So Carlos Dunlap, one of the top pass rushers in the college football, and now one of the top idiots after an arrest on drunk driving charges, has been suspended from Saturday's all-important SEC championship.

All of you sorry Florida football fans who were snickering at Bobby Bowden's retirement Tuesday, saying the man ran a program filled with kids who often ran afoul, well, you may all shut up.

Because Urban Meyer's top-ranked and defending national champion Gators, only about to play another national semifinal game with Alabama, have one more thing to overcome, in this case a truly major distraction, not to mention a sudden and rather gaping hole at defensive end.

Florida has made a specialty of overcoming this and that this perfect season, not to mention the 22-game winning streak that dates back to last season.

This season alone, there were: scares against Arkansas and South Carolina, the Lane Kiffin game, the flu that swept through the team, and Tim Tebow's concussion, and Brandon Spikes' suspension for dirty play, and Gators coach Urban Meyer fine for comments on officiating.

And towering over it all were the expectations for this team.

There has been no let up.

And somehow, the Gators have never been found asleep at the wheel.

And then Carlos Dunlap was.

Gainesville police say they found Dunlap all but snoring behind the wheel of his car, which happened to be parked at a green light early Tuesday morning, long after all good NFL prospects have gone to bed.

Yes, nothing says biggest game of the season like one of the stars of your all-star defense in a green and white striped jailhouse jumpsuit a few days before kickoff.

Meyer suspended Dunlap indefinitely.

Hey, that had better include the BCS title game if the Gators get that far.

Meyer called Dunlap's actions "stunning."

In a word: yeah.

Dunlap's stupidity here, the arrogance, the sheer disregard for the business at hand, is exactly what this Florida team hasn't been about in its historic march in the name of consecutive national titles.

Meyer now has to prop it up as another "distraction," but this isn't like Tebow's concussion, just the act of an apparently brainless 20-year-old who had put his team on the spot.

Still, maybe the Gators can use this as a rallying point against Alabama.

This team has responded again and again since losing at home to Mississippi last season. Tebow made his fabled "Promise" after that one, and the Gators haven't lost since.

Whenever they've needed to reach down, like in the fourth quarter in the win over Alabama in last season's 1-2 showdown in this very same SEC title game, or in the BCS win over Oklahoma, the Gators have banded together.

"It was a kind of togetherness we had," Tebow said Monday.

They still have it - or did until Dunlap's solo act.

Will this be one test too many?

Don't think the Gators won't miss Dunlap, the defensive MVP of last year's BCS game. Florida will have to turn to Justin Trattou, Jaye Howard and William Green to try and do what Dunlap can do, as if they can.

So Meyer's team has another challenge, this in a season of challenges - as if this rematch with the Crimson Tide isn't enough.

It also dredges up all the arrests - granted, many of them for minor stuff - this football program has rung up over the last few years, the not-so-silver lining in the empire Meyer has built.

And now back to the football field.

Florida has always answered the call this season.

"In all the situations, the tough situations, the opportunities where it looked like we could have folded, we could have lost, not pulled it out, we've really rallied together and made great things happen," Tebow said Monday.

Then came the predawn Tuesday, and an extremely not-so-great thing happened. Carlos Dunlap's mistake, and arrest, uh, not so minor.

What happens now?

What happens Saturday?

Those are real questions.