The Florida Gators football team is in week 3 of football camp and Gator Country is going to caught you up on everything that has happened in the past two weeks.
Nick de la Torre and Andrew Spivey have all the latest details on the Florida Gators in this edition of the Gator Country podcast as they talk about the quarterback battle between Treon Harris and Will Grier plus much more.
Transcript:
Nick: What’s going on, Gator Country? Nick de la Torre here with Andrew Spivey, back by popular demand for the podcast. Andrew, say hello to everyone.
Andrew: The popular comes because people want to hear me. They want to hear this amazing voice. They didn’t want to hear you open this thing. They wanted to hear me, Nicholas.
Nick: I don’t know about that. I think you’re subjecting them to your own podcast by yourself, and I think that is enough. They’ve heard enough from you. They definitely need this voice coming through their headsets and into their ears.
Andrew: Why don’t we just let Twitter let us know? Twitter, let us know. Do you love the lovely Andrew, or Nicholas? Let us know.
Nick: I think you’re going to be upset when that comes through the wire. Here we go. The big thing is football camp, fall camp week 3, and rain. I got all the way out to the field today for our 15 minutes of open practice only to find out that the open portion of practice was cancelled because of weather coming in. Florida really only got about 20, 30 minutes on the field before the heavens opened up. Then they had to take the pads off, go into Florida gym, find some relief from the rain. The ultimate relief, I think should be coming this weekend in the form of the indoor practice facility being open. I think Jim McElwain is supposed to be handed the keys to the indoor this Saturday, the 22nd. Hopefully the rain won’t chase us away anymore. I’ve been told that media will be allowed to go into the indoor facility. It is big enough to house us as well as the team, so that should be fun. I’m looking forward to getting our little tour. Mainly I’m looking forward to not having to talk about rain messing up practice anymore. How about that, Andrew?
Andrew: It’s interesting. It’s one of those deals where the last couple years you’ve had a few days, but I feel like not as many as this year. It’s almost like the rain gods are kind of joking with Florida. Your practice facility’s right there. You don’t have the keys, so I’m just going to wet you the next couple of days and let you miss practice. That’s kind of where I’m at. I do agree. It’s good that the indoor practice facility’s coming up. See McElwain’s already got his plan together. He wants to try to have some indoor days to keep the guys away from the heat. That’s a good thing. It’s interesting that he has that approach, because part of me thinks that that’s one of the reason’s Florida’s always so tough early in the year is because they’re prepared with the heat, but it does make sense to get these guys in a little bit, get them in the, I wouldn’t say air conditioned. The air conditioning’s not going to be on fully, but it does get the heat off them a little bit. That was the interesting take for me that McElwain’s thinking about that already.
Nick: I mean, first and foremost it’s going to go to combat the weather. When I put on Twitter what time practice was within seconds I get a response, doesn’t it always rain at that time? My first answer was it rains at all times in north central Florida this time of the year, so the answer to that question is yes, but it doesn’t really matter if they were going to practice now. Right now outside of my house it’s raining. I think first and foremost it’s being able to stick with the schedule. You’ve got 100 players to deal with, and you tell them practice is at 2. They start planning their day around that. Well now it’s raining. We need to get you guys here an hour early. You get 100 kids into the locker room. It’s still raining. We’re going to have to push practice back.
The logistics of getting everything and running efficiently I think is first and foremost of the indoor practice facility, but Jim McElwain also talked about the heat being a factor. When you’re in two a day practices like this, it would be nice to be able to have the guys practice either in the morning or in the afternoon in the heat, but then be able to get them inside the indoor practice facility where you can control the climate a little bit more, so you’re not really taking away from the advantage of being ready to play in the heat and humidity in Gainesville, but you are protecting guys so that they’re not getting beat down by the sun for six hours in practice in one day. There’s a little bit of relief.
Andrew: Absolutely. That’s a good thing to have. Speaking from former, from dealing with the rain. It’s the worst thing in the world to say we’re going to have practice at 4:00, and then at 4:00 the rain’s there. Then you got to go to 5:00. It just kind of sets the tempo of the day to start off bad. Yes, you say you should get your players back ready, but it’s tough. It’s very tough to get refocused. It’s almost like a starting pitcher in baseball. They have a routine, and if they think the game’s going to start at 6:30 they want to know that. If it’s going to be at 8:00, they want to know that. It’s a routine. I think it’s going to be a good thing with all weather, whether it be rain or the heat or whatever it is. It’s going to be interesting.
Also, to look ahead, if Florida was to say play in the Sugar Bowl or the Georgia Dome, or whatever it is, it is good to have that turf to practice on a little bit and to go from there. It’s a good thing for everything. It’s great, and I know that they’re missing a little bit of practice, but it does sound like McElwain’s very pleased, and from everything I’ve been told practice seems to be going well, despite the weather delays.
Nick: Yeah. Hopefully the indoor, it looks very nice. Haven’t had a chance to see the turf, obviously. When you talk about turf you start to knee injuries. The turf has come a long way from the first days of the Astrodome when it was basically concrete with some green paint on it. This stuff feels like real grass, kind of looks like real grass. Florida, knock on wood, has been able to stave off the injury bug. Hopefully you won’t see any new injuries popping up as the team moves from only practicing on real grass into practicing on a turf more often, because Jim McElwain did say when the season comes obviously any time there’s weather they’ll move into the indoor, but he also said Thursday that final practice before walk throughs will be in the indoor facility and walk through on Friday will also be in the indoor facility.
Andrew: Like you said, it’s come a long way. It’s a different thing. It’s now a lot more forgiving on there. The injury that I hear a lot is the shins. It’s the shins. You get a lot of shin splints from it. You get a lot of turf toe from it, and turf toe’s not from the turf, but it’s a lot of that kind of stuff more so now than the knee injuries. It’s just simply because it’s a different surface that you’re running on compared to grass, and it’s definitely not as forgiving as the grass is. It has come a long way from the old Astrodome where ground balls used to bounce off like you were hitting the cart path on the golf course.
Nick: Yeah. That is exciting. Hopefully we will get our media walkthrough and be able to bring that to you guys. Andrew, there are a couple things I want to address. First off let’s talk about the offensive line. I think we’re trying to find, or Jim McElwain, I’m not trying to find. Jim McElwain and Mike Summers are trying to find a group of eight offensive linemen, and it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that’s not really a two deep on the offensive line. Unfortunately for Florida, you don’t really have enough bodies or talent to say we have two left tackles, two left guards, two centers, two right guards, two right tackles. So we’re looking at it and saying who are our best eight guys? Can we get our left tackle, is he all right to play right tackle as well? If David Sharpe is your starting left tackle, and he goes down with an injury, you’re not necessarily popping in the backup left tackle. You might be sliding the right tackle over and then fitting in pieces behind that.
Fortunately, Mason Halter, who I had some reservations about, we talked about it on the podcast, coming from Fordham. Our reservations were how does he adjust? He has exceeded my expectations from what I’ve seen. He’s a big kid, tall kid, carries his 300 pounds really well. He’s been working at left tackle, but I don’t think that he is your left tackle. McElwain has said to us that he has basically played everywhere on the offensive line during camp, except for center.
Andrew: Yeah. I think you and I hit on that a little bit. I think that he is a guy that is like Tyler Moore, not Tyler Moore. He’s better than Tyler Moore, but how does he adjust to that speed at the tackle position? I think so far so good, but I do think he’s a better guard, and I think that it’s also not just playing wise, but I think you want a smart guy inside to help with your young guys at center and your young guy at tackle. I’m with you. I think he plays guard to start out.
Nick: Here’s something that you and I have talked about privately. Florida’s going to have a lot of youth on the offensive line. So you have two older players, to me it would make sense if you’re going to get your best five, which is what Jim McElwain has said he wants to do, get your best five linemen on the field. It would make sense to me with David Sharpe only being a sophomore, Cam Dillard or Tyler Jordan either being a redshirt sophomore or a true freshman, and then Martez Ivey, another true freshman, if those are your best five it would make sense to me to put those two older guys inside, so that you don’t have three young players all on the right side of the offensive line. If you have a line that looks David Sharpe, Trip Thurman, Cam Dillard or Tyler Jordan at center, then you put Halter, who’s got four years of experience next to Martez Ivey at right tackle. I think that gives you your best talent, but not only your best talent, it’s also distributing the youth and putting a veteran next to them in case there’s calls, a freshman or a sophomore second guessing themselves.
There’s a level of comfort that comes with having somebody who’s been there before when something is still new to you. I think if you can get that, right now I think that is your ideal offensive line, even though we’ve really only seen in our tiny 15 minute portion of open practice we’ve only seen Mason Halter play at left tackle, but Jim McElwain has told us he’s played everywhere. David Sharpe has played left and right tackle, and that goes back to the point of we don’t have true backup, so we need these guys to be comfortable at 3, 4, 5 different spots.
Andrew: Yeah. We’re going to get to the open practice deal in just a second, because you know my opinion is coming. Let’s stay on the offensive line for a second. It’s good thing. Alabama does the same thing. We all know Alabama can run a 15 deep, that’s just they way they can with their offensive line. They have 15 offensive linemen that can probably play every year, and that’s three deep at their starting five. I think that while it’s good to have a backup left tackle, it’s good to have a backup right tackle, it’s good to have a backup right guard, so on and so on, you’re never going to be able to say that your backup tackles are the same talent wise, that one’s not better than another. It doesn’t make sense to have a backup left tackle.
It makes more sense to rotate, especially with McElwain’s circumstance right now. I think you and I can legitimately say seven offensive linemen that we think are really good. That eighth guy is going to be kind of tough to name. Now naming 10 would be even tougher. I think it’s very smart that you rotate the eight guys. Find eight guys that can play, rotate them in. Then it not only helps with them knowing each position, but it also helps to continue to have talent on the field. If a David Sharpe goes down or if a Trip Thurman goes down, you put your next best guy in there, and you’re not losing a ton of talent like it was in the past when you would have strictly a backup for each position. You may have the 12th best offensive linemen as your right guard, and he has to go in to play, because that was how Will Muschamp and his Staff did.
I like it a lot, and like you say, Mason Halter playing right guard I think it’s perfect, especially if Tyler Jordan wins the center job like you and I both believe, and if Trip Thurman ends up playing left guard like we both believe, and having Ivey and Sharpe on the tackles. It’s perfect. Sharpe’s not a freshman. He’s a sophomore, but he’s still a young guy that doesn’t understand the whole playbook. Thurman does. Halter does. So that helps both of your tackles, like you say, and it helps a young guy, even if it’s Dilliard inside, it helps him as well. I think that’s your best bet is to have Halter and Thurman inside. Until I see differently that’s what I’m sticking with.
Nick: Okay. I actually asked Twitter for some questions. Next week I will ask the message board for questions, but normally I hit most of those.
Andrew: Hold on, before we go there.
Nick: Here we go. Don’t you have your own podcast to rant?
Andrew: We do, but I have got to address this open practice situation. I’m not going to name names, not going to even get into that. Strictly of the matter is this, Nick, you and I have talked about this, you have 15 minutes, 12 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever the hell you have, to watch practice. As a former coach, as a former guy who’s been there, you know it as well, Nick, as I do. The first 15 minutes is nothing. To say you have a two deep and that is crazy.
I’m just saying to our members at Gator Country, listen to Nick. Listen to myself. We don’t base our opinions strictly on what we see out there. We base it on other things. When we talk about Halter playing right guard, Nick may not see that out there at practice the first 10 minutes. That’s McElwain’s plan. He may not see Sharpe at left tackle or Ivey at right tackle. That’s the plan. Listen to what Nick and I are saying when we tell you this. We’re not just strictly spewing it from nowhere. We hear things. We put things together from things we hear, and open practice doesn’t show that. It’s 10 minutes of warmup time, simply that.
Nick: I think there is a lot that we can see, but, listen, I make no mistake about it, the coaching staff knows when the media’s out there, and they know what they want us to see. I take that with a grain of salt. Obviously if I see a receiver drop three passes in a row, the coaches aren’t telling him to do that because the media’s out there. You can see if a guy is struggling. You can kind of see who guys are playing with as far as first team, second team kind of stuff. I really don’t rely on how much I’m seeing on the field as much as I rely on talking to people around the program to find out what’s going on when I’m not there. I want to know what I’m not seeing versus what I’m seeing during the 15 minutes when all the coaches know that I’m there.
Andrew: Right. If what you were seeing was a true depth chart Jim McElwain would hand you a depth chart and say, here media, this is the depth chart. It’s not. It’s not done for a reason. As they go through routes on air, the small stuff they do, you can see a little bit of things, but to say, Antonio Morrison looks good. Antonio Morrison looks good doing what? Routes on air? He’s a linebacker. He’s to hit people. He’s to reach stuff, to tackle in the back field in pads. To say a defensive back looks good, sure he looks good. He’s got one thing to do, line up, start Demarcus Robinson. In a game he doesn’t have that. Even Treon and Will, if they throw a ball in the dirt, yes that’s bad. If they throw the ball 50 yards out of bounds, how do we know that’s not them working on their throwaway, or that’s not a Nussmeyer saying, on this play I want you to go through your reach and throw it away. We don’t know that. So to make that opinion, to make that statement is just in my opinion crazy. Again, the first 10 minutes is simply, in my opinion, good for injuries and good for seeing who’s out there every day, not for who’s lining up where. That’s just crazy.
Nick: Do you feel better?
Andrew: I feel better. I really do. I feel a lot better.
Nick: We’re going to get to my first question. My girl, Amy, wants to know, what’s up with Bryan Cox? Haven’t heard much on him. Is he still hurt from his hip surgery? Bryan Cox is 100% back from his hip surgery. He’s working in behind Jonathan Bullard. Jonathan Bullard, as much as he may not have liked it at first, is going to continue playing all over the defensive line. Bryan Cox is going to be a guy that’s getting into that defensive line rotation. Not a starter, but a guy who’s going to have a lot of quality reps and a lot of quality playing time for Florida this year.
Andrew: Yeah. The thing with Bryan Cox is he’s almost unlucky. Last year he was working some at the buck. He was behind Fowler. Now he moves to defense end, and now he’s working behind Bullard, who probably is the best defensive lineman that Florida has right now. I think it’s crazy timing for Bryan. You and I talked about this before, Bryan’s gotten big. He’s gotten to be a big boy. If he can figure out a way to get some reps with Bullard in there, you got to remember Cece. He’s going to be pushing them reps as well. If he can get some reps I think he can contribute. To say he’s going to be a superstar, I don’t know about that.
Nick: Then here I’m going to pose this question to you before I answer. CP3, SeePaul1285 on Twitter, do you think the defense will be even better overall than last year? Does Collins, Geoff Collins, like blitzing more than Muschamp?
Andrew: Yeah. He does like blitzing more than Muschamp.
Nick: We saw that a lot at Mississippi State.
Andrew: Right. He’s more of a guy that likes to blitz, likes to put his secondary on an island. It kind of makes sense, because Collins is a linebacker. Muschamp was a DB. He don’t like being left on an island. Yeah, he likes to blitz a ton. He kind of has more of that Saban, Kirby Smart style defense of he likes to bring guys off the edge. He likes to mix and match. You’ll see Brian Poole come in from that nickel spot a lot, like Javier Arenas used to do at Alabama. You’re going to see a lot of blitzing. I just can’t say his defense is going to better than last year, because you did lose the Number 5 pick in the draft, 4th pick in the draft? Sixth?
Nick: Third. You went backwards. You were working your way up towards it, and then you hopped the wrong way.
Andrew: Something, lost the Number 3 pick overall. You don’t have a clear cut favorite to pick that up. I will say the secondary’s better. Vernon’s a year older. Tabor and those guys are a year older. This is going to be crazy to me to see how it does. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I really think Jonathan Bullard’s going to have a breakout year, and maybe he fills the shoes that Fowler left.
Nick: Jonathan Bullard’s not the same kind of sack guy that Dante Fowler is. He really never has been that numbers guy, but maybe the answer, you can’t fill Dante Fowler’s shoes with one player. Maybe the answer is bring more players, bring more pressure. You have an usual amount of talent in the secondary to trust guys to cover man to man, so maybe you can bring more pressure with an Anzalone or with a Daniel McMillian, with an Antonio Morrison when he comes back. Maybe you can get away with bringing more players, because of how good the secondary is. Geoff Collins, the secondary will cover up a lot of sins that the rest of the defense commits.
Andrew: Yeah. I didn’t mean Bullard was going to fill Fowler’s shoes in that. I mean, as far as sack goes, but I mean being that disruptive force.
Nick: Being the guy that other teams are having to game plan for.
Andrew: There you go.
Nick: You’re not thinking about the other guys on the defense. You really got to focus in on him, someone who’s going to take double teams. Dante Fowler last year was double teamed relentlessly. That might be a situation where Jonathan Bullard takes that attention that Dante Fowler got. Might not put up the same stats, but he’s a guy that can take two players, and now that opens up something for another teammate.
What’s sticking with the pass rush? Silk on Twitter, who’s been begging to be on the podcast. This is his way to get on right now. He wants to know, what do you think of the rush position depth behind Alex McCallister?
The rush position, I think I said this the last time. I explained it last podcast, but here we go again. The rush position, same thing as the buck. Alex McCallister is your starter. Listed behind him is Jordan Sherit, but I think a guy like Cece Jefferson, before he gets bigger, Cece Jefferson’s a guy that can fill that role. Then you’ve got to also look at somebody like a Daniel McMillian, who’s really only playing linebacker right now, but you don’t really trust Daniel McMillian in space covering. So he might be a guy that can go down in there on passing downs and mix it up a little bit with his hand on the ground.
Andrew: I’m going to throw a wildcard at you, as always. I like to do that a little bit with you. Jabari Zuniga. Watch and see if he doesn’t get a little bit of action maybe at that buck position, because he’s a rush guy. You know Cece’s going to very likely back up Bullard. We kind of know that that that’s going to be the position. He’s going to be more of your strong side defensive end, a guy that’s a bigger guy. Watch for Zuniga. I think that Zuniga’s going to have a big year, and maybe it’s at that rush position. I may be totally wrong. He may end up playing strong side defensive end, but he’s a guy that, I don’t want to say he’s Dante Fowler, because it’s wrong, but he’s a guy that has that Fowler like ability coming out of high school where he was a defensive end that’s a bigger guy. I think that he has the ability to also drop back into cover some. The guy’s got a first step that’s unbelievable. In my opinion it’s McCallister and nobody. Jordan Sherit’s not playing football at the University of Florida when it’s meaningful time.
Nick: That’s a hot take.
Andrew: Yeah. That’s a hot take. Then two other guys that are kind of getting some praise a little bit Keivonnis Davis, he’s still getting a little bit of praise even though he’s a young guy, and then back to your point with Bryan Cox. I think Bryan Cox is too heavy to go there, but maybe in a pinch you slide him out and let him come off that edge a little bit or something like that. There’s, in my opinion, that rush end is a position that has a big wide open gap of who’s going to be that Number 2 guy behind McCallister.
Nick: Luckily McCallister’s a guy who can play a lot, but when you look at, and when you look at the team’s that Florida’s playing outside of a Georgia and an LSU, you’re really getting a lot of teams that are going to make Florida go into nickel. That rush guy isn’t just a guy who is only going to be rushing the quarterback. He’s going to have to drop down. He’s going to have to cover the flats, cover maybe a tight end, maybe have to cover a running back out. It’s not just a position where you can throw somebody like Jabari Zuniga. He’s a guy you might want to put in if it’s 3rd and 15. We’re going to play dime. All you have to worry about is hitting the guy that has the ball. You know what I mean? I think it’s putting a lot on a freshman’s plate to say we’re going to need you to make a call if the running back stays in. You know what I mean? It’s a lot on his plate there.
Andrew: Yeah. I think it’s one of those deals, it’s kind of like we always say with freshmen. Freshmen are going to be guys that you’re going to give one simple task early in the season, and that’s go hit the quarterback. That’s going to be a thing. I think you hit on a good point with even McMillian. You look at a guy like Rashad Jackson. He’s a guy that’s a good rush guy, even a guy like Jeremy Powell coming off the edge. Then if Matt Rolin gets healthy I thought he was going to be a guy that could potentially get into that rush edge position, especially on maybe 2nd down when it’s a play action or run play scenario. I thought that Rolin could be that way, and maybe a Rashad Jackson or a Jeremy Powell steps up into that, because all you simply want is an outside linebacker there. It’s not so much defensive end. You want an outside linebacker that can rush off the edge or go to the flats if that’s where it is. I don’t think you need to strictly look at a defensive end there. It’s more of an athletic body type that can hold up against an offensive tackle to go off that edge.
Nick: All right. I’m getting a lot of questions. I will ask you if you want to save it for your recruiting podcast. Lot of questions about a certain transfer quarterback. People want to know where is Florida standing? Does Florida have any chances to pick up a transfer quarterback named Ricky Town from USC?
Andrew: Ricky Town. I hadn’t heard that one before. Definitely. Nick, you and I talked about this late last night, late, late last night.
Nick: Past my bedtime.
Andrew: Past your bedtime. Past my bedtime. Without going into too much detail, let’s just simply say that the situation with Ricky Town leaving USC was not ideal. A, he left two weeks into fall camp, after he had been there for a whole semester. Why you do that is beyond me, but now he’s fourth string on the depth chart. The reasoning behind the talk is he committed to Nussmeier when Nussmeier was at Alabama. There’s a relationship there, sure, but my question becomes this, Ricky Town is now pissed at USC because he’s fourth string. He’s not coming to Florida and starting from Day 1. He’s not going to start over Grier or Treon, so he’s going to sit again. Obviously he doesn’t like this, so why bring in the disruption of that? It doesn’t make sense to me on that.
Then from some of the character issues that go along with that it doesn’t make me believe that he’s a true fit for McElwain’s offense, or McElwain’s program. McElwain doesn’t like that cancer type guy that’s going to interfere with his program to kind of cause a drift in the locker room. He doesn’t go with that.
Then when you talk to several people that have watched him, some quarterback coaches that are around the country that I’ve talked to today, they were like, Ricky Town’s overrated. Ricky Town’s not a great football player. He’s a guy that was over-hyped because he progressed as a freshman and sophomore in high school and then never got better, while the rest of the country got better their junior season and senior years. Ricky never did. USC took him because of some pressure of the LA kid going there. They were able to get some kids to go there because of the big name Ricky Town. Right now I don’t see it making sense. I’m told that it’s very unlikely Florida pursues him, but weirder things have happened. As I say in recruiting, nothing’s ever impossible, and I’ll never say it won’t happen.
Nick: I failed everyone. I let recruiting jump into my football podcast.
Andrew: That’s not recruiting. That’s a transfer. That means it’s your problem, not my problem. Your problem. Not my problem.
Nick: He’s not enrolled at the University of Florida, so Ricky Town is not my problem. Obviously that is a situation that is fluid, and if he is coming to Florida I’m sure Andrew will have you covered on that. As we head into, real quick before we sign off here, Jim McElwain did say that we’re entering now into the third week of fall camp. It’s kind of no man’s land in my opinion. Jim McElwain said the newness of the uniform, your brand new uniform that you put on, it’s been washed a couple times. It doesn’t feel new anymore. You’re still a couple weeks out from that game, and you still have this camp to go through. This is really the middle of camp, and you got to keep the enthusiasm up. He did say that Sunday was probably the best energy wise and performance wise, paying attention to the details, stuff like that, two a day practice that Florida has had. The players kind of talked about that.
Andrew, as a former coach, what is it like when you’re in the middle of a camp like this? I know you’re getting tired of hitting your teammates. You’re getting tired of seeing that same person you’ve been lining up against for weeks now, but you’re still not close enough where you have that game to look forward to. You’re not putting in that game plan. You’re not doing install yet. What are the challenges to keep up the energy and to make it through these couple days where, as Jim McElwain said, the team will do one of two things they will either make the decision that they’re going to get better and continue progressing, or they’ll make the decision that I just need to survive camp, as long as I don’t die out there on the field, I’m fine?
Andrew: You’re what, 19 days from game?
Nick: As we record this.
Andrew: I think the biggest thing for the challenges, like you said, you’re getting tired of hitting your opponent. You’re getting tired of hitting your teammate. A, I would expect to hear that they’re a lot more fights, however you want to call them. I hate to call them fights, because they’re not.
Nick: Brush ups.
Andrew: Yeah, brush ups. You’re going to hear a lot more of that.
Nick: Disagreements amongst teammates.
Andrew: There you go. You’re going to hear a little bit more of that. You’re going to have an Alex McCallister touch Will Grier after the whistle. You’re going to hear that stuff, but the thing that is where you’re at now is, like McElwain said, most of offense is in. Most of your install is in. Your install on offense is in. Defense and special teams are in. Now it’s more of we’re going to line up in this offense, and we’re going to change up the defense. How do you adjust as a left tackle to the 3-4 or the 4-3 or the bear defense when they go five linemen down? What do you do in the red zone?
You start to get more of your, not your game plan, because you don’t put your game plan in until game week or closer to game week, but you start to do some game like situations to where it tests mentally. A 3rd and 5, you have a check down that gets you to 1st down, or you could take a shot deep for 25 yards. What do you take? That’s the situations you come about with your third week. It’s more of the smaller things, more your game situation like where it’s more mental. It’s a lot of mental of keeping the last two weeks of what you learned and then moving forward with them against different defenses, against now Geoff Collins can send his rush. Last week he probably wasn’t sending his rush, as the offense was trying to really just prepare of what they knew. Now they’re going to be sending their rush guys. They’re going to put their full blitz package in.
That in my opinion is the biggest change that you see as you get closer to game week is you start to see the quarterbacks now have to think on the run. Now they have more of their two minute drill and more of their red zone package in there, more of their 11 on 11 game situations where they’re going through it. It’s crazy to see that fall camp is now four weeks, five weeks long now. It used to be three weeks long to where your second and your third week was like this is grueling. Now they got five weeks. So, as McElwain said, it’s very tough to keep them mentally focused in. You still got 19 days to game time. Now you’ve got to, as McElwain said, you want to dial back the contact a little bit. You don’t want to get too overly worn out, but you also want to keep your guys in shape. It’s a lot of conditioning as well in this third week. I wouldn’t be surprised, Nick, if you didn’t hear on Friday that there wasn’t a few more fights.
Nick: That’s not bad. People are going to get mad, but we will talk about the quarterbacks real quick.
Andrew: Oh, brother.
Nick: Not Florida’s quarterbacks, the quarterback battle has ended in the Lexington. Junior, Patrick Towles won the job over Drew Barker.
Andrew: Freshman.
Nick: Yeah. Towles is a guy, real big kid, mobile, big arm, gave Florida a run for their money last year down in the Swamp, so we will knock off one of the quarterback battles. I think there’s probably still less than half the teams in the SEC have a starting quarterback named. Nick Saban…
Andrew: He loses his guy.
Nick: Nick Saban today, well you lose Coker for a little while, but said that all five quarterbacks they have there are still in contention. That is a mess.
Andrew: That is definitely a mess. It’s going to be interesting to see how that battle shakes out now. I think Coker’s the guy that’s going to probably win that job, and I’m going to say this, and I’m going to get bashed, so here it goes. I know I’m going to get bashed. Coker may not be the best quarterback on that team. Is it a freshman that’s maybe the best quarterback on that team? I have to wonder if Coker’s the best quarterback on that team, and if now a guy like Blake Barnett, does he just shine the next couple days? What happens if he does? Is it going to be tough for Saban to turn the keys back over to a senior? You know he doesn’t care. That’ll be interesting to see how that goes. I think before Coker got hurt he was definitely the odds on favorite to win that job.
Nick: Yeah. I think he would. He’ll be back soon. I did get the chance to see Blake Barnett when I was at the opening a couple years back, very impressive kid, very impressive player, real big kid too as well. Florida fans, you are not the only ones waiting and waiting for a quarterback. Most teams in the SEC are, and we will touch on Will and Treon our next podcast, but we’ve been talking for a while. I’m tired. You’re probably tired of listening to me.
Andrew: Before we get off though I do think that it’s something to say that this fall camp has went pretty, I don’t want to say pretty much like we expected, but it did. It’s almost went pretty much as we expected it to be. There’s been a lot of guys battling for positions, and I think that that’s the one positive if you’re listening to this podcast is that you’re getting a lot of battles. You’re getting a lot of position battles, and it sounds like from everything I’ve been told it’s been a competitive fall camp. For Florida that’s good, because competitiveness will wear off into game situations. I think McElwain’s done a great job.
Nick: There’s been a lot of competition. Guys are playing a lot of positions as well, so it’s not just a guy competing at left tackle. He’s competing at left tackle and right tackle and right guard. Quincy Wilson’s been playing both sides of the field on the boundary, outside at cornerback, also playing nickel. He can play some of the dime as well. Guys are doing a lot of cross-training, and there’s a lot of competition at a lot of different spots.
Andrew: Definitely. A lot of work for the coaching staff, even more work than you and I have, unfortunately.
Nick: Yeah. That’s why they get paid the big bucks.
Andrew: Coach Mac, send a cool check my way, and I’ll help you out, buddy.
Nick: Thank you guys for tuning in. Andrew will have a special guest on his recruiting podcast later this week. Andrew, say goodbye to the listeners.
Andrew: Goodbye, listeners. Make sure you’re signed up for our fantasy football. It’s getting close. Keep in touch with Nick and I. It’s going to be a fun 19 days to football season.
Nick: If you’ve made it this long, let us know if you want Andrew and I to podcast while we do our Gator Country Fantasy Football draft. I don’t know if that would be interesting or not. It might only be interesting to the people in the league.
Andrew: Rated R. Do not put your children around this podcast if we do it. Andrew has a potty mouth.
Nick: They’re going to give us an adult content rating on iTunes. That reminds me. We are on iTunes now. Go ahead, click that subscribe button. We don’t care if you listen, just download. That helps us out.
Andrew: And give us a review.
Nick: And hit us up with a review. I’m just kidding. Listen. Download and listen. That is it. That is all we have for you today. Hope you enjoyed it. You stay classy, Gator Country.
Andrew: Peace, Gator Country.
You mentioned how you don’t think Jordan Sherit will play meaningful time for us. Has he performed poorly in practice? Or do you just think he isn’t the caliber of player that some of the other guys are?
Higher caliber players ahead of him.