The Gator Country gang is back for our weekly Monday podcast to break down the Florida Gators big win over Tennessee on Saturday that saw a lot of up’s and down’s during the game.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down how the Florida Gators rebounded to get a big win, plus what the offense did well and not so well during the game for the Florida Gators.
Andrew and Nick also break down how the offensive line is getting better and what the defense must improve on this week before taking on the Ole Miss Rebels in Gainesville.
TRANSCRIPT:
Nick: Welcome, Gator fans. Hopefully the hangover is not too bad. I know everyone that was in Gainesville was treated to a spectacular ending between Florida and Tennessee, a game that went from pretty excruciating to watch if you were wearing blue to just thrilling, an instant classic down the stretch. Andrew Spivey in a rare moment was speechless next to me in the press box. Andrew, you had a long journey back home. How are you feeling today?
Andrew: Tired. I think you and I hit it on the head yesterday. It went from very high to very low to the fumble, very high, to very low, to back to very high. It was a lot of momentum, ups and downs. In the middle portion of the game, let me start over. At the beginning of the game Florida had a lot of energy. Then in the middle portion of the game Tennessee took every bit of energy, and then for the majority of the 4th quarter Tennessee just kind of looked like they were going into cruise control, and I think that’s it. I think I made the comment to you. I said, did DeBord at Tennessee throw all of its hats and cards into the fold early in the game to where he was left with nothing at the end of the game? It kind of did. It kind of is the same thing we talked about on Friday, same thing we talked about all last week. Butch Jones is just not a good football coach in crunch time, and it showed its head again Saturday.
Nick: Yeah. I thought he had some good calls, specifically going for it on 4th down, the two trick plays in the first half. I thought this isn’t the Butch Jones that Tennessee fans whine about. He’s taking some chances here. Then really puzzling why you don’t go for it when you’re up 12 points, why you don’t go for 2. You kick a field goal and just settle with being up 13. Tennessee definitely completely abandoned the pass at the end of the game. I understand you want to try to run some clock down, but completely abandoned the pass. Tennessee, to their credit, took a lead into half time. That was the first time Tennessee had a half time lead over Florida, well they did it last year, no it was 0-0 last year. It was the first time Tennessee had a lead against Florida at half time since 2003.
Andrew: Yeah. It was a game that you kind of thought that Florida could have very easily been up at half time. I think I made the comment to you that I thought there was some missed opportunities left.
Nick: You made the comment about the fans I want to touch on real quick. Everyone was complaining, I feel like we’ll get yelled at if we don’t touch on it. The CBS time outs, coupled with challenging plays, coupled with coaches taking time outs, and then regular scheduled TV time outs. The pace that those stoppages caused by CBS going to commercial completely took away the home field advantage. You mentioned that at the beginning of the game it was rocking, and then by the middle of the first quarter, it took us almost two hours to finish a half. The completely drained Florida’s home field advantage. The fans were taken completely out of the game and really weren’t able to get back into it until the 4th quarter.
Andrew: It was boring. It was borderline stupid. That’s basically what you can say.
Nick: I hate it. It’s what they do with the NFL. You score a touchdown, kick the extra point, commercial. Come back, kickoff, commercial. Come back, now a player’s down injured after the first down, commercial.
Andrew: Here’s the thing also that I noticed, they don’t take the commercial as soon as the player goes down. They wait till he gets up, then walks off the field, and then it’s commercial. What’s the point? Take the commercial. Let the injured player be down. Overall it was a good crowd. I think that even the moments where Florida was down in the 2nd half good plays defensive wise the crowd was still up. When Florida was on defense the crowd was still up. Going back to your point about half time, Florida left points on the board, 7-0, and then I still to this moment right now you’re not going to make believe Alvin Kamara didn’t fumble that football. That was a clear catch the ball, he put it in possession, made a football move, and it was Marcus Maye, right? That put the hit.
Nick: It was Maye or Neal.
Andrew: Either Maye or Neal that put the hit on him, and he fumbles the ball. Mac said after the game that he thought about reviewing. He never said why he didn’t, not exactly sure if the booth didn’t give him clear evidence or what not.
Nick: He dodged that, but at that point Florida only had two time outs left. They’d already burned one. Do you want to burn two?
Andrew: They’re not as critical in the 1st half though. In my opinion that was a 40 yard swing of field position right there, because they picked up the 1st down on the next play and then ended up kicking, and Florida gets the ball, I believe that time, on like the 8 or 9. Then Florida goes 3 and out and punts the ball away. You’re looking at getting the ball roughly 45 or something where it was at, on Tennessee’s 45. So you’re thinking right there you got a shot, change the possession you could very well go up 14-0 there. Then as you turn around and you look there was a couple big plays for Tennessee. I told you at half time that I think first half wise Florida didn’t play as bad defensively as maybe the score showed. It was undisciplined plays.
Then offensively I really and truly cannot for the best of me understand the play calling by any means. I told you, I don’t understand why Tennessee was giving the short routes up. If you’re Tennessee, Florida’s offensive line can’t block you, so why would you allow them to throw the short stuff? It was open all day long, and Nuss went away from it. The crossing routes to Powell, Worton, open all night. The 5, 6, yard curl routes to the outside receivers, Callaway and Robinson, were open all night, and they went away from it until the 4th quarter.
Nick: There was one specifically it looked like Will Grier kind of checked CJ Worton into a crossing route. There was definitely some kind of communication between them, maybe a hot route. If Grier holds onto that ball one more second Worton really had a lane to turn up the field and make something happen. We’ll get into some offensive line plays, because it think that they actually played well, probably played their best game of the year.
Andrew: Real quick on the Worton play. I saw someone else mention that on Twitter, and I disagree with both of you. I thought the pass was there. Worton on a crossing route, especially if he’s the hot guy, hot automatically means you look at the quarterback from the beginning, so the pressure, Grier didn’t have the second there, so I thought that it was, I mean it hit him in the helmet. If Worton catches that ball he still has enough time to clear to get the first down. I think it was 3rd and 4 right there, or 2nd and 4, something like that. I disagree that it’s on Grier there. I felt that was on Worton. I said that to you as we were watching the game yesterday. I thought Worton should have been more aware of his surroundings, and that was something that maybe a young guy, just still learning.
Nick: A lot of that going on on both sides of the field, lot of young guys playing. For Florida, I think it was definitely a sloppy game, so now that’s three sloppy games, albeit three sloppy wins, and a win is a win at the end of the day. Three sloppy wins in a row, but I think the biggest thing that I take away is Florida has found their starting quarterback, and I think after this performance you have to give it to Grier. How do you take Grier out of a starting role after leading a comeback win in that fashion? Grier has struggled at times, but he really has played his best football in critical situations.
What I mean by that is when the offense is in a hurry up mode, whether it’s a 4 minute hurry up, 2 minutes hurry up, and on 4th down, Will Grier has played his best football. Yesterday 5 of 5 for over 120 yards passing and 2 touchdowns on 4th down. That’s phenomenal. Florida has already gone for and converted all of their 10 4th down attempts. Last year Florida went for it on 4th down 15 times, converted 8. So through four games they have already converted more 4th downs then they did in all of 2014, and they’re only one off of their pace from 2013.
Andrew: I thought Mac used the 4th down several times well. There was the one that he was going to punt 4th and 3 on Tennessee’s 48, 47 somewhere around in there. Tennessee called time out, and he comes back with play action. I thought that was a big momentum change. I think Florida threw a pick there, or either didn’t score and punted, whatever, but I thought that was a good swing of momentum there for Mac. It seems like he has a few good plays that he likes to call that 4th down.
Nick: Yeah. We had talked about that screen, not the screen, the toss sweep pitch, and how I thought they were going to run some play action off that. We got a lot of play action, but not off of that specific sweep. They did run play action from that formation, and it’s successful. When you show something on tape the week before or throughout the year, teams are going to see that, and they’re going to try to scheme against it. What Florida’s able to do there is show something, we had a lot of success with this, maybe we should keep running that, and then you give that look and do something different. It keeps defenses off guard. I thought Jim McElwain, I agree with you on the play calling, but I love some of the concepts that they have. I love the way that, even though the execution isn’t there at all times, I love the way that Florida’s offense is now making defenses think.
Andrew: Right.
Nick: Maybe not with the play calling, pass on 1st, run or draw on 2nd, pass on 3rd, but the plays themselves are keeping defenses on their toes.
Andrew: I agree completely. The thing that is different than years past is it’s ugly, no doubt. The offense is ugly so far, but it’s not ugly as in players not knowing what to do. There is some execution.
Nick: I don’t know. There’s times on offense where it looks—
Andrew: I say that as in like, for instance, last year, there were several times where Driskel would get up to the line of scrimmage to hand off, and the running back would be nowhere to be found, or he would throw a ball and the receiver would be nowhere to be found. What I say is that I think that there is a plan for this team offensively, and they’re passing the ball decent. I mean, 283 yards, 392 yards against a pretty good Tennessee team I thought was good. I agree with you. There is a lot of times where they don’t get to the line quick enough, and I told you think last night. I think I made the comment to you. What the hell are they doing tempo wise? This is slow. It was 4:19 to go in the game on the 30 yard line, and they’re taking 26 seconds off the clock. I’m like, go. Let’s go. Get the play called.
Nick: When they got the ball down 13 with 10 minutes left in the game there was no urgency on that drive. The play calls were taking forever to get in. Watched the game again last night, and the camera shoots to Mac on the sideline, and you can see him yelling, “Get it in. Get it in.” Talking to Doug Nussmeyer on the headset, saying, “Get the play call in. We got to go.” That’s something that we’ve talked about before too is that the tempo. I asked McElwain about it in a press conference. He brushed the question off saying, “How many plays did we run? We won the game. Isn’t that what matters?”
The tempo that Florida runs with, Jim McElwain has never been an Oregon style offense that’s a hyper speed, go, go, go, but the tempo that Florida runs is just so slow, and I don’t know if it’s trying to protect the defense, because the offense is going through some struggles. There are periods of play where the offense looks lost in games. Or it’s they’re young and they want to make sure everyone knows what they’re doing, but I think the tempo has to be picked up, especially in a situation where you’re down 13 points with 10 minutes left in the game. Then down 6 points with 4 minutes left in the game. Pick up. They don’t want to score too quick on the Antonio Callaway touchdown, but the tempo of getting the plays in and getting the ball snapped I think needs to be picked up.
Andrew: I don’t think it’s the tempo that Mac wants to run. I think there’s several times where Grier is having to move Callaway, move Taylor, move Robinson, move Worton, move Goolsby.
Nick: Right. That was my point. It seems like at times that Will Grier is the only one who knows what the play is.
Andrew: Right. What I’m saying is, from a lining up standpoint, they do kind of look lost, but from a game plan of what they want to accomplish they’re not lost. I don’t think I can say that last year. There were several games you would go into the game, and you’d be like, “What was the game plan here?” Last night, you knew what the game plan was. They were going to put their guys on one and one situations in crossing routes and rub routes to where they were picking each other and making these secondary for Tennessee play man up and play on an island. They accomplished that.
Last year I don’t know. There was games where I was like, I go back and I watch the game, and I’m sitting here thinking, “What did Kurt Roper see as an advantage to this football team?” You wouldn’t know, because he ran so much different junk that it was crazy. That’s why I like this offense better. I think this offense is moving better. Kelvin Taylor had a good game as well. I think that you look at his overall numbers, 102 yards rushing, a big of those was on that 47 long run, but he had a few good plays as well that were good plays. I’ll be the first one to admit he didn’t dance on Saturday night, and thank goodness. Maybe Will Grier’s brother asked for his dancing skills back.
Nick: Yeah. Kelvin Taylor might have listened to the podcast, heard you talking smack, 19 carries, 102 yards, 2 touchdowns. Who said that he was going to get 2 touchdowns?
Andrew: You did.
Nick: 5.4 per carry, and a lot of that is Kelvin. There were some plays where he might have made something out of nothing, but I think Florida’s offensive line against the best defensive line that they’ve faced this year had their best game.
Andrew: Yeah.
Nick: There was a push in the running game, especially on critical downs, on what the defense would call money downs. Florida’s offensive line gave Will Grier a clean pocket, and I still want to see Grier trust the offensive line more.
Andrew: He did improve this week compared to last week.
Nick: He’s still taking hits that he doesn’t need to take. Instead of completely leaving the pocket you can step up into the pocket, step to the left of the pocket. You can move around in the pocket. When you watch somebody like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or Aaron Rogers, I’m picking some mediocre quarterbacks here. When you watch those guys in the pocket it might not be a perfect pocket, but they can just move around and away from pressure. Sometimes if your right tackle’s beat, all you need to do is take a step up and to the right, and now that guy who beat him is too far up field. The right tackle can get back into position, and you’ve bought yourself time with two steps, rather than leaving the pocket completely and opening up your ribs to a linebacker who’s been waiting to hit you all day.
Andrew: Yeah. Again, I’m with you on that.
Nick: Somebody needs to teach Will a baseball slide. These head first slides, people can just dive onto you when you slide head first. Maybe O’Sullivan can get Will over to the Mac and get him working feet first slides.
Andrew: That and throwing the ball away. Again, the thing is that all comes with experience. The pocket is experience. You can work on it in practice all you want, but it’s experience of the game situation and the pressure there. I did think he made an improvement this week compared to last week. This week he did take more sacks that running away from the play, but I did like that he stayed in the pocket continuing to look. I thought he did a better job of that. I said in my breakdown this morning, Sunday morning, that I thought he needed to throw the ball away more. That’s one thing there. Also, I’ve got to bring this point up real quick. The receivers have got to trust, whether Will’s going to throw the ball or not, they have got to trust that he’s going to get the ball there. Robinson stops his route. He did get held, but he stopped his route, gave up on it, cost a pick. You and I both noticed Goolsby pulling up on a wheel route. I think the wheel route comes open there had he continued to run it. That was two routes that I just noticed from not even watching it a second time. Trust the routes as a receiver.
Nick: Yeah. Real quickly on the Robinson one, when you stop running and that ball’s intercepted, now the ball’s being intercepted 10 yards from where you are. No referee’s going to throw a flag there. If you run through the hold and make it look closer, that referee might think, “He might have been able to get to that ball if not for that hold,” and you can get a late flag. When you stop running completely it just makes the interception, and it makes the pass, look awful. You’re never going to get that call. You have to have effort throughout the play, every play.
Andrew: Completely.
Nick: And what are we doing? We need to run the wheel route, and we need to run it at 100%. Nobody covers the wheel route. Don’t pull up on it.
Andrew: Yeah. Don’t pull up on it. Definitely don’t pull up on it. It was there a lot of times. A play that I thought they could have went to, and I think you and I both mentioned this, was when Brandon Powell was sliding out to the slot Reeves, however you say his name, Maybin, was the guy over the top of him. You throw a wheel route there, that might be reservations for six right there.
To get back to the offensive line real quick. I thought Sharpe played really well. I thought Thurman played really well, and I thought Dillard played a heck of a ballgame last night, but the right side of the line is killing Florida. They played better, but they are killing Florida. Nick, I can’t count how many times we both looked at each other and said, right guard, right guard. There was a few times it was right tackle, right tackle. Am I wrong?
Nick: No, you’re not, but I’m really kind of surprised. I know we had some people close to the program talk to us about Fred Johnson and say, “This kid’s going to be a player.” I don’t know if either you or I, we were kind of in an I’ll wait and see it.
Andrew: Right.
Nick: I’m seeing a lot of it from Fred Johnson. There’s times where you watch the game again, and he’s turned around kind of looking around like where’d that guy go, but for the most part I’m very encouraged by what I’ve seen from him. I do think you need to figure out something with Antonio Riles. A lot of times he’s just looking lost, blowing up running plays, and getting the quarterback hit. It’s like Jim McElwain said, there’s no, my bad. He says it all the time. Whiffing on a block and getting your quarterback hit is a my bad play, and you can’t have those.
Andrew: Again, this is my thing. For Fred, and this is going to come off bad. I’m going to try to say it as best as I can. Fred’s a young guy playing the position. A guy like Antonio Riles is in his third year in the program. Now, he is in his second year of offensive line.
Nick: And first year of playing.
Andrew: And first year of play, but don’t let a guy cross your face. Don’t let a guy cross your face. Antonio Riles is a great guy, don’t get me wrong, a very good person, but someone said it best to me after the game last night. They said, “Antonio Riles is a tweener, and he’s always going to be that.” He is not an offensive lineman. He’s not a defensive lineman. Where do you play? I think that that’s fitting that mold, and I’m beginning to wonder are they just afraid of playing Halter inside? Are they just afraid of playing Tyler Jordan for the entire game? What is it? Something is concerning to me that Antonio Riles continues to play. If he’s the best person for that position, then I don’t know. You better get a Juco right guard this year, because Antonio Riles is hurting the team in a very bad way on offense.
Nick: That’s one player. Overall, I think the offensive line had their best game, and I think if Florida has any chance of coming away with a win this upcoming week we will have to be saying that exact thing again a week from today, that Florida’s offensive line played their best game of the season, because Robert Nkemdiche is an offensive lineman eater. He eats offensive linemen up. There is not a single, Marcus Spears said this when we talked to him on Friday, “There isn’t a single player that can beat Nkemdiche or handle Nkemdiche in a one on one situation.” He said, “If an offensive coordinator, offensive line coach, got together and lined up an offensive lineman on him one on one for every play of the game that Nkemdiche would win 90-95% of those snaps.” Florida’s going to have their hands full with him, and the offensive line will need to continue making progress. Lord help anyone if they line Nkemdiche up over Antonio Riles.
Andrew: Yeah. Here’s the thing for me. I think I said this in my article on Sunday morning. The one thing for me is offensive line has improved every week. I think we all thought this offensive line was going to be a work in progress, but I do think they’re getting better every week. For me, that’s all you can ask for. They’re not going to become the best offensive linemen in the SEC by next week. It just isn’t going to happen. You just have to get better from Tennessee to Ole Miss. Now, is it going to look like they’re better? Probably not. If they can just, from a scheme wise, do their job, they’re going to get outmanned in situations, as you said. Nkemdiche’s not blockable by one guy. If Rob’s in position to make the play, then you’re okay with that, as long as they’re getting better from a knowing the playbook, understanding their role, then I think you’re okay.
Nick: I think it’s going to be kind of a wait and see. They’re young. They’re counting on a lot of true freshmen, some redshirt freshmen. They’re young, but I was encouraged, and I have been as hard as anybody, I think, on the offensive line the past three years, or past two years that I’ve been covering the team. I was encouraged by what I saw yesterday.
Real quick, we’ve got one really negative thing to talk about on the defensive side of the ball. Let’s roll through some of this real quick. On the defensive side of the ball, Florida’s defense answered calls throughout this game. After Florida made it a 6 point game, the defense came out, stuffed Tennessee, stuffed them, 3 and out, really fed off of the crowd. Jarrad Davis said, “When you get out there in the 4th quarter you’re dead.” He said, “The crowd, we fed off them. It felt like it was a new game.” For the fans who didn’t leave at half time, Jarrad Davis thanks you for staying.
Andrew: For the majority of the crowd they did not leave.
Nick: It was just a large section. The problem that we always have is where we sit in the press box we look at the students section.
Andrew: Right.
Nick: So the alumni section, they come early. They stay late. The students are the ones that normally trickle in late from the bars or the house parties, and maybe leave a little bit early. There was just a large section in the upper portion of the students section that just packed it up when it was 20-7. Packed it up, said “I’m going to Cantina. I’m going to the Swamp. Leaving Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.” For everyone that stayed, congrats to you. I am always taking shots at late arriving and early leaving fans. Jim McElwain went ahead and did that yesterday for me.
Real quick I want to touch on Keanu Neal, Marcus Maye, 13 tackles, 10 tackles. Jonathan Bullard, a defensive tackle, had 8 tackles, 3.5 for loss, and a sack. Jarrad Davis was all over the field. I think Florida’s defense played well, except for one area, and that one area killed them, has killed them, and will continue to kill them, and that is missed tackles. There’s no excuse for it.
Andrew: Yeah. You said it right. Missed tackles are killing them. Look at Josh Dobbs. There was only a handful of plays that he legitimately should have gotten the yards. There was one play where Tennessee blocked it perfectly, had Cece blocked inside, had Keanu, but Joey Ivie misses a clear tackle. Can’t do that. Taven Bryan missed a clear tackle. Can’t do that. On Dobbs’ long run Antonio Morrison got snipered. He fell just like he had been sniped off the roof, it was that bad.
Here’s the thing for me. Missed tackles are a discipline issue. That’s execution of your job, and you’re not doing it. As a veteran defense you should be able to do that. That’s a young guy’s mistake. That’s not a veteran who call themselves the best defense in the nation mistake. Let’s also be fair here. Florida’s best player, Vernon Hargreaves, was on several of those missed tackles.
Nick: Keanu Neal had missed tackles. Keanu Neal definitely not accurate in this statement. Keanu Neal told us last night that he had more missed tackles than made tackles. I don’t think he had 14 missed tackles, but he definitely had more than he would have like to have had. I said it last week. I said, Josh Dobbs will kill Florida if they miss tackles. He will make them pay for that. Last night Josh Dobbs 18 carries for 136 yards, most of those I would reckon, a lot of those, came after 1st contact. It’s kind of unacceptable to continue to have this problem. We talked about it Week 1. We’re going to get it fixed. Talked about it Week 2. We’re going to work on it in practice. Talk about it Week 3, and here it is rearing its ugly head again in Week 4.
Andrew: One more thing. Florida’s going to the dime package with Maye sliding down. They’re going to get exposed if Marcell Harris is playing safety against Ole Miss.
Nick: Yeah. Marcell Harris, it seems like every punt return and every kick return he ends up on top of the returner, fantastic on special teams. A couple times last night on defense where just getting beat pretty bad. It’s not that the guy he’s covering is better than him. It’s just that he’s not recognizing the route. He’s not recognizing what the offense is trying to do, and because of that isn’t putting himself in positions to make plays. A lot of playing defense comes from being prepared and knowing, maybe not exactly what the play call is, you’d like to know that, you’d like to know exactly what they’re going to do, sometimes it seems like Jon Bullard knows the snap count the way he’s getting off the ball, but on defense you need to know at least how is the offense trying to attack us, because from that you can say, I think this wide receiver will be doing this.
To me, Marcell is just reactionary on defense. I have no idea, no clue, no guess at what he’s going to try to do, so I’m just going to get into a back pedal until I see him break, and then he’s going to get beat on double moves. He’s just missing things on the field. So I think when you go into the dime that they need to find another option. Maybe not a permanent one, maybe a rotation with him and Duke Dawson or somebody, but I think just leaving Marcell out there for as long as they are when they’re in the dime is an issue for Florida’s defense.
Andrew: I’d rather see Nick Washington there. Nick Washington’s thing is he’s going to be in position. He may not make the play, but he’s going to be in position. Marcell Harris just isn’t in position. He got beat on a straight jump ball that almost cost him a touchdown had it not been for an illegal man down field. He just straight got out athleticism, and the guy caught it over him.
Nick: I think I had another call, another accurate call, both of us agreed on it. The rumored Gator Tail package with Joshua Grady at quarterback, did not see it. We did see an Alvin Bailey pass, which just goes to show that just because you’re a high school quarterback doesn’t mean you’re a college quarterback. Alvin Bailey is not a college quarterback. That was an ugly pass. Jim McElwain kind of joked that they had that pass in their playbook for a while. They’ve been working on it. It wasn’t a monkey see, monkey do, well Tennessee had a wide receiver pass, maybe we should try one kind of deal. Maybe with Alvin Bailey throwing it we can check that one off the list as not going to work.
Andrew: Definitely not going to work. Real quick, I just pulled something up, and I wanted to share it with you. I’m looking over the Vandy vs. Ole Miss game last night. Any guesses as to what Vandy rushed for on Ole Miss?
Nick: Let me hear it.
Andrew: Just throw me a guess, a wild guess.
Nick: Vandy rushed for 200 yards.
Andrew: 128 against a very good defensive line of Ole Miss. For me, I don’t know what’s up with Ole Miss, but it does show that there is some hope if Florida can get a push. Vandy together put up 322 on a Ole Miss that was playing its starters the entire football game.
Nick: Yeah, Ole Miss has given up over 100 yards rushing in all of their games. That includes games against Tennessee Martin. It includes games against Fresno State, and then obviously against Vanderbilt. They’re having a lot of attempts, so through four games teams are really trying to run the ball against Ole Miss to try to keep that offense, that Rebel offense, off the field. They’re opponents are averaging 44 rushing attempts per game. That’s a lot. Alabama ran for 215. Florida is going to have their hands full with that defensive line, but if Florida can run the ball I think, again, that would be the game plan against Ole Miss. Run the football, control the clock, keep Chad Kelly, keep Laquon Treadwell, keep that offense off the field. Maybe you can tire their defense down a little bit. I see a very difficult game coming up for Florida.
This is, by the way, the first time Florida is ranked #23 in the Coaches Poll, which came out on Sunday. They’re ranked #25 in the AP Poll, which is the first time that Florida has been ranked in the AP Poll since they lost to Missouri way back in 2013. Ole Miss is ranked #3 in the AP Poll, which means the #25 vs #3 matchup is the first top 25 matchup in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium since October 21, 2012, that weird wacky game where Florida beat South Carolina 44-11. Loucheiz Purifoy knocked the ball out of Connor Shaw’s hands on the very first play of the game. There was a fumble on the opening kickoff. Weird game. A long time since Florida’s been in the top 25, and a long time since we’ve had a top 25 matchup. It’ll be 7:00 Saturday night on ESPN.
Andrew: Yeah. I want to say one quick point on that game. You and I will preview that game in depth this week, but Florida, the key to Ole Miss is they win the turnover margin, they win the game. Florida needs to play mistake free football. They only had one turnover last night, right? Correct?
Nick: Right.
Andrew: So overall good game for them on that.
Nick: Yeah. Good game. This is one of those games where Mac said it, it may just be candor from him, or maybe it’s just a subtle message to his team. He said, “We’re going to face a team that’s supposed to come in here and, frankly, beat the heck out of us.” I’m not planning on it, and I don’t think many people will be picking Florida. As we tape this the line hasn’t come out, but I would expect Ole Miss to be a double digit favorite, a double digit road favorite over Florida. It is a measuring stick game. This is the kind of game where you say this team has the best win, in my opinion, the best win of any football team in the country, which was on the road at Alabama. This team has the best win. They’re at the top of the conference. This is where we want to be. We’re going to go out on Saturday and find out how close or how far away we are from being a team that we want to be.
Andrew: Here’s my thing. Let me see how this team responds. This team did not respond very well after beating New Mexico State. How does this team respond this week when they have a coming off of a big high going against a good Ole Miss team? How do they respond?
Nick: That’s a point that I made to you when we were talking about the game. You look at Ole Miss, and they have a big emotional win over Alabama, and then they go and they struggle with Vanderbilt. That’s a game where you thought Chad Kelly and most of the starters would be watching from the sidelines with a cup of Gatorade in the 4th quarter. Instead, you’ve got them playing the whole game. Florida, talk about an emotional victory. That was a roller coaster for Florida. Getting 11 straight wins against Tennessee is huge for them. The fashion of which they came back. There’s a missed field goal. Everybody runs out onto the field. Oh no, Jim McElwain called time out, back off the field. I don’t know why Florida wasn’t penalized for that, but we’ll leave that alone.
Andrew: They didn’t rush the field after the field goal. They rushed the field after the…
Nick: On the time out, so I guess that’s why there wouldn’t be a penalty, because the time out the team can be on the field during the time out. Then you get the missed field goal. Tennessee runs onto the field, because I guess from their vantage point it looked good. Florida runs out onto the field. The refs wave it. That’s a huge emotional victory. It can be draining.
Andrew: Or it can be a big boost of confidence. That’s why I say, this is where I want to see McElwain, he preached that he wants his team to feel focused. For me this is big of where is this team there going, and that’s kind of what I want to see is how they respond, because let’s face it, this team is not going to be talked about as winning this football game. They’re not. As a football team, and as McElwain’s going to tell them, they have to go in with a belief they’re going to win this football game. They have to. That for me is going to be big for their maturity. How do they respond this week? Again, I think that this team has underachieved, but have also achieved a lot of things good. For me that was a huge win for Jim McElwain.
Nick: Absolutely.
Andrew: I think that you couldn’t have diagramed it any better, unless Florida would have won 40-0 or 35-0. If they win 28-27 with Tennessee scoring a touchdown late, that doesn’t get the same effect as that big game did right there. Overall though, good win for Florida.
Nick: Huge win for Florida.
Andrew: Absolutely, and huge win for myself. Didn’t have to take that. Let’s wrap this bad boy up real quick. Final thoughts heading into this Ole Miss week.
Nick: I think everyone wants to know, what did you do with your salt shaker?
Andrew: It’s slam full, boys. Nick, them Tennessee fans were very salty after that game, and also the Tennessee coach. I didn’t even notice it at first, but apparently a Tennessee coach was jumping up and down when Demarcus Robinson dropped the ball. That same Tennessee coach is in the Gator Country photo gallery with his face buried in the Swamp.
Nick: Maybe he was trying to find some salt that you had dropped down there on the turf. Would you say the ending of the game was fire?
Andrew: It was super fire.
Nick: Hot fire.
Andrew: It was hot fire. It was legit. It was off the chain. I don’t have a new word this week. I need to get a new word this week. You’ll have to stay tuned for this week.
Nick: Gator fans that have listened to us for this long, thank you. I wrote that the run, Lindsey, run play was a little bit before my time, but I know growing up with Gator parents that run, Lindsey, run tormented Gator parents. My tweet, I could tell that it tormented my Gator fan followers. I feel like Antonio Callaway running down the sideline, Brandon Powell launching his nicknamed pocket rocket body into three Tennessee Volunteers, and Nick Hubert yelling he’s going to score. I feel like Tennessee now has their run, Lindsey, run moment, and it came at the hands of the Florida Gators, which has to make win #11 so much sweeter.
Andrew: Definitely. A big win overall, again. Good win overall. Big week coming up. You got to continue to build the program up, be competitive in this game.
Nick: Would you say they’re building brick by brick?
Andrew: No. I don’t say brick by brick, but I will say this. Auburn’s overrated, like I said. Tennessee, you’re overrated just like I said, and Butch, you’re still not a big game football coach, dude.
Nick: He might not be a head football coach much longer.
Andrew: Yes, and by the way, all Tennessee twitter disappeared off my timeline.
Nick: There was a sign at SEC Nation that said, Vol twitter is undefeated.
Andrew: Yes. Now they’re defeated by the Andrew Spivey. I defeated you.
Nick: Vol twitter caught null last week.
Andrew: That is right. Nick, say your magic words. Let’s get off this bad boy and get ready for Ole Miss.
Nick: Make sure to check out GatorCountry.com. We’ve got a ton of content, and probably in my opinion the best photo gallery that our man David Bowie has shot all year. Some great pictures in there, some sad Vol fans, some happy Gator fans. He got an awesome picture of Antonio Callaway’s winning touchdown. Like Andrew said, there is a Vol coach face plant in there. Check it out. We will be back on Wednesday with a special guest. Andrew will be here on his normal time spot Tuesday, Thursday, and then our prediction show, which you may or may not want to tune into, where we break down Florida and Ole Miss and give you our scores on Friday.
Andrew: Tons of recruiting news this week as well. Big visitors come on campus, both myself and Cassidy will have it up. It’s Ole Miss week. Also, basketball media day is Tuesday. We’ll have tons of stuff from that as well. Bowie will have some good photos from that as well. Hearing a lot of really good things about the basketball team, despite no Billy Donovan, but hearing some good things about that. Catch us on Tuesday. Nick, I know you want to say those two magic words, and I have a new phrase.
Nick: Okay. Stay classy, Gator Country.
Andrew: Still not a head coach, Butch Jones. Stay tuned, Gator Country.
While I agree with your criticisms of Grier and the OL, you don’t seem to temper your comments with the obvious — that these are mostly very young guys with little experience, running a new offense. Everyone on the OL, young or not, is in, as Billy D would say, new roles this year. This is going to be a learn-the-hard-way kind of year. To complain that the OL and QB are not perfectly playing their positions is a problem with expectations. This offense is going to struggle as it gets better.