Russell Report: Are Gator football fans overreacting after losing their season opener at Utah?

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - The beauty of sports, and maybe a curse of sports as well, is over reaction to something. Whether it be good or bad and there were two prime examples of that this past weekend.

Notice I said “prime” examples. Because Deion Sanders has taken the early spotlight in college football after his Colorado team, a huge underdog, beat TCU at their place, a team that was in the College Football Playoff final a year ago. Certainly, Sanders and his players deserve a ton of credit for this win and I’ve seen some social media posts that Florida should go after Deion to be its next coach, or questioned why Florida didn’t pursue him in its search to replace Dan Mullen. Don’t know if anyone noticed, but one of his really good players, Travis Hunter, played 129 total snaps in the game, playing both on defense and offense. Is that sustainable? But he’s really good.

Give Prime Time his due. He’s like Frank Sinatra baby, he did it his way. He came into the TCU game with 86 new players, walked the walk, and came away with a huge win. And his son, Shedur, is the real deal as well as he threw for over 500 yards, the first Colorado quarterback to ever do that. He’s the talk of the college football world, the toast of the town.

And then there’s the Florida situation. After the Gators lost on the road, to a ranked team in a place that team rarely loses in, there are already calls; and lots of them to fire Coach Billy Napier. Fans have every right to be upset and to express their opinion and/or frustrations but sometimes this borders on craziness. But I do believe if the offense doesn’t get better that there will more calls for Napier to hire an offensive coordinator and that unit’s progress will be something to keep an eye on. And it didn’t help when running back Trevor Etienne’s brother Travis of the Jaguars on social media said maybe his little bro should play for Coach Prime. Would you not agree that if Florida can beat Tennessee at home in a couple of weeks most of this dies down? It’s a week-to-week roller coaster ride and that’s what makes college football so much fun.

After week 1, were there any surprises other than Colorado? Not really, most of the good teams beat up on cupcakes and it’s hard to decipher anything from the SEC after week 1, except possibly for South Carolina. I wonder what fan reaction is up there today after all the off-season hype the Gamecocks received. The quarterback threw for over 300 yards but if you factor in sacks the Gamecocks ran the ball 31 times for negative two yards and their leading ball carrier had just 23 yards in the game. Hmmm sounds just like the Utah game to me. Wonder if they need a new offensive coordinator or is Shane Beamer is the answer up there.

Isn’t college football great? And it’s only week one! I’m Steve Russell, that’s the Russell Report!

RELATED: Russell Report: As the football season opener approaches, Gators don’t know Utah’s starting QB

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