By showing you couldn’t beat a mid-level Pac-10 team, you got Vegas to put up a 30-point spread (which no SEC team should ever have).

It is time to give the media an “aw shucks” and start talking about how great the Gators are. Everybody is now set up for the blowout and only a 50-point win will satisfy most of the Gators fan base and media.

• ESPN.com’s Pat Forde—Florida looks vulnerable in win, Tennessee looks tough in loss

• New York Times—A Letdown, but Not a Loss, for Florida.

• Mike Strange—Loss but not lost

• Orlando Sentinel Mike Bianchi—Gators win but Kiffin’s still laughing

• Palm Beach Post Ben Volin—Tennessee frustrates Florida

• SI.com’ndy Staples—Florida scored more points, but this felt like a victory for Tennessee

So how do you keep from getting blown out by the Gators? First you clearly go into the game with no plans to throw the ball over five yards deep and hope your ground game can eat up clock.

Somehow you knew you would catch a break with Deonte Thompson out due to a hamstring injury and Jeff Demps, Aaron Hernandez, and Jermaine Cunningham all battling the flu.

Kiffin told Matt Hayes of SportingNews “I started slowing down getting the plays to take time off the clock. I didn’t want to tell our players what the plan was.”

Coach Urban Meyer said that Tennessee’s apparent lack of interest in actually winning the game, as opposed to keeping it close, meshed perfectly with Florida playing conservatively.

“It was unbelievable,” he said of Tennessee’s ambivalent offense. “They were taking their time snapping the ball when they could go win the game. There was no two-minute drill.”

The conservative game calling was just as catching as the flu with Steve Addazio also unwilling to take any chances down field. Tim Tebow carried the bulk of the load with 24 rushing attempts, but it was an uncharacteristic Tebow fumble deep in Vol’s territory allow Tennessee to avoid their second 30-6 loss.

It is great to see the Vols Nation happy being mentioned as one of the best 1-2 teams in the nation. All is great since you didn’t get embarrassed in Kiffin’s first SEC game.

What seems to be missed is the program has reached a level that a loss is considered a win in anyone’s book.

Seems that the Vols have taken a page from Randy Shannon with the “This will help us more than you will ever know” philosophy.

Over the weekend Mike Gillislee became the first Gator Freshman to lose his stripe. Jonotthan Harrison also lost his stripe and is running with the first team offense since some players are out with injuries.  Gator Freshmen earn their right to be on the team by showing they are ready to play. To signify this Coach Meyer has all Freshmen with a black stripe over their Gator white stripe on their helmet. The last three years we have seen great production out of the players that have lost their stripe first: Jeff Demps, Major Wright, and someone named Percy Harvin.

With only 23 days till the home opener the Gators have now put on the pads and are ready to get down to business. It should be a great fall practice as guys try to crack the starting line-up. On defense there is going to be competition at every position. Defensive Coordinator Charlie Strong summed it up like this at the Gators Media Day:

“What is great is that the players understand that if they don’t prepare well, they don’t practice well, then they aren’t going to play. We have recruited well over the last few years and have managed to get some really good football players. Our staff has done a really good job at developing these players as well. If you look at our team a year ago, we got ridiculed for our game against Michigan. Then, at the start of last year we had Terron Sanders show up, Lawrence Marsh show up and Ahmad Black show up. All of those guys were developed and they became really good football players and key members of our improved defense last season. What we can’t allow happen is to look back to last season and not fully coach up our players just because they have made plays in games in the past. It is our duty as coaches to make sure that each day our players are getting better.”

Debose Working On Ball Security

ESPN.com’s BSC Guru Brad Edwards believes the Gators have schedule advantage in 2009. The Gators have a good looking schedule on paper, but any time you have LSU, UGA, Tennessee, and FSU on your schedule you don’t have any easy road to the BCS game.

University of Florida coach Urban Meyer begins his fifth season in Gainesville with a team constructed entirely of players he recruited. You can tell in recent interviews that Coach Meyer is happy with the state of his team, and proud of the talented staff and players he has around him. If you missed it, here is the must read from Pat Dooley on the comfort level Urban Meyer now has in Gainesville.

As we reported last night Kadron Boone picked Texas Tech over Flordia. “I’ll tell you what,” Trinity head coach John Brantley III said, “I’d be excited if I was a receiver and you’ve got the potential to catch 70 to 100 balls a year. I think that’s what Kadron was looking at.” Yes that is Gators QB John Brantley’s Dad quoted there. Not even having a Gator for a coach in high school was able to swing him to the Gators. Andy Marks gets more in-depth with his interview with Kedron.

Still none of the Freshman players have lost their stripe yet, but Jelani Jenkins, Xavier Nixon,  Mike Gillislee, and Jon Bostic have impressed so far. Also Jordan Reed and Andre Debose are improving over each practice.  The first one to lose their black stripe will join Jeff Demps from last year and Major Wright from the 2007 class as the first to be welcomed to the team.

And just a little something to get you fired up…