For those who care, these are the accessories Florida will wear against Georgia.

As always, click the headline for a closer look.

Click the headline for a bigger view.

Former Gator great Errict Rhett (who rocked in an NFL fantasy league for me a decade ago):

“The gator was the primary source of inspiration for this uniform.”

A gator-skin pattern is featured just about everywhere on the new unis…but it’s not too “in your face.”

Florida will wear their Pro Combat unis against Georgia in Jacksonville. 

Early verdict — Much better than last year.  The new unis look more like what Florida fans are used to.  This is not an Oregonian move.  The gator-skin pattern, while used all over the uni, is not overpowering.  It’s an accent type o’ thing.

The other schools weren’t so lucky, but Florida and Alabama got — dare I say — “subdued” new Nike unis?

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Just looking through the reps who’ll be on hand for the other schools planning to wear Pro Combat gear in 2010 I noticed two names.

Bob Huggins is listed as being on hand for West Virginia.  Michael Irvin is the Miami rep.

Suddenly the after-party just got a lot more interesting.

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When he signed with Florida last year, receiver Andre Debose was hailed as the replacement for Percy Harvin.  Unfortunately an injury cut short his 2009 season before it ever got started.

Leading up to 2010, once again, Debose has been the odds-on favorite to play the Percy position in the Gator offense.  But that’s just not in Urban Meyer’s plan.

Debose has been moved from that slot receiver position to a wide receiver slot.  In fact, he’s listed at the same spot as #1 wideout Deonte Thompson.

Chris Rainey will be the man who takes over in the slot.  Jeff Demps could also see time at the position.  And Debose might eventually move back inside when receiver Stephen Alli returns to practice.

But for now at least, Rainey is “the new Percy,” not Debose.

Three key questions remain as the Florida football team prepares for its season opener

5 biggest preseason winners

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GAINESVILLE — With only a week remaining until Florida opens the season at home against Miami (Ohio), the Gators’ starting lineup is starting to take shape.

Offensive tackles Matt Patchan (wrist) and Xavier Nixon (knee) were ruled out for the opener, leaving questions about which combination of linemen offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Steve Addazio would use.

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Every year, college football coaches look for the best ways to disrupt and confuse defenses. Some look for tricky schemes, while others come out in unusual formations.
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Two freshmen on the University of Florida football team were arrested over the summer for possession of alcohol under the age of 21, The Miami Herald learned Friday.
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It’s really not fair to compare any college freshman to Tim Tebow, whose accomplishments — on and off the field — are well documented and way too much for any 18-year-old to take on.

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Signing the best of the best of the best makes for a wonderful first Wednesday in February every year.  But as Urban Meyer and Florida fans are finding out, there’s a risk that comes with signing only four- and five-star blue chippers:

Bad attitudes.

Earlier this week, veteran O-lineman Mike Pouncey lit into UF’s freshman class saying that they are way too cocky for his tastes.  He said they need to just shut up and play ball… and that’s not very much of a paraphrase.  That’s pretty much the exact quote.

On Wednesday, a report in The Independent Florida Alligator noted that two freshmen — Ronald Powell and Dominique Easley — had missed practice on Tuesday.  By Wednesday morning/afternoon, Twitter and messageboards were lit up with rumors that the two were absent from practice again on Wednesday, they had cleared out their lockers and they were planning to transfer.

Turns out the report was accurate but the rumors were not.  Maybe.

Powell and Easley were at practice Wednesday.  They have not transferred.  And Meyer said yesterday that the word transfer never came up.  “No.  No, no, no, no, no.  Never.  The transfer word never came out of their mouths.  They’re good,” he said.

But something happened.  The two did miss at least part of Tuesday’s practice for some reason.

Powell and Easley might have just needed an attitude adjustment.  Earlier this month Powell compared himself Easley and fellow freshman Sharrif Floyd to the Miami Heat’s new (over-hyped) “dream team” of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade.

Freshmen don’t walk into a lockerroom that’s gone 26-2 the past two years and proclaim themselves saviors and all-stars.  Florida has had plenty of all-stars and the program doesn’t need saving.

It’s no wonder, then, that a vet like Pouncey was turned off by the brashness and mouthiness of these freshmen (and possibly others).  Also, Meyer said yesterday that he’s concerned that none of his highly publicized signees have claimed a starting job during fall camp.

The end of the world?  Hardly.  Even Meyer tried to calm the seas by saying later, “Our freshman class is doing great.  I keep hearing this, and I keep hearing that.  Everything’s in good shape.”

Maybe it is, but this is still a good lesson for folks who live and die by Rivals’ and Scout’s recruiting rankings — you can’t judge attitude, character or impact on team chemistry with star rankings.

Veterans on Alabama’s team had to call a players-only meeting last week to tell some of their new teammates what kind of effort is expected at Alabama.  Now Florida’s cocky frosh are causing some amount of friction and distractions in the Gators’ lockerroom.

Alabama and Florida have enough overall talent to still win a whole lotta games this fall even with a few freshman who think a bit too highly of themselves.  But will they have the chemistry — something Nick Saban talks so often about — to win titles?

We’re about to find out.

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Those Ronald Powell/Dominique Easley/Florida rumors that done blowed up on the internet yesterday have drawn one more group into the fray — MrSEC.com.

If you scroll down the home page, you’ll see that we discussed the explosion of those rumors yesterday afternoon.  In our post we wrote that multiple reports spread that the two freshmen Gators were skipping practice and planning to transfer in some sort of bizarro overreaction to Mike Pouncey’s “our freshmen need to shut up” comments from the day before.  The entire gist of our coverage dealt with the fact that one report spread like wildfire across Twitter and then messageboards.

It’s pretty clear, I think, that our issue was with the speed and ease that a single story (correct or incorrect) can spread via social media. 

Unwittingly, we stubbed our toe and accidentally spread a falsehood, too.  So much for wagging my finger at Twitter.

As the story erupted yesterday morning and afternoon, we never posted the initial story or the rumors on our site.  We only mentioned the rumors once we learned they were false… which happened while I was doing a Florida radio show.  Finishing the radio gig — and about to jump in my car to go to another meeting — I posted what I knew in about three minutes time (or, at least, what I thought that I knew).

Well, my piece upset Kyle Maistri, the man who initially wrote the story for The Independent Florida Alligator. 

His gist was this: MrSEC.com’s paragraph regarding the overall rumors — that grew from his story — made it appear that his story reported some of those falsehoods that ran wild on the web.

He’s right.  That was a poorly written paragraph on my part.  In referring to the overall rumors, I wrote (by accident) that his report claimed some of the things that had spread as rumors.

My goal was to say, “Report A was taken, twisted and spread across the entire SEC.”  But by referencing his story in the same paragraph with the rumors, I did not clearly state where his report ended and the rumors began.  (Example, Maistri wrote that the players missed practice Tuesday — which hasn’t been confirmed or denied yet — but that grew into a rumor that they were absent Wednesday and transferring.)

My bad.  To be totally honest I was trying to spread the word as quickly as possible that the rumors that were spreading were wrong.  In a rush, my quick blurb didn’t get the usual two, three and four reads that most of our stuff does before it hits the web.

I didn’t mean to besmirch Mr. Maistri or his report.  I try not to be too big of a besmircher.

That said, I did include a direct link to his story in the MrSEC.com post.  If I was intentionally trying to pin these rumors to his chest, I wouldn’t have given everyone a view of his initial story.

In other words, I was guilty of poor wording and a rush to get something on the web.  Basically the very issues that bug me about Twitter and messageboards.  The irony is not lost on me.

However, after two and a half years work here at MrSEC, I think it’s fair to point out that we’ve received this kind of “Hey, you messed up my story” note from a reporter very rarely.  In fact, this is the first such case I can remember.

Therefore, the odds of us being right versus the Twittersphere are still awfully darn good… and I’ll continue to view the rumors that swirl on that site with a suspicious eye.  As for us, one misquote or poorly written blurb every year or so?  I can live with that.  I don’t like it, but I can live with it.

Regarding Mr. Maistri, my apologies go out to Kyle.  While some writers might not like our take on their work or our views of their views, we don’t want them to ever say that we’ve misquoted them.  My bad for not being clearer in differentiating between his story and the rumors I was trying to squelch.

(And I just got to use the word “squelch” in a sentence.)

Man, I hate Twitter.

A couple of weeks ago a rumor started spreading on Twitter and on messageboards that former Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer had been killed in a motorcycle crash.  One problem: He was and is very much alive. 

Today, reports emerged from Florida that in response to Mike Pouncey’s rant about cocky, mouthy freshman Gators, two of those freshmen were skipping practice.  That report from The Independent Florida Alligator announced that Ronald Powell and Dominique Easley were skipping practice, had cleared out their lockers and were preparing to transfer. 

The story then grew legs (like a centipede, in fact) on Twitter and spread on messageboards as well.

We didn’t run with it because we’d already heard that…

In reality: Those two players were indeed practicing today.

I was actually doing a radio show in Florida when word came down that Easley and Powell were at practice, as confirmed by Robbie Andreu of The Gainesville Sun.

So don’t believe everything you read on Twitter.  In fact, if I were you, the only thing I would trust on Twitter is twitter.com/mrsec.  That’s it. 

Nothing else.  The rest is the devil’s work, I tell ya.

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I hate swagger.  I think it’s an overused term.  I also think it’s nothing more than bush league posturing on the part of many athletes.

If talking tough and acting cocky were associated only with winning teams, I might feel differently.  But since every school from Louisiana-Monroe to New Mexico State has its share of loudmouths, finger-waggers and headshakers, I don’t believe swagger has a bit more to do with winning football games than the price of coal in China. 

That’s why I’m glad Florida veteran Mike Pouncey is making it very clear that he’s had enough of the latest batch of Gator freshmen and their flapping gums.

“At the end of the day the freshmen need to just shut their mouths and just come play.  They haven’t done nothing on Saturday, and most of the fans don’t even know who they are.  Until they prove themselves they just need to sit back and let the older guys play.”

More?  Okay.

“That whole recruiting class is just cocky. … You always want to shut them up.  I hate when guys come in and talk too much and don’t show nothing on the field.  But with this great recruiting class all of them played good, it’s just time for them to shut up and play on Saturday.”

Good for him. 

There’s nothing wrong with confidence.  But confidence and mouthiness are too different things.  Especially when there is no reason to show confidence (or mouthiness).  Yet.

Florida’s freshman class will be filled with future NFL draftees and millionaires.  There will be All-Americans and maybe a Heisman candidate or two in the batch.  It seems there always are at Florida (and Alabama and LSU and other other big programs).

But the fastest way to derail a team is to fill it with too many guys who believe they can win games simply by showing up.  It’s a danger that we’ve mentioned in connection to Alabama in recent weeks, too. 

Every class will have some punks.  But the punk ratio is important to keep an eye on.  If Florida (or Bama or any other school) has brought in a few too many guys who think the rest of the SEC will roll over for them, then those squads are in for a harsh awakening this fall.

Hopefully UF’s freshmen take Pouncey’s words to heart.  Time to hush up and play ball.  Good for the Gators’ right tackle to say so.  (And yes, I said, right tackle… not center.)

An honest appraisal or good ol’ fashioned poormouthing?

That’s what folks are wondering in the Sunshine State following these comments from Urban Meyer yesterday:  “I’m hitting the panic button a little bit right now.  We need to get better faster than where we’re at right now.  It’s not that we’re not good, it’s just consistency on the offensive and defensive line.”

Injuries are a concern for Meyer at the moment.  “Right now, it’s not Florida football yet.” 

All that said, “It’s training camp.  Coaches, we panic every year at this time,” Meyer said.  “We just finished 18 practices in 10 days.  They’re beat up pretty good, even after a few days off.”

So nevermind. 

I guess.

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A subtle whiff of misinformation floated out of the Florida Gators’ fall camp Friday.<p/> First, there was quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler explaining how John Brantley is an outstanding runner of the football — a quarterback who “has done a great job with every phase of our offense” during preseason camp and gives UF the “ability to run the option” as well as “throw the ball.”
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Despite losing nine players to the 2010 NFL Draft, the Gators are still entering the season with high expectations.

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VARIETY AT TIGHT END<p/> GAINESVILLE — Florida’s tight end depth chart is full of refugees from other positions.<p/> Former defensive end Earl Okine is the latest to make the move, joining converted quarterback Jordan Reed, the expected starter, and receiver Omarius Hines, who will see limited time at the position.
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TALLAHASSEE — Since arriving at Florida in 2005, Gators coach Urban Meyer has rarely, if ever, referred to Florida State by name. In fact, Meyer has seemed to go out of his way not to say “Florida State” or “Seminoles,” choosing instead to describe FSU as “that school out west.” First-year Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher might have taken notice.

During the Seminoles’ kickoff luncheon on Friday, Fisher was breaking down Florida State’s schedule for a sellout crowd of more than 1,500.

When he reached the season finale against Florida, Fisher called the Gators “that little team down the road.”

Read more at OrlandoSentinel.com

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Florida football commitment Ja’Juan Story was arrested Sunday night following a fight between four women that the player claimed to be trying to break up.  Story was charged with battery.

The player told The Gainesville Sun yesterday that he was trying to break up a fight between the mother of his brother’s child and three other women.

“When I turned around, her and a woman and her two daughters was about to fight,” Story said in a text message.  “So I came over because there was knives and I took a box cutter from my brother’s (girlfriend), but one of the other girls had two knives.  I tried to tell here to leave but she wasn’t listening.”

He said that he tried to push them away from each other, but was cut on his knuckle in the process.

“Someone said it looked like I hit the mom, but I didn’t.  When I finally broke it up and got the girl to leave someone called the police.  I was just trying to break everything up since no one else was.  I didn’t do anything wrong.  The only thing I did wrong was be there.”

Knives, box cutters, Good Lord. 

And wouldn’t you love to know if The Sun dropped “(girlfriend)” into that quote to cover up another word that might have been used by Story?  Maybe he just said “my brother’s but one of the…,” but it sure reads like the paper used the word girlfriend instead of whatever the player might have texted.

Story informed Florida assistant Dan McCarney of his arrest.  He said that the coach “thanked him for calling and gave him no indication his scholarship offer would be pulled by the Gators.”

And for those of you who are on the verge of making a joke about yet another Gator (or soon-to-be Gator) getting into trouble, just know that Story has scholarship offers from Auburn, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, and Tennessee as well.

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The brother of former Florida All-American cornerback Joe Haden won’t follow in his sibling’s footsteps after all.

True freshman safety Jordan Haden has asked for and been given a release by Urban Meyer this morning.

Haden’s father said there are “no hard feelings.”  “Florida is a great program and we love them.  It just wasn’t the best fit for Jordan.”

Haden signed with the Gators over Georgia and LSU.

Jordan and Joe’s younger brother, Josh, just announced last week that he would transfer from Boston College to Florida.  Josh Haden is a running back.

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Florida’s first scrimmage of training camp featured little excitement, but progress was made.
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GAINESVILLE — Florida quarterback John Brantley is going old school with his new look.

Brantley is sporting the beginnings of a mustache, which he said he started growing as a sort of tribute to his father, John, and his former high school coach, Kerwin Bell.

Both are former UF quarterbacks who had mustaches.

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GAINESVILLE — There was a lot of shuffling on the Gators’ offensive line during their scrimmage Saturday.
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GAINESVILLE — A lot has changed in a year for Jordan Reed.

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