Gators don't plan to underestimate Marve

Does it get any better - or more difficult - than this?

Former Plant star Robert Mavre is expected to make his first collegiate start for Miami in front of more than 90,000 at Florida Field Saturday night, in front of a national television audience.

And while he'll be facing a Heisman Trophy winner with twice the experience he has, the Gators insist they won't take Marve lightly.

When asked about the difficulty of starting a freshman in that tough environment, Meyer said there's no hard and fast rule. In fact, he reminded people that it wasn't so long ago that Tim Tebow was in a similar situation - at Tennessee.

"It depends who it is,'' Meyer said. "Tim Tebow took that snap on 4th-and-1 in the fourth quarter in Knoxville. I don’t know how much more difficult an environment you can be in or situation you could be in. It depends on the individual. Alex Smith (former Utah quarterback), not a chance in the world you’d do that. You let him settle down and let him go play. With Alex Smith early in his career, we’d run him, just to get him whacked couple times. We’d do that in the game. With Tim we never had to do that. It just depends on the individual.''

The Gators expect the Hurricanes to try to take the pressure off Mavre by establishing the run early. But UF defensive line coach Dan McCarney said that doesn't mean they won't be aware of Mavre at all times.

"They have tremendous backs, but we know how important winning the battle in the trenches is,'' McCarney said. "(Marve) has never started one game, but he's been in the system for a year. We're aware of the talent. But would you rather face quarterbacks that have one start or no starts, or 40 starts or 22 starts, of course you'd rather go against a guy with a little bit less experience. But we know the talent those guys have.''

Comments

[Jim]

The Canes Offense will run all over the Gator D. They have no idea what's in store for them.

[mm]

What happened to that Miami Offense Jim? 140 yards is not quite "running all over" is it?

[Jennifer]

You Canes are all talk!! We ran all over you...."U" suck!