When is enough?

I attended the Florida Gator football game this past weekend in Lexington, Kentucky against the Kentucky Wildcats and I saw the hit that took Tim Tebow out of the game live and then later saw the ambulance drive by with him inside on the way to the hospital. It was a scary sequence of events but not something most of us football fans haven’t seen before. The difference last night was that it was Tim Tebow, our Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, who may now be out for a while. He will most likely be back at the helm for our next game against LSU, but either way, out for a bit – and I am by no means a medical doctor.

We all know that concussions are part of the game of football. One of the ugly parts, but the players understand and choose to take this risk. It’s easy for me to sit here and talk about this type of thing having never actually played a down of organized contact football, but I respect the situation none the less. I bring all of this up because it is going to be interesting to see and hear the commentary the next 2 weeks from the media and other schools regarding whether or not Tebow should have even still been in the game figuring the Gators were up 31-7 in the third quarter and in control of the game.

I think there is a lot more to the situation then people give it credit for. There is of course the primary conversation of whether or not the game was over and then there is the discussion of running up the score. But, I think there is more to it. As far as the game being over, sure Florida was dominating the game, but try and tell either football team that with 20+ minutes left on the clock that the game was over, or the 50,000+ paying fans. Yes, I do think the game was more or less over (where Kentucky couldn’t come back) at the end of the 1st quarter, but there’s more to it than that which I will get to in a minute. As for running up the score, maybe it’s because I’m a Gator fan, I do think it’s okay to score 50-60 points on another NCAA opponent…especially in this specific game against another SEC eastern team. Kentucky is a good squad and is capable of scoring 4 touchdowns of their own. So what am I really trying to say? I guess what I am getting at is that when is it acceptable for a team like Florida to go out there and test lots of their plays? We keep hearing that teams like Florida leave starters in too long, run up the score too high, and the games are more or less over when they are 20-30 points up.

Let’s take a look at the overarching goals at hand. Florida is gunning for another championship, the 3rd in 4 years. So Florida needs more than 15-30 minutes of football to work through their playbook and test out different packages with all of the players. This was only Florida’s 4th game this year. In the first game, Tebow only played into the 2nd quarter. The second game he played into the 3rd quarter. And then Tebow played the whole game against Tennessee, their 3rd opponent. I know Tebow and the other Gator athletes practice quite a bit, but they really need to play 60 minutes to ensure they are prepared for upcoming opponents. I think having an athlete like Tim Tebow in during the middle of the 3rd quarter is completely acceptable when there is a 24 point margin. Yes, it was taking a risk, and yes, this is what will happen sometimes. I’m sure if the exact situation was to present itself again, Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow would do it all over again.

I hope Tim Tebow ‘s head is okay and he is able to quickly to recover from this injury. But, I think the critics really need to look deeper into the situation before criticizing what Florida Football and many other schools are doing to prepare for a title run.