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GAINESVILLE - The earth did not move. Time did not stand still. Tempted though he might have been, Phil Fulmer managed not to telephone in a surrender.
Urban Meyer won a nice, tidy opener Saturday night.
For now, it seemed like enough.
Didn't it?
No, Meyer did not unveil the nine-point touchdown play. He did not uncover a new route to the end zone. As of yet, Mark Richt did not call Ray Goff to ask about life after coaching.
Given the expectations surrounding the University of Florida, in other words, you might consider a 32-14 victory over Wyoming to be a slow start.
Given the anticipation surrounding Meyer, you might have believed Florida would bring college football to its knees by now.
It is not that Gator Nation expects a lot out of Meyer, the new coach, cruise director and tradition-inventor. It expects everything. Meyer is expected to make opposing coaches nervous, opposing players fearful and opposing fans annoyed at the mere thought of the Gators. He is expected to make the rest of us forget about the Steve Spurrier era and the Ron Zook error.
Oh, let's be serious. No one expected the Gators to achieve greatness against Wyoming. Shoot, any time between now and Sept. 17, when Tennessee comes to town, will be just fine.
As it was, the Grand Opening of the Urban Meyer Dynasty will be remembered with mixed reviews. There were a few things to cheer, a few things to fret. When a team spends all night juggling exclamation points and question marks, it's hard to figure the future.
First things first. Meyer won. Yeah, his team was only playing Wyoming, but on the other hand, Bob Stoops' team was only playing TCU. If a coach can keep his team out of the ditch on opening weekend, that's a start.
Along the way, Meyer's offense showed a little imagination. Oh, it will need time before he turns into the high-speed spinning wheel that Meyer's Utah team was a year ago. Still, you can see possibilities. The Gators are going to be able to get the ball to a lot of different players in a lot of different places on the field.
On the other hand, there was Florida's running game.
"Pathetic" is the word Meyer used to describe it.
"I don't know if we'll win again (if it isn't better)," Meyer said. "If we don't have some balance, we won't win many."
The short, power running game has always been the question of Meyer's offense. The most important play in the SEC, it seems, is third-and-2. So what happens when the Gators line up on the goal line at LSU? Against Georgia? Against FSU?
Also, there is this concern: With this offense, Florida is inviting a lot of large, fast linebackers to take shots at Chris Leak. It is a notion that should leave Gator fans a little nervous. Leak, too.
All of that said, it should be pointed out just how badly people want to fall in love with Meyer.
From the time he arrived, the fans of Florida have had their hearts in full flutter. You could feel it when Meyer walked into the stadium just after 4 p.m., walking through a throng of fans who shouted his name with an evangelical fervor. You could feel it when he jogged onto the field in front of a Florida crowd bigger than any seen at any stadium in this state.
He is their chance. He is their hope. Bobby Bowden is getting older, and Miami coach Larry Coker spent most of last season looking ordinary. Florida's hope is that Meyer can elevate the Gators past both. The hope is that he will recruit better than Spurrier and coach better than Zook.
Until Saturday night, when he dared to allow Leak to throw incomplete on the first play, when he called a play that lost yardage, when he had to punt on his opening series, Meyer had not missed a note. He said the right things. He did the right things. His series of Instant Traditions, from the black stripe on the helmets of the rookies to the new walk to the stadium (gas prices, perhaps?) to the post-game sing-along, seem silly in the name of beating South Carolina. But when it came to healing a fractured fan base, all of them seemed to work.
In a way, then, it was particularly bold of Meyer to allow the season to begin. It was even more daring to score only 32 points. (Second-guess starter: Spurrier scored 50 in his first game, Zook scored 51.)
How should you remember this night? Try a snapshot at the start of the fourth quarter, when Meyer was chewing out a player on the sideline. The crowd, as it does, began to sing The Boys of Old Florida. Meyer was so moved he stopped in mid chew to drink in the moment. Then he resumed yelling.
In summation, this was the way the Gators spent their night: Something to savor, something to sweat.
There is a likability to Meyer. Victory makes most coaches grade on the curve. Meyer, however, doesn't blink at the expectations, and he doesn't hide behind success.
For instance, Meyer didn't seem satisfied with Leak, who at one point completed 17 straight passes to set a Florida record. Some guy named Spurrier held the old record.
Turns out, he has the record for national championships around here, too.
Sooner or later, Meyer will be expected to break that one, too.