80 degrees and dry at kickoff Saturday night. He's going to play just fine.
If we struggle again offensively, I'll be officially concerned about the true ceiling of the team. I don't think we will.
I know its easy to look at the UF game and say we struggled offensively, but that's a tough one for me. I know that it may have looked like a struggle, especially in the pass game, but in all honesty I felt like we should've leaned on the run a bit more in a sloppy game (regarding the weather).
I know when you look at Beck's stat line, it doesn't look pretty. But on the other hand you look at the backs, both over 4YPC, and the underneath/intermediate pass game, it really wasn't bad, aside from poor throws.
Couple of examples, and I know some of this is on Beck
2nd drive: 2nd & 7 from the 29. Beck badly over shoots Bauman. Toney was open underneath with the closest guy 7-8 yds off. Next play he decides to fire one to Toney, with a guy a 2 yds off his hip, for a 1st down. To end the drive Bauman is wide open in the flat and never looks for the ball.
NOTE: In that drive we had several penalties on the OL, including the sack, that were crucial to ending up with a FG only.
Last drive of 1st half: Lots of run and underneath passes, we march right down the field. UF makes a couple of good stops on 1s & 2nd in side the 10, and yet again another OL penalty, kills the drive
1st drive out of the half, we all know we got screwed on the late whistle, but after that: Becks drops back on 3rd down looking deep, and has Lofton open for a 1st down underneath.
On the interception, another play where Beck is looking downfield, but has Fletcher wide open on the outlet in the flat. On a 1st down play...
1st TD in the 4th: we finally remember how much better our OL was than their DL, and just pushed them downfield.
2TD, very much the same thing, albeit a short field, but at this point UF defense was just gassed...and that is exactly what we need to be doing
Now I get it. People do not like conservative play calling, but if you're pushing a defense around. I do not think its conservative. If you're playing a defense that has no chance against the pass, than by all means gash the **** out of them.
Bottom line, we should be taking what the defense gives us, and adjust accordingly. Especially if the weather conditions are not the best.