It might be a year late, but we here at alligatorSports believe in change too.
So this fall, expect a lot of changes. Some will go well, some will not. Hopefully you love most of them and only hate a few of them. It will be a bit of an experiment, but we feel really good about some of the ideas we've come up with to improve one of the best college newspaper sports sections in the country.
After all, people claim the 2009 Florida football team could go down as one of the greatest in history.
We hold our coverage and reporting to similar standards.
Onto the changes!
alligatorSports Fantasy Challenge: A big part of our overhaul has to do with getting you, the reader, more involved. After all, you're the one that reads our stuff, whether it be in print or online, so let's make it a little more of a two-way conversation.
On that note, I'd like to introduce the Readers vs. Writers showdown in the realm of Fantasy College Football.
The league will consist of ten teams - our five football beat writers (Bobby Callovi, Mike Diferdinando, Kyle Maistri, Mike McCall and myself) and five readers (I'm looking at you.)
How will we pick? A contest, of course.
If you think you have what it takes to take us down (bring the trash talk, we certainly will) - tell us why in 100 words or less. Send it to sports@alligator.org by Friday at 5 p.m. We will publish the five winners' entries, so you must keep it clean. Anything goes, but foul language gets you eliminated.
Things to keep in mind:
You have to be able to make the online live draft, scheduled for Sept. 2 at 7:45 p.m. The player pool will consist of the six BCS conferences only. We're playing on CBSSports.com, so you will have to sign up there if we pick you as a contestant. Feel free to check out the complete rules while you're there.
And why would you like to do this? Besides simply being able to claim you're the best, we have a special treat in store if a reader wins the league championship.
Take home the title, and you get your very own 525-word guest column, appearing in the Alligator's sports section.
And if you're not one of the lucky five we pick, you'll still be able to enjoy the fun along the way. Coverage of the showdown will appear from time to time whether, it be online, in print or on our podcast.
Wait, you have a podcast?: Yes, indeed we do - alligatorSports The Podcast has been going strong for a little more than six months after we reincarnated it from a terrible former state. We record at least twice weekly in the fall and give you the scoop on everything UF athletics and touching on the rest of college sports and more. The debates are numerous and fiery so say the least least, just the way we like it.
Give us a listen sometime - you can find a link on our Web site (alligatorSports.org) or search for us on iTunes. If you like us, go ahead and subscribe on iTunes. It gives us a chance to know how many people are out there listening to us. We're doing a lot recently to improve our audio quality and will continue to make improvements.
And hey - we love reader mail! Send us something (sports@alligator.org) and as long as it's clean, we will read it on the show.
Twitter & possible Mailbags: So if you're looking for another way to get your alligatorSports fix as well as another way to interact with us, follow us on twitter at twitter.com/alligatorSports.
Also, we'd love for you to get your voice heard (are you getting what our theme is yet?), so we'd like to start a mailbag segment for print and/or online.
Here's how it works - you write us an e-mail (sports@alligator.org) and we publish your note along with our response. Make sure you give us a first name and last initial. And if you're from outside Gainesville, let us know where you're from. Funny and thoughtful responses are likely to be picked first. We love to have people hate on us.
But you know how it goes: If we don't get any e-mails, then we don't have anything to respond to!
Just the tip of the iceberg: The stuff I just blabbered about is just the beginning. Here's some other things to keep your eyes on this fall:
You know the boxes on the bottom of our main Sports page (the one with "Sports" written at the top)? Did you ever listen to our recommendations for what's on television or wait for a copy of the Alligator to tell you last night's NBA score? We didn't think so. Now those boxes will feature daily ramblings with one of our columnists in our Teeing Off sections. You might disagree with what we say, but at least it'll be better than skipping over an old NHL score.
The Alligator's Web site as a whole is set to go under some renovations this semester. Look forward to a clearer layout as well as some new gimmicks including columnist biographies and exclusive online content.
We're still all about giving you the best coverage of UF sports, though. Look for more complete coverage of SEC football, and our own Heisman Watch segment debuting midway through the college football season. We are also planning a question-and-answer weekly segment to feature some of UF's athletes on lesser-known sports.
Last, but not least, be sure to catch our new-and-improved Kickoffs this fall (get it, catch our kickoffs?). We don't want to spoil all the fun just yet, but expect the Alligator to be sufficient as your one-stop source for Gators gameday news and info.
