Of course you can always visit Gators First for up-to-the-second Gator coverage right here.

But I'm going to use this space each week to recap some of the more important stories, and give my take.  I'd hate for the less internet-nerdy of our Gator fans to miss out on the entire week's stories because we covered something when it happened, and moved on to something new before you people with busy lives even heard the latest Gator news.

I'll also throw in some other odds and ends that don't belong in other blogs.

The Gator Nation's Past Week

The baby Gators are #1: Florida took home the nation's consensus #1 recruiting class.  They have their work cut out for them to be considered, results-wise, among what I'd call the top two classes in Florida football history: the 1993 class  (4 consecutive SEC Titles, 1 National Title) and the 2006 class (2 SEC titles, 3 division titles, 2 BCS Titles). The good news is that so many of them are already on campus, and we have the program depth to work in this embarrassment of riches over the next couple years, rather than forcing some of these guys into SEC action before they are properly groomed.  It all rests on the health of Johnny Brantley.

Two big wins for Billy Donovan's bunch.  Winning that game at Alabama on Thursday night took toughness, and holding on yesterday was also huge for us.  Jarvis Varnado and Mississippi State have been a tough match for us the last couple of seasons, and winning like that- with Vernon Macklin coming alive as an impact player- could mean great things for this team down the stretch.

George Edwards, nice knowing you.  The recently hired Florida Gators Co-Defensive Coordinator (hired for Charlie Strong in early January, after the bowl game) bolted the day after signing day to take the Buffalo Bills' vacant defensive coordinator job.  He had little to no impact on recruiting, so one can't point to anything fishy with the timing.  And taking an NFL Coordinator position is better than being a college position coach and co-coordinator, no matter how you look at it.  Look for Chuck Heater, the co-coordinator, to resume exclusive duties this late in the offseason coaching shuffle, and for Urban (er, Steve Addazio?) to poach and up-and-coming youngster as a position coach, rather than a big-name hire.

Jeff Demps, welcome back.  In his first track meet of the spring, he with the explosives, showed no ill effects from his injury suffered in the Sugar Bowl in coming with .04 seconds of automatically qualifying to run for the NCAA Championships later this season.  This is fantastic news for a first-time starting QB in the SEC, and no doubt Johnny Brantley must be smiling somewhere.

The Gator Nation's Week to Come

The Gator basketball team has a huge week ahead, as they are squarely competing with Devan Downey and the Gamecocks for not only 4th place in the SEC East, but likely an NCAA Tournament bid.  They travel to Columbia, SC to take on Downey and his backup singers on Wednesday night (8 ET, SEC Network).  Then on Saturday night they have a rare February non-conference matchup with fellow bubble team Xavier (6 ET, ESPN).  One would probably expect them to go 1-1, but going 2-0 this week would be a boon for this team's rising NCAA hopes.

For tonight's Super Bowl, I can't pick against the Colts.  They've won every game they tried to win this year.  They have a better defense- with or without Dwight Freeney.  And Bobby McCray by himself can't continue the Gators' dominance over Peyton Manning, right?

Speaking of the Super Bowl, we will finally get to see Tim Tebow's Super Bowl Ad tonight.  Regardless of whether you agree with him or not, he and his backer have a right to pay CBS to put whatever message they want on TV during this game.  Instead of everyone focusing on his stance, shouldn't we instead be talking about how refreshing it is to hear an athlete outspoken about something other than 'feeding his family' or his own image?  If CBS' intent was to do anything but fill their ad slots (did they reject an ad by another athlete with a conflicting opinion? Doubtful, as no other current athletes come to mind who are so willing to stand for something), especially in a year when companies such as Pepsi have opted out of paying for the expensive ad space, then there is an ethical problem.  Otherwise, viewers of the ad should be intelligent enough to make their own decisions on the abortion issue regardless of which athlete/celebrity is taking which stance during a football game.

Go Cure Cancer.  Go Gators

I believe strongly that any sort of knowledge means nothing without sharing it with the less knowledgeable.  Each week I'll try to think of quick tidbits I can either learn about or explain from my point of view, to hopefully provoke some thought among the Gator Nation.  I would hope the topics are somewhat interesting to you.  Feel free to leave me feedback below.

In my time at the University of Florida, I worked with the Electrical Engineering Department's International Center for Lightning and Testing, and have always had an interest in physics.  This week's fact comes from something I am often asked when people learn of my educational background.  

Why can't we design a power plant based on harvesting lightning for domestic electrical power?  Often people hear of the enormous power levels contained in a lightning strike, but the time in which this power is delivered is so short, that the energy delivered by a strike isn't nearly as impressive  (on the order of billions of Joules, levels that per strike would power 5 100 W light bulbs, continuously, for a year).  Additionally, most of this energy (estimated at 99% to 99.99%) is not electrical energy- it's dissipated in the flash that we see, the heat that is generated, and the thunder that we hear, among other things.  Throw in the fact that we have no way of casting a wide enough net to 'capture' a significant number of strikes each year, and any conjecture on using lightning for the world's energy problems is not worth the effort. For more details, see Lightning: Physics and Effects, a text by the University of Florida's own Drs. Vladimir Rakov and Martin Uman.

Gainesville's Own

I think I'm going to use this section to take very random things associated with Gainesville, and use them to give my opinion on something going on in the world, Gator Nation, or other local topics.  Sometimes I may just be sharing a funny local story, or talking about something else specific to the area, and giving a thumbs up or down.  After all, I was born at Shands and went to 18 consecutive seasons of Florida basketball games (season tickets) before graduating and moving to Texas- without these things I wouldn't be here today and there likely wouldn't be a Gators First.

In the past week, I've been playing a Less Than Jake playlist on my iPod while at the gym.  LTJ is a Gainesville band that will always have some meaning to Gainesvillains of my generation- their all-ages shows at now-gone venues such as the Covered Dish came along at the right time in my life, when I was really starting to learn about music outside of whatever was on the radio, my parents played, or was on MTV.  A couple things stick out now when thinking about that time period, which is really not that long ago: (1) the internet didn't exist anywhere close to the way it does today, and definitely wasn't used to experience music now and (2) MTV actually played music videos, as more than filler between reality shows.  You'd get a Bush video followed by Rod Stewart singing in a closet followed by Tupac.  At any rate, I was learning to explore music on different levels- outside of the 'mainstream' sources of the day, and LTJ was the local act my friends and I latched onto.  And this past week, I rediscovered some of their music by creating a playlist for the gym on my iPod...

So I'll give a thumbs up here to Gainesville's Own Less Than Jake.  Go check out their newer albums, if you haven't kept up with them, or go listen to them, period, if you're unfamiliar.  But the best way would be to go experience the energy of a live LTJ show.