Odd, flawed year almost over as unbeaten Gators eye SEC title

During those mellow, carefree days of last summer, Gators coach Urban Meyer considered the biggest question floating around the Florida football offices: Can Tim Tebow play quarterback in the NFL?

It was, and is, a stupid query, one that filled air and dead spots more than moved along any meaningful discussion of Gators football.

"Does he throw a tight spiral?" Meyer asked rhetorically back in June. "Spirals, according to the history of football, are not the most important thing."

If life, and spirals, were only that simple. By the time Meyer faces a roomful of reporters in Atlanta on Friday, the day before the SEC title game, stupid questions will be welcome. That would beat the last 12 months, which have seemed have like 12 years for Gator Nation. Back then, an eye gouge was something from pro wrestling. Concussions were suffered by NASCAR drivers. Lane Kiffin? A mere gnat on Meyer's neck.

Then the bottom dropped out of sanity.

"It started in January," Meyer said. "It's been going on since Jan. 9."

That was the day after the national championship win over Oklahoma. Since then, Florida football has seemingly been about everything but itself. Sometimes during the year, the state of the program has gone beyond controversy. There have been arrests, outbursts, injuries, accusations and winning. All the time, somehow, winning -- 22 in a row to go along with a No. 1 ranking.

"I don't know if it's the most bizarre [season ever] but it's awful rewarding," Meyer said a few weeks ago, after a 53-yard interception return by defensive lineman Justin Trattou helped clinch a 24-14 victory over South Carolina.

Rewarding?

This was the year former Gators quarterback Shane Matthews became an outcast. During the offseason, Matthews was critical of Florida on his radio show. Without mentioning Matthews' name, Meyer shot back:

"If you want to be critical of a player on our team or a coach on our team, you can buy a ticket for seat 37F; you're not welcome back in the football office. You're either a Gator or you're not a Gator," said Meyer, University of Cincinnati class of 1986.

Various outlets, and one Ol' Ball Coach, had Meyer going to Notre Dame seemingly every week. If Meyer wearied of shooting down the rumors, he should have come armed. The coach himself started the speculation a year ago when he said during a Miami radio interview that coaching the Irish gig would be his "dream job."

Kiffin chose Meyer as his personal target, beginning on signing day. When Tennessee's new coach claimed that Meyer "cheated" while recruiting Nu'Keese Richardson, Florida and the SEC had kittens. That was just the beginning. The coaches kept tweaking each other to the point that SEC commissioner Mike Slive had to tell them to cut it out, or else.

It's hard to tell who had the last laugh. Meyer was fined $30,000 by the SEC on Nov. 6 for comments critical of officials. The so-called Kiffin Rule had been put in place a week earlier after the Tennessee coach (and some of his peers) blasted the SEC officials.

Shortly thereafter, the central figure in the initial dust-up was kicked off the team by Kiffin. Richardson had been charged with attempted armed robbery.

This week, Carlos Dunlap's DUI arrest -- and subsequent benching by Meyer -- provided a fitting bookend for "The Year of the Weird" in Gainesville.

"It is almost a relief that we're here," Meyer said. "It felt like it was on [us] the entire year."

What happened? A conflagration of expectations, scrutiny and off-field silliness that Gainesville Sun columnist Pat Dooley halfway through the year called, "The Summer of Stupid."

It wasn't enough that the Gators had to win, they had to win big. There was legitimate speculation the week of the Tennessee game -- well, legitimate from wacked-out fans -- that Florida would score 100. When Monte Kiffin's defense kept the Vols in it until the final minutes, it wasn't immediately clear who won.

"I would think in their locker room there was a little bit of frustration," Kiffin said after "losing" 23-13 on Sept. 19, "because there were such high expectations."

Since that day, Meyer says he has not looked at his computer for outside information. The flaming, it seemed, had burned him enough.

"[If] I want to know what's going on in the world, I asked my wife once in a while, 'How's it going?'" the coach said.

Urban Meyer: 'I don't know if it's the most bizarre [season ever] but it's awful rewarding.' (Getty Images)

The Tennessee game kicked off a brutal stretch when the Gators' bodies and minds were tested.

• Tebow was one of several players with flu-like symptoms flown to the Sept. 26 Kentucky game on a separate plane. The world then titled off its axis after the quarterback suffered a third-quarter concussion.

"It was like my son," Meyer said. "Imagine your son lying on the ground. My knees were shaking."

Tebow threw up (thanks, TV) and was rushed to the hospital. Everyone from Meyer to the corner bartender suddenly became a concussion expert. The saving grace was that Florida had two weeks for Tebow to get well.

• After babying him through the first half of the Oct. 10 game at LSU, the coaching staff let Tebow be Tebow in the second half of a 13-3 victory.

"Most of the time I probably would have got sick on that plane ride [to the game]," said the quarterback, who suffers from motion sickness even when not recovering from a concussion. "Then it really would have looked bad."

• The officiating was so horrid against Arkansas the next week that the Marc Curles' crew was suspended. Florida, though, survived, 23-20.

• A closer-than-expected 29-19 victory at Mississippi State was made easier when linebacker Dustin Doe returned an interception that may or may not have been a touchdown. The replay official ruled that Doe did not fumble before crossing the goal line, although Bulldogs coach Dan Mullen disagreed.

"I hope [the replay official] is severely punished if he ever works another SEC game again, because I think it's completely unacceptable," Mullen said.

Nothing was easy for the Gators this season, even after a 24-point victory over Georgia the next week in the Cocktail Party. In a hallway outside the locker room, linebacker Brandon Spikes admitted to a "skirmish" with Tebow following the Mississippi State game.

That was the least of Spikes' problems when YouTube posted a video the next day, showing the linebacker attempting to eye-gouge Georgia running back Washaun Ealey. It wasn't the fact that Spikes actually did the dirty deed, it was the fact that it was caught on camera and spread virally around the Internet.

The outrage didn't exactly die down when Meyer suspended Spikes for the first half of the next game against Vanderbilt. The player then suspended himself for the entire game.

Meyer called it a "group decision." The court of public opinion said thank you.

A day before that Vandy game, Meyer was nicked for that $30,000 fine for protesting a late hit on Tebow in the Georgia game. "Protesting" might be too strong a word, but under Slive's new no-tolerance guidelines Meyer's mild rebuke -- "That should have been a penalty, in my opinion" -- qualified as criticism.

No, spirals are not the most important thing. The latest reminder was Dunlap's arrest, yet another kick in the you-know-whats for Florida. A program seemingly insulated from outside distractions by this point had another grenade dropped on it on Tuesday. The defensive end was found sloppy drunk (allegedly) at a traffic light.

The defensive MVP of the BCS title game, a future pro, a team leader, will sit Saturday in shame -- suspended for stupidity. Part of Meyer, no doubt, wants to cry. Part of him wants to ball his fists and hit ... something.

All the Gators get their chance on Saturday.

"I do feel a sense of, 'We're here. Let's not worry about it. Let's go play,' Meyer said.

If it were only that easy. In this "Year of the Weird," the game is still two days away.