and not necessarily be exposing a Gator offensive line problem...

No, the Florida victory over Miami was definitely not pretty, but the way I see it is if they played this way each game for the rest of the season and continually won close, mistake-hampered contests, you know what that would mean?  It would mean that the Gators are National Champions.  In any event, I am glad the game is behind us and I can go back to enthusiastically rooting for both Florida and Miami as they are my clear preferences within their respective conferences...