The brief career of former hotshot prospect Jessamen Dunker has come to an end at Florida.  The offensive guard had been suspended from the Gator squad since his arrest in January for riding a stolen motorscooter on the UF campus.

Will Muschamp announced the transfer last evening:

“I met with Jessamen Dunker, matter of fact about an hour before I came in here.  He’s decided to transfer.  He and I just felt like he needed a fresh start.  He felt like he needed a fresh start, and I didn’t disagree with him.  Didn’t really get into where.  We’re going to continue to work through that.  It’s his job to finish up strong academically here at Florida…

Guys get in a situation and obviously he’s got some pretty well-documented off-the-field issues, and we talked about it and he felt like he needed a fresh start and I support him.”

Here’s hoping the redshirt freshman can work through the legal case that’s still open against him.  Perhaps this decision was more Dunker’s than Muschamp’s, but it’s certainly fair to wonder if Dunker might still be on the Gator team if Urban Meyer were still practicing his brand of “discipline” in Gainesville.

Florida’s spring game on April 6th might not be much of a game if depth issues on the Gators’ offensive line persist.  Currently, UF has just six scholarship O-linemen who are healthy and ready for action.  A string of injuries, surgeries, and one suspension have Florida’s front wall short on building blocks.

With Florida using a run-first offensive system, Will Muschamp says it may be necessary for him to scale the spring game back to a regular, run-of-the-mill practice:

“We’re adjusting as we go.  Even with the spring game, it may be more of a practice-like atmosphere…

What’s hard for the offensive line is just taking 60 straight snaps.  That’s kind of difficult for just five guys to take that.  We’re incorporating within the scrimmage some 7-on-7 (and) some special teams periods, where we just concentrate and let those guys get a break.”

Florida will add five freshman offensive lineman in the fall and others are expected to return from the injured list.  As for his current thin ranks, Muschamp says it hasn’t prevented the Gators from practicing well this spring.  “We’ve still had a good, physical spring,” the third-year coach said.  “I feel very strong with where we are on the offensive line.”

Florida finished third in the SEC in rushing yards per game last year.  Only Ole Miss (42.54) rushed the ball with greater regularity than Florida and its 41.46 carries per game.

Florida finished up a Tuesday night road loss at Tennessee without the services of Will Yeguete, Michael Frazier II, and Casey Prather.  It was the Gators’ third SEC loss since February 5th, probably costing the Gators a #1 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament… for now.

The upside?  All three banged-up players have now been cleared to resume practice.  This as the Gators prepare for a Saturday home date with Alabama who now sits just one game behind them in the SEC standings.

Prather left Tuesday’s game late after colliding with a teammate and suffering a forehead gash.  Frazier missed the Tennessee contest altogether with a concussion he suffered Saturday as Florida hosted Arkansas.  Yeguete played just one minute of UF’s road loss at Arkansas back on February 5th.  He had surgery to remove bone chips from his knee three days later and his been out ever since.

After starting SEC play 8-0, Billy Donovan’s squad has gone 4-3 since Yeguette’s early exit at Fayetteville.

If Florida can get everyone back on the floor and back into the groove they’d found prior to the injuries, there’s still time for the 22-5 Gators to make another push for a top seed in the NCAA tourney.   Defense and rebounding will be the key.  With Yeguette, Frazier and Prather healthy, UF allowed just 48.6 points per game in its first eight SEC games.  That’s a ridiculous number.  But without his full complement of players, Donovan has seen his squad give up 60.4 points per game in the seven contests since Yeguete’s brief cameo at Arkansas.

If Florida is healthy and their defense returns to pre-injury form, look out for the Gators at the SEC Tournament.

Former New York Giants linebacker Corey Miller played under Brad Lawing at South Carolina.  His son Christian will play under the new defensive line coach at Florida.  The Rivals 100 member committed to the Gators over the weekend and mentioned his father’s relationship as a reason. “I know him very well, and he makes me feel comfortable. He’s one of the main reasons I chose UF.”

Offensive linemen Travaris Dorsey and Benjamin Knox also committed to the Gators, giving them six members in their 2014 class.

A few thoughts and tidbits that ran through the noggin during Louisville’s 33-23 win over Florida in last evening’s Sugar Bowl:

*  Florida fans shouldn’t complain too much about the loss.  No, really.  They shouldn’t.

Because they didn’t take Louisville any more seriously than the Gator players did.

That won’t actually prevent grumbling, of course, but the fact is, many Gator fans moaned about having to play a Big East team.  UF also failed to sell out its bowl allotment by a pretty good chunk.  So if a fan — who could afford to go — didn’t take the Cardinals seriously and didn’t go to the game, I don’t see how that fan can whine too much about his team not showing up, either.

*  Florida went 11-1 against the season’s toughest SEC schedule.  They did so with a heckuva defense and a penchant for taking care of the ball (they were plus-17 going into last night’s game).  In our game preview, we wrote that with Florida’s depth and talent, turnovers were the only thing that could undo the Gators’ chances in New Orleans.  One fumble and two interceptions later — including an INT returned for a touchdown 15 seconds into the game — and UF had another loss on its ledger.

UF went 11-0 when it turned the ball over two or fewer times in a game this past season.  The Gators were 0-2 when they turned it over more than twice (six turnovers versus Georgia, three versus Louisville).  Even simpler, Florida was 11-0 when it won the turnover battle, 0-2 when it lost it.  Which goes to show…

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There are lots of different ways to buy tickets to games these days.  From brokers on the internet.  Via eBay.  Outside the stadium doors by way of scalpers.

But the tried and true method of gauging a fanbase’s interest in a bowl game is still a simple check of the number of tickets sold through their favorite school’s box office.  And by that measure, Florida fans have not been gobbling up tickets for tonight’s Sugar Bowl game with Louisville.

Not surprisingly, Mike Bianchi of The Orlando Sentinel takes Gator fans to task for that:

“Florida coach Will Muschamp says the nation’s economic downturn has played a significant factor in the number of UF tickets sold, but personally I think it’s more of an enthusiasm downturn among Florida fans. How else do you explain Florida selling less tickets than any other bowl team in the SEC? How else do you explain upstart Louisville selling twice as many tickets from its allotment as Florida?

Louisville head coach Charlie Strong, a longtime defensive coordinator at UF, witnessed first-hand the evolution of the UF program. He remembers when the Gators getting invited to the Sugar Bowl constituted a special season. Now, though, a trip to New Orleans is treated like a trip to the bathroom.

‘Florida is a program that has had so much tradition over the last few years,’ Strong says. ‘At Louisville, this is just our second BCS bowl game, so our fans are excited.’

Translation: Florida fans have become spoiled and blasé.”

Bianchi goes on to say that the reputation of “Gator Nation” is bigger than it should be and that Florida fans are “a bit overrated when compared to those at traditional powerhouses like Alabama, Ohio State, Nebraska and Texas.”

There are multiple factors involved in this situation that need to be mentioned.  One is the economic downturn that Muschamp has mentioned.  But the economy hasn’t slowed the ticket-buyers from Louisville.  Also, while fans across the nation are staying home and watching games on television more often, Florida had more trouble selling tickets for so-so games this year than most 11-win, top 10-ranked teams would have.  (If you looked at the stands in the Swamp during some of UF’s 2012 nonconference games you know what we’re talking about.)

The spoiled factor certainly plays a role as Bianchi suggests.  But that happens at a lot of other places, too.

There is one issue, however, that is unique to a handful of big-time football programs of which Florida is one.  That’s weather, climate.  And, yes, we believe Florida’s place on the US map may exacerbate the school’s problem with ticket sales.

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Georgia’s Mark Richt has a reputation for being a nice guy, a Goody Two-Shoes.  But when it comes to letting his players walk right up to the edge of starting fights, he washes his hands like Pontius Pilate and allows it to happen.  Repeatedly.

Several years ago his team stomped on the “T” logo at midfield before a game at Tennessee.  He also instructed his players to draw a celebration penalty after UGA’s first score against Florida a few seasons back.  Both instances could have led to fisticuffs in the testosterone-fueled, macho world of college football.  And something that occurred this past weekend could have led to a (bigger) fight as well.

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Here at MrSEC.com we’ve been known to travel out to Las Vegas on occasion in order to chat with various bookmakers about the lines that they set.  If you’ve read this site for any length of time, you know that we’re told just about every summer by just about every oddsmaker who’ll talk that:

1.  The line is set purely to bring in equal amounts of cash on both sides.

2.  The line is set with Las Vegas gamblers in mind.  The casino companies don’t care what deal you get from Vinny the Nose in Valdosta.  They make money off what people spend in their sportsbooks.

3.  For that reason, West Coast schools often get a little more love when it comes to setting the opening lines.  Ditto Big Ten schools with their enormous alumni bases.  Simple math and geography suggest casinos are more likely to be visited by Ohio State and UCLA alums on a fall Saturday than they are by Western Kentucky grads.

4.  Big names get a little bump, too, because they’re big names.  “Softcore” gamblers are more likely to throw money at some school they’ve heard of so big-time, traditional programs like Alabama, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma often see their lines fudged a point or two.

All that said, many fans still believe that the opening line set by Las Vegas Sports Consultants — and many Vegas’ books start with that company’s number — is truly a prediction of who will win a game and by what margin.  Whenever we write a piece trying to explain that that’s not what the books are doing and that they’re simply trying to make money based in large part off local gamblers’ perceptions of teams (re-read points 1-4 above), we always get a number of responses asking us something akin to this: “Then why are those numbers so often right?”

Honest answer?  They’re not so often right.

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Two weeks ago, Tennessee was poised to re-enter the world of the college football elites.  Florida was visiting Knoxville.  ESPN’s “College GameDay” program was in town.  Tickets were going for hundreds of dollars.

And then they went and played the game.  Final score: Florida 37, Tennessee 20.  Result: An eighth straight loss to the Gators and a ticked off Volunteer fanbase.

Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray caught some of the brunt for the defeat.  Specifically, his body language was judged as being poor in the second half as Florida zipped past him and his fellow Volunteers.  When a team pours on 24 straight points — as the Gators did — fans are looking for signs of quit.

Bray says that wasn’t the case:

“I won’t say we got scared, but we just disappeared.  We weren’t ourselves.

The whole team kind of met up and talked about how we let down and kind of crawled in a shell.”

Tailback Marlin Lane says Bray’s body language against UF was nothing out of the ordinary:  “… That’s just him every day.  We’re around him every day so we know his personality.  He’s a laid-back person.”

Perhaps.

But Bray’s talk of disappearing, letting down and crawling into a shell against Florida likely won’t do much to raise the confidence level of UT fans as they prepare for another possible statement game this weekend at Georgia.

Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin might have lost Saturday’s game with Florida, but that didn’t stop him from taking a shot at the Gators’ conditioning… or, perhaps, their acting.  According to Brent Zwerneman of The Houston Chronicle, the Aggie coach took a dig at UF during a press conference yesterday:

“Sumlin said his team appeared in good shape in the opener against Florida and ‘it wasn’t our team flopping around on the field in the second half.’ I asked him if the Gators’ ‘flopping around’ was because of conditioning or something else. ‘You were there,’ he responded.”

Well, now.  It seems Sumlin’s got a little edge to him.  Between Will Muschamp’s comments about College Station this offseason, a pro-Aggie billboard in Gainesville last week, and this comment/accusation from Sumlin it looks as though Texas A&M and Florida are quickly developing a nice little rivalry.

Speaking of that billboard, when last we left the story Texas A&M University had gotten the sign taken down, had made it clear that the school was not involved in it ever going up, and had told us at MrSEC.com that they were “getting close to identifying the purchaser.”  The purchaser turned out to be a group calling itself “Aggie Nation.”  A contract tying that group to a pro-Texas Longhorn website soon started appearing on A&M messageboards, but said contract was soon branded as fake.

So where are things now?  According to Jason Cook — TAMU’s VP or marketing and communications — the school has “sent a cease and desist letter to the organization on file for purchasing the media, and are continuing to pursue aggressively.”

Here’s the thing, though — If A&M officials find that someone with Texas or Baylor ties, for example, was behind the purchase of that billboard, you can bet they’ll let the whole world know about it.  But if we never hear who indeed was behind that braggadocious sign, the more it will look like A&M’s investigation led back to an actual Aggie fan or fan group.