Lamm at Large

I've got good news for Gator football fans.   Go ahead and accept those Christmas party invitations. Tell that niece, who couldn't less about football, you'll make her December wedding. Give your wife that Christmas cruise she's dreamed about for years.   There'll be no postseason for your Gators. They all but assured that thanks to lousy special teams play in a loss at The Swamp to a 2-6 Arkansas […]

The blueprint for rebuilding a once great college football program that's fallen on hard times is quite simple: hire the right coach.   Ah, that's the problem. finding the right coach. Most of the coaching stars aren't going anywhere. Finding the right small college coach is a roll of the dice.   The list of failures is long. Then there's Mike Novell, who's in his fourth season at FSU. The […]

It's been 24 seasons -- damn, that's almost a quarter of a century -- since the Jaguars got off to a better start than this season. That's 1999, when the Jaguars went 14-2, including 7-1 in each half of the season.   Their last 6-2 start was in 1998. To say Jaguar fans have suffered enough is a giant understatement.   So why don't I feel better about this season? […]

The first College Football Playoff poll will be revealed tonight and there be gawking by media and fans from coast to coast. Who's No. 1? No. 2? No.3. No.4. No. 5. No. 6   No team has any spot locked up. I think there are five teams fighting for the four playoff slots.   Let me note here I used to be a voter in the weekly poll. It was […]

I'm all for free agency in professional sports. A player shouldn't be bound for life to a team that drafts him.   I'm not crazy about the transfer portal that basically makes every college athlete a free agent, but the portal is here to stay.   But I do wonder whatever happened in sports to loyalty, commitment, honoring contracts and any combination of those attributes.   Latest case: Raiders wide […]

Cam Robinson and Anton Harrison, meet TJ. Watt. Study Watt like you've never studied an opponent.   How the Jaguars' tackles do blocking the NFL's best pass rusher may well determine the outcome of Sunday's Jaguars-Steelers game in Pittsburgh.   The importance increases because we don't know how Jaguar quarterback Trevor Lawrence's bruised knee is feeling. Is he a step slower? Even a healthy Lawrence would have trouble escaping Watt's […]

Can the Gators beat Georgia? Yes. Will the Gators beat the Bulldogs? Probably not. Georga still has a better team than Florida, but the gap isn't what it has been in recent years. The Dawgs remain unbeaten and ranked No. 1. quarterback Carson Beck is getting better every game. But the defense is missing all of those NFL draft picks and Brock Bowers, the best tight end in the nation, […]

Thought this was the age of bombs away in the NFL, didn't you? Quarterbacks routinely passing 30, 40 or even 50 times a game. QBs and wide receivers making vulgar amounts of money.   So where are all the points? Last week's games were an eye-opener. In 15 games, 23 teams scored 20 points or less. Four scored in single digits; 14 in the teens.   The Dolphins posted the […]

Have you noticed how most of the sports fans you know are walking around this week with a skip in their step and ear-to-ear smiles on their faces?   That's because their most popular football teams did something very rare. They all won.   I've always considered the Jaguars, the Gators, the Seminoles, and the Georgia Bulldogs the Big 4 of First Coast fans.   The Jaguars blew out the […]