Maybe if I wasn't a passionate fan, I would think it was a good game yesterday.

But I only like to see my team win blowouts. Anything close is too much for my heart, and my family history of cardiovascular disease.

The good news: Practically everything that could have gone wrong for UF did... and we pulled out the W. Urban, Tebow, Spikes and the rest of the team leaders can point to this game they way they used Ole Miss to fuel our juggernaut-ish late October - November a year ago.

The bad news: Are we sure we want to be happy about the previous sentences? It was fairly frightening to see us: struggle in the opponent's territory; have, at times, an extremely predictable offense; more miscues in the passing game (at least one drop, Tebow and receivers not on same page); struggle both with the pass rush and with opening holes for our spritely running backs.

Let me dive into some of these points a little more:

What's up with the passing game?

The stats were there, for the most part... but Tebow was running for his life quite often (to the line's credit, on several occasions I thought Timmy bailed on the pocket too soon). And Cooper had one bad drop, despite the fact he and Hernandez seem to be our only 'go-to' guys. We were also bailed out by Arkansas' defense forgetting Deonte Thompson was alive (don't worry, Hogs... I forgot about him, too).

Who's to blame for the miscues? We have a new coordinator, and lost our two best receivers from a year ago. Our quarterback might have healed from his concussion, but he also lost most of 2 weeks of practice in the process. Deonte Thompson's had a hamstring injury, and Riley Cooper has missed time in-season with sickness and out-of-season with baseball.

I'm not sure how much each of these things contribute to the overall body, but this is the stretch of the schedule we are supposed to be figuring it out. Is a road game in the SEC the place to do it? Mississippi State will be playing its own version of the Super Bowl... with cowbells. If we can throw the ball on Georgia, does it mean anything? Crompton looked like Drew Brees against those guys.

I don't doubt that we can run through our regular season schedule with a largely one-dimensional offense, and I was glad to see we at least committed to let Tebow and company work out some semblance of a passing attack. We need to continue to improve as a football team, because as presently constituted we will have problems with the championship games we could be playing in December and January.

In all, I don't think the passing game is where it needs to be... but it's not so broken that it couldn't get going as soon as next week. I've seen enough to think we are capable of putting it together, but it'd be nice to see it actually come together.

Is it pathetic to bring up the officiating?

In almost all cases, yes. Bad calls happen, but in close games you always have your own opportunity to win the game. The worst officiating anyone's ever seen (well, I don't remember the 5th down game except from replays) was the 2003 UF-FSU game. There were 4 or 5 bad calls that directly led to TD-swings in the score. And in the end, we still had the chance to win the game, and blew it.

Back to this game: We'd been driving the ball most of the game, only stopping ourselves with turnovers. On Jeff Demps' scoring TD run, he could have run for another 30 or 300 yards without anyone tackling him. I don't like almost any pass interference calls, and will readily admit it was questionable that they called that during that drive. But to claim that call is single-handedly responsible for your loss... you're just not being honest with yourself. Be glad for the gift of a first half the Gators gave you, but you weren't hosed by any stretch of the imagination.

The referees didn't allow Demps to get free on his game winning score, just as the didn't allow Thompson to streak wide open for his TD. The referees weren't the ones responsible for tackling Tebow, as he carried the entire Gator Nation on his back to get Caleb Sturgis set up for the game-winner. And the referees were not responsible for blowing the upset for you, Hog fans.

So the answer is 'yes'. I would expect to be called &pathetic& if I were (1) Saying the referees were responsible for a score when they did not make a call that directly resulted in points or (2) siding with Terrell Owens that the 'refs are cheaters'. If you're more than 8 years old, I expect you to be able to see that one or two plays are not responsible for the entire outcome of a game. At some point, your team has to rise above all that. In this case, the Gators rose above their own adverse circumstances, the Hogs did not.

What's the verdict?

Close games such as these happen in every season. Which doesn't make me feel better that it happened. Was it an aberration, or am ominous sign of things to come? We survived and advanced on a day that Oklahoma lost their QB, potentially for good this time... Ohio State lost... Texas won by a FG... Virginia Tech lost... and USC barely won as well.

So yeah, a W is a W.

We're moving on to the next round of college football's 3-month long playoff.