Pat Dooley’s Back Nine: Much-Needed Win For Florida’s Golden

The Back Nine comes at you after a productive weekend at home mainly because great friends Ann and Shannon helped my wife with some serious interior design work while I watched games. They should have their own show.

10.Because we had a few people over and I played host, I was limited to one TV. And one of the rules I live by is that you must have two TVs on a night like Saturday or you have no TVs. So, I did miss a little bit of the Florida-Missouri game because of flipping. What I did watch was a great second half by Florida and a more physical second half. “They’re a much better team than their conference record indicates,” UF coach Todd Golden said of the winless-in-the-SEC Tigers. No, I do think we saw what they are in the second half. You are what your record is, right?

11. Saturday’s game was a win Golden needed. Or a game he couldn’t afford to lose in terms of hopes for the NCAA tournament. Either way, the Gators got the job done even though they gave up 36 points to Tamar Bates. Does anybody play defense? The schedule has not helped Golden in SEC play with three of the first five on the road, including an 8 p.m. start at Missouri.

12. This is what I call a “home week” for the Gators with double Bulldogs (Miss. State and Georgia) coming to town. I can’t remember a season where Florida played a stretch of 10 games with two games at home and then two on the road for five straight weeks. But then again, I can’t remember why I was writing this column and started to look for something on another screen. Maybe it will come to me tomorrow.

13. Going back to that comment about the lack of defense in college basketball that is not exclusive to the Florida team, there are 53 teams in the country averaging more than 80 points a game. That includes Florida at 15^th. Unfortunately, it also includes Kentucky at No. 1 and the Wildcats added another weapon with 7-foot-2 Zvonimir Ivisic getting eligible. T-shirt for whoever knocks the Wildcats out of the tournament, activate!

14. Of course, everyone was watching the NFL playoffs Saturday and Sunday and this past weekend is in the running for my favorite weekend of the year. I wish Buffalo and Kansas City played again this week. Lost in the drama of Jason Kelce’s bellowing and the WRA (Wide Right Again) was that I am a big Patrick Mahomes fan and he delivered and would have delivered again even if Tyler Bass had made that 44-yarder. There were almost two minutes left in the game. He drove the Chiefs to a field goal in this game last year in the playoffs with 13 seconds to play.

15. No matter how often Cris Collinsworth and others on Twitter tried to explain to me why the Bucs went for two, I’ll never get it. And I’m good at math. If you don’t get it, it saps your momentum. Kick the point and if you score again and want to go for the win, do it then to win the game. Analytics, I am starting to be convinced, are for suckers.

16. Dr. Football did not do well with The Picks even though I went with all home teams on my podcast (3-1). I took too many underdogs and the points in the Back Nine and went 1-3. If you are confused, it’s almost over. On to the championship games:

• Mahomes is now 13-3 in the postseason. His team is a three-point underdog heading to Baltimore. I’m taking the Ravens and rooting for my guy, although my house apparently is finding the whole Swift-Kelce thing tiresome and will be rooting for the Ravens. Tell me you were not entertained by everything around that game Sunday night.
• San Francisco is a 6.5-point favorite over Detroit after barely escaping against the Packers. I’m going way out on a limb here and picking the Lions on the road.

17. Nick Dunlap, the Alabama sophomore who won on Tour this weekend and only golf nuts and Tide fans were paying attention, didn’t make a dime because he is still an amateur. The first-place money of $1.5 million went to the runner-up Christiaan Bezuidenhout. I think Dunlap will be OK. The LIV vultures are already circling.

18. That Nate Bargatze bit about his dad’s new hobby being surgeries is funny until you start being the same thing. I’ll need some good songs, so I made this playlist (Also here is the YouTube link to his SNL monologuehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED5RX-fou34):

• A new single by a group I’m getting to really like “Water Underground” by Real Estate.

• A new single by Mumford and Sons with Pharrell Williams “Good People.”
• And a not-new-at-all single, we go way back because my wife was fascinated with the Rolling Stone’s list of the 10 worst songs of the worst decade of music – the ’70s. It’s the worst because it had smellier – like used diaper smellier – hit songs than any other decade. And yet, I could name every band on the list who sang these one-hit wonders. One group had more than one hit, but this is the worst of them all. So, I want you to have to listen. “Muskrat Love” by The Captain and Tennille.

WRUF.com sports columnist Pat Dooley can be heard on “The Tailgate” along with Jeff Cardozo from 4-6 p.m. Monday-Friday on 98.1-FM/AM-850 WRUF.