Notebook: Joiner doesn't start but plays early
BATON ROUGE, La. — Tony Joiner may have lost his status as team captain, but he didn't lose much playing time.
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Just four days after being arrested on felony burglary charges, Joiner stepped back on the football field Saturday night when No. 9 Florida played No. 1 LSU at Tiger Stadium.
Joiner opened the game on Florida's kickoff team, but did not start the game on defense. Instead, sophomore Dorian Munroe started at strong safety in Joiner's place. Joiner assumed his spot at strong safety on the Gator defense's second series.
It snapped Joiner's streak of 19 consecutive starts, which was tied with Drew Miller and Carlton Medder as the longest on the team.
Joiner's status for Saturday's game was unclear following his arrest early Tuesday morning after he allegedly removed his girlfriend's car from an inpound lot. However, the charges were dropped on Friday and Joiner made the trip to Baton Rouge.
Gators coach Urban Meyer was mum on Joiner's status all week, but did say his senior would not play as long as felony burglary charges were pending.
Meyer did, however, rescind Joiner's status as a team captain.
Tebow breaks own mark
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is just a sophomore. But he's already breaking his own school records.
Tebow set a Florida record for rushing touchdowns in a season by a quarterback when he rushed nine yards for a touchdown with 3:43 left in the first half. It was Tebow's ninth rushing touchdown of the season. The previous mark of eight was held by Tebow and Jimmy Fisher.
Tebow has now rushed for a touchdown in six straight games.
Brantley makes trip
Freshman quarterback John Brantley made his first road trip Saturday when he traveled with the team to Baton Rouge. John Brantley did not travel to Florida's only other road game at Ole Miss.
The inclusion of John Brantley on the travel roster gave Florida four quarterbacks at LSU. The others were Tebow, Bryan Waggener and freshman Cameron Newton.
Big spotlight
A pair of major television networks chose Baton Rouge as the scene of their broadcasts Friday and Saturday.
CBS' Early Show aired live from LSU's campus Friday morning on the network while ESPN's GameDay broadcasted it's popular college football preview show from the Tigers campus Saturday morning.
Etc.
The 24 points scored by Florida were the most given up by the Tigers this season. South Carolina scored 16 points at LSU two weeks ago. ... A crowd of 92,910 watched Saturday's game, a Tiger Stadium record. ... Meyer entered Saturday's game with a 10-1 record following a loss.
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