Midweek preview podcast for Florida Gators vs. Vanderbilt

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we have Chris Lee from Vandy Sports on the show to help preview Florida Gators vs. Vanderbilt.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre ask Lee the tough questions about this game and ask him the strengths and weakness of Vanderbilt.

Andrew and Nick also talk about the charges being brought against the nine Florida suspended players.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:​What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, it’s going on. Wild Monday.
Nick:​Monday. It’s the beginning of, not necessarily the beginning of the end, but the beginning of a resolution to all of this.
Andrew:​Yeah. It was a lot more severe than a lot of us had thought it was going to be. It happens. It looks like things are going to start moving, as you said, to a direction of coming to an end. It looks like there might be several guys that face some long-time punishment.
Nick:​Yeah. This is going to take a while for the state attorney to finish it, to finish his investigation. That’s certainly on the table as far as guys could be getting in trouble and facing a lot of trouble, or guys could go through pretrial diversion and, if they’re good, they’ll be okay. It’s really kind of just up in the air, and it’s going to be on the state attorney.
Andrew:​I don’t know a better way to say it, Nick, except for what dumbasses. I hate to use that word for that, but what dumbasses, Nick. You know what’s right from wrong. I mean, I understand smoking marijuana. It’s whatever. Those guys smoke marijuana. They think it’s cool. Whatever. Stealing another man’s credit card, Nick, and purchasing stuff that you know is rightfully not your money is wrong. You know it’s wrong. You know you’re not going to get away with it. I have no sympathy for these guys.
Someone on Twitter was arguing with me on Monday night about how Alabama would brush it under the rug. Well, I don’t care what Alabama does. This is a difference between right and wrong. Football’s a privilege. Going to school for free is a privilege. It’s not something you’re guaranteed. It’s not something that is promised to you. It’s not something everybody can get. If you can’t follow the rules, you shouldn’t play football. If you’re going to steal from another man, no. I just have no sympathy for you.
Nick:​Then when you look. There are a couple guys, seven of the nine guys involved, only did it once. You can kind of explain that away as being young or as making a mistake. When you’re using, in Kadeem Telfort’s case, trying five, six different cards multiple times, over 30 times, you can’t explain that away as a mistake.
Andrew:​Right. Exactly. I don’t know, Nick. Maybe I’m being harsh on them. I don’t know what it is. I don’t agree. I don’t think that this should have been swept under the rug or tried to cover up or anything else. You do the crime, you face the punishment. Everyone, me and you get pretrial diversion. Everyone in America gets that at some point or another, and if that’s what the state attorney decides to do to these guys, then that’s fine, but no special privilege should be given to these guys whatsoever. Quite frankly, even if they do get pretrial diversion, like you said in your story, it’s unlikely they’d be back. They shouldn’t even have the opportunity to come back. Not this year.
Nick:​What about this? Jim McElwain has earned a reputation as a player’s coach. He stuck his neck out there for James Robinson, has done that for other players. What would it do recruiting wise if he kicks nine people off the team? Seven, because you would assume that Scarlett and Callaway would be leaving anyway.
Andrew:​Well, I don’t think that it does anything from that standpoint. It’s simply, at the end of the day, Nick, they have a job to do. Mac has a job to do, and the university has a job to do, and that is to uphold a good standing in the university and that kind of stuff. As a parent, I’m sure, Nick, you’ve spoke to parents, but I spoke with parents last night, on Monday night, and they all said they don’t want their kids being around this stuff, because it’s a bad influence.
Nick:​That’s a real issue.
Andrew:​We’re not going to spend the whole podcast on this. We’ll spend a little bit more time on it, but we got our good friend, Chris Lee, from Vandy Sports, going to come on and talk Vanderbilt, because there will be a lot of guys dressed out and playing ball this week against a Vandy team that was just blasted by Alabama. You know they’ll be looking for revenge. Nick, what do you say we go to Chris, talk to Chris, and we’ll come back. We’ll finish discussing this arrest crap and get some more thoughts on Vandy.
Nick:​Let’s do it.
Andrew:​All right, guys. We’re back, and Nick and I are joined by our good friend, Mr. Chris Lee, from Vandy Sports. First of all, Chris, how are you doing, and how’s Nashville treating you?
Chris:​Nashville is always great. It is a wonderful place to live. I’m sure a lot of fans in your listening audience have been up here for the games before, but it’s a phenomenal place to be. I am one of the few that actually, I wasn’t born here, but I was raised here from four months on, and one of the few that actually stayed. It seems like everybody else in Nashville is from somewhere else, but I’m one of the guys that has seen Nashville really explode in the last 20 years, and it’s been amazing to see.
Nick:​Best SEC city/town. Nashville’s not a town. It’s a city. Best SEC city in the conference, for sure.
Chris:​Yeah. I don’t know who would be second, maybe Lexington.
Nick:​Starkville.
Chris:​I’m pretty sure that’s one we can rule out.
Andrew:​Don’t talk up Nashville too much. I might lose my partner up to you guys. Let’s not go there. Chris, I think that the thing on everyone’s mind, I know Nick and I have talked about this, is how does Vandy rebound from last week? It’s Alabama, and you can’t hang your hat on getting beat by Alabama, but kind of how it went about.
Chris:​That’s the thing on my mind too. I was pretty shocked at the way that game went down, because everybody knows about Florida and the recruits it gets. I did some math on that this week in a 3-2-1 piece I did. It was really astonishing, even to me, after I went back and looked at the talent differential between those teams. The fact is that Alabama, coming to that game and giving up almost 400 yards to Colorado State and 23 points the week before. It’s one thing to have talented kids, but you never know when it’s going to click. I think it clicked for Alabama last week, and Vanderbilt was in sort of a bad place at a bad time. You don’t want to be around Alabama when that team figures it out.
​It was so astonishing to me, because they just got whipped from the first play. They almost looked intimidated to me. I don’t know if that’s fair or not, but it just seemed like they were off their game. They got a delay of game penalty before their first snap of the game. You saw guys jumping off sides. This was a team that had been very confident and very disciplined coming into that game. What I saw on Saturday was so far out of character that I don’t know what to think.
I think we had a very appropriate headline for our short game story after that game, and it was Control Alt Delete was just simply the headline we used on that one. I think that’s probably good advice for Vanderbilt. How well it’s able to do that, I think, will have a lot to say with how the game plays out on Saturday.
Nick:​Alabama losing to Colorado State, or not losing, playing that way, giving up those yards, might have been the worst thing possible for Vanderbilt.
Chris:​I think you’re right. Yeah.
Nick:​You get a pissed off Nick Saban for a week. There’s no way that they’re coming out flat against Vanderbilt after getting chewed out all week for what they did against Colorado State.
Chris:​In hindsight, I think it was. It seems clear. It never is that way, but as I put in a piece I did this week, when the elephant decides to stampede, there’s not a lot you can do about it.
Nick:​Right.
Andrew:​Yeah. Alabama’s depth. I mean, that’s a killer. I say this, and I don’t mean no disrespect to Vandy fans, but this is everybody. Their second string could beat most SEC football teams.
Chris:​I think the only team that has a remote chance against them, and I wouldn’t pick them for anything, in the SEC is Georgia. I think Georgia has got athletes and talent on its front seven on defense, and that’s what it takes to kind of combat Alabama. I don’t think anybody in the SEC, at this point, can really come close. I think, it’s like I said, it’s still possible for Vanderbilt to recover mathematically and win the East. Whether that’s something the fans want or not at this point. I kind of laugh about it, because, of course, if you’re Vanderbilt you would like to win the East, but that also means you get to face that team again. That wouldn’t be a lot of fun.
Andrew:​Exactly. Chris, let’s cut the BS. We both know Georgia will find a way to slip down the stretch. They always do.
Chris:​I’m just not sold on Kirby Smart yet. I just think that the missteps that he made in the off season, it just seems like he’s hell bent on really pissing off the media and everybody down there. I don’t think that’s really smart, until you have proven you can win big, which he has not done yet. We’ll see.
Andrew:​Agreed. Absolutely. Let’s get into this matchup a little bit. Obviously, Vandy comes in. Their defense is known to be good, despite what happened last week. It’s kind of thing, and I talked to Nick about this, and I was telling people this in social media and things. You can throw out the record books. You can throw out the stats on Florida and Vanderbilt play. It’s always going to be a close game, and that’s how it seems to be most of the time. I guess, what do you see the keys for Vandy in this game?
Chris:​I think the first thing is getting over the week before, which I think they’re going to handle, but I’m anxious to see how they respond at the press conference, which I’ll be heading to in a few minutes. Anxious to see how they respond on Friday. Vanderbilt’s been very good, again, at being disciplined and avoiding mistakes. Guys, these teams are very similarly built. I think their bread is buttered first on defense. Florida’s probably going to have a crop of athletes, in terms of recruiting rankings, but Vanderbilt’s kids, at least until last week, had been very explosive off the edge and pretty physical. Vanderbilt’s got some players too.
I think both teams have got some questions on offense. I think Vanderbilt is going to head in with the better quarterback. Kyle Shurmur had been really good until last week, and I don’t really pin last week on him. I think that was just a total failure across the board. I think he’s been able to make the right play at the right time for them, and I think it’s going to be avoiding mistakes and trusting the defense, and letting him make that right play at the right time, which, again, he’d been really good at until this last week.
Andrew:​Yeah.
Nick:​Shurmur was completing, is still, but was completing well over 60% of his passes through those first three games. I think eight touchdowns.
Chris:​Yeah.
Nick:​No interceptions.
Chris:​He’s not chopped liver. He was a four-star recruited out of high school. His dad is Pat Shurmur, so he grew up throwing footballs with Donovan McNab and stuff like that. He’s a smart kid. He’s got a good arm. His arm had been deadly accurate until last week, and the interception he threw was off a ball that his tight end tipped. I think that, if you’ve not really been watching them and paying attention, Kyle Shurmur has been pretty sneaky good for them this year. Again, we’ll see what happens, if there’s a hangover from Saturday, but the kid I saw the first three weeks was definitely an SEC caliber quarterback. Not just a guy who can manage a game, but a guy who had started to show the ability to win you some as well.
Andrew:​I think that’s kind of where my next point leads me, and that is Florida’s been pretty good with defending the pass, and they’ve struggled with the running game a little bit. Ralph Webb being a Gainesville guy, obviously coming back and all that. How has the running game been for Vandy? Do you see that being something they’re going to focus on this week?
Chris:​Well, it’s been abysmal, to be honest with you. They are averaging just over two yards a carry against FBS teams. Honestly, Webb has not looked good at all this year. I don’t know how much is on him. I don’t know how much is on the play calling. They seem to do 90% of their runs between the tackles, and they’ve got guys in the backfield not long after he touches the ball. Ralph seems a little slow to react maybe, but his history’s been that he’s been a good back.
Guys, they’ve got major trouble between the tackles. They’ve been rotating players at guard. Had a lot of injuries along the offensive line in preseason camp. That led to having to get some guys some different reps. That led to an unsettled lineup when they went to the season. They moved their right guard, Bruno Reagan, who’s a good one, to center. I don’t know if they’re better off as a team with him at right guard. If you do that, then you have to give a new center some snaps, which I don’t know if you want to do that in the Swamp.
They’re just in a mess right now in the running game. I would be shocked if they fix that in Gainesville, given the athletes the Gators have on the front seven. I just think they have to become a pass first team right now, because they’re going to have to get through this little blip on the schedule where they go Alabama, Florida, Georgia. I don’t think there’s three teams in the country, I don’t think there’s a team in the country that’s going to have a three-game stretch where it faces more talent on the front seven than Vandy does, and Florida right smack in the middle of that this Saturday.
I think they’re going to have to fix their running game some other time, because I don’t think it’s going to come in Gainesville. Although, Ralph Webb is going to be fired up for that game, and you never, never know. Also, honestly, they can’t get much worse, so I think that’s worth mentioning as well.
Nick:​Jim McElwain joked about Webb. He said, “Two years ago I think he ran home, had lunch, came back and kept running on us.” It’s certainly a game, for any kid that grows up in Gainesville, you’ve got orange and blue running through your games. Then to have a chip on your shoulder like they didn’t want me, the hometown team didn’t want me. Well, I’ll see you soon. Ralph Webb has absolutely gone off on Florida those past two years. But it doesn’t mean much, like you said, if the entire offense line is kind of finding its way. Ralph Webb can’t block for himself.
Chris:​Let’s face it, the three of us could have locked arms and run through that hole that Ralph had in that game two years ago. Nothing against Ralph, because he has operated most of his career without bit holes, but I think that’s the biggest hole I’ve ever seen Vanderbilt blow in an SEC defense.
Nick:​The seas just parted. We could have walked through it casually.
Chris:​I think he had about as much room as from hashmark to hashmark there. I mean, it was crazy. That’s what Ralph needs to get going, and he just hasn’t had many of those so far.
Andrew:​Let’s turn the table here to the defensive side of the ball. Defensively, what do you think Vandy’s game plan is? To take away the running game and make Del Rio pass, with this being the first start of the year? Florida’s running game was better against Kentucky late in the game, but before that it was atrocious as well. Let’s face it, Del Rio doesn’t have the biggest of arms. Where do you see that defensively going for Vandy?
Chris:​You guys know Florida much better than I do, but on what I know of Vanderbilt and what I know of Florida, I think that’s what I would try to do as well. Their defense had been phenomenally good until the Alabama game. They were #1 in the country in total defense, and in points allowed.
One of the keys to that is teams just have not been able to pass on their secondary. They’ve got a cornerback named Joejuan Williams, who’s a true sophomore, who was a top 100 recruit at one point. I think he was a top 60 recruit, and then he was ineligible his senior year of high school, because he transferred schools. So he kind of plummeted down the rankings, but he’s a legitimate 6’3” corner who’s really physical, got good ball skills. I think you’re going to see Joejuan as an early NFL draft pick within a year or two, because he’s very good at blanketing other receivers.
They’ve got a couple of good safeties. They’ve got a kid named Ryan White who’s really good. Their secondary, their starting five defensive backs, have just been so steadily consistent all year, with the exception of some hiccups in that Alabama game. I think, if I’m Florida, I don’t know that I want to put that ball in the air with Luke Del Rio against that secondary, because they’ve been good. They also have been really good in getting a pass rush, until last game. Charles Wright, who is a linebacker, who they line up along the line of scrimmage, he was leading the SEC in sacks until the Alabama game. I don’t know if that’s still the case.
That combination of being able to get pressure and having guys that can really blanket receivers has been a real winner for Vanderbilt so far. I think if I’m the Gators I’m really hesitant to try that, unless you see something on film that you’re confident that you can exploit.
Andrew:​If you go into this game, and Vandy wins the game, it will be because of what? If they lose the game, it will be because of what?
Chris:​I think if they lose the game it’s because their confidence was shot from a week ago. I think it’s because they probably turn the ball over. They have been, again, phenomenal at turnovers. They have, I think, only turned it over once all year, and that was last week. That’s something. That’s usually a pretty winning formula for football games.
​I think the other thing will be, again, I’ve kind of conceded that the running game’s not going to happen. I think they’ve got to loosen up the play calling and let Kyle Shurmur take advantage of his arm and his accuracy, and trust him to make some throws. I think if they turn the ball over, and they get too conservative, they’re probably going to lose the game. I think if they take some chances, and they are careful with ball security, I think they’ve got a good chance to pull an upset.
Andrew:​Okay. As we always do, Nick, first off, do you have any more questions before we go to the obvious ones?
Nick:​Yeah. We do our predictions on Friday, on our Friday podcast. I was already kind of teetering on the edge of I’m going to pick Vanderbilt. I don’t know how much Florida has dumped out the tank two weeks in a row in these games, and I was already teetering on the edge. You might be talking me into it a little bit.
Chris:​I could see this game going either way, because the games have always been close. I don’t think there’s any doubt that on paper Florida has more talent year in and year out, because of recruiting rankings, but James Franklin beat them down in Gainesville four years ago. When Vanderbilt went to Gainesville two years ago.
Nick:​The 9-7 game.
Chris:​Yeah. If Florida doesn’t kick a field goal, which it had a problem kicking all year, Vanderbilt wins that game. Last year went down to the final two minutes. I don’t know. I’m anxious too to see how much these suspensions and things affect Florida. I guess they’ve been dealing with it all year, and maybe it’s built in already, but that’s kind of the thing on the Florida end that I’m curious about too. Does this off the field stuff finally take a toll? When you’ve got all that stuff going on and all those questions being asked, at some point how does that affect your mental approach?
You saw it last week in Nashville. When you’re not sharp in the SEC, you can take a beating, and that’s what happened to Vandy. I’m kind of anxious on my end to see how Florida handles all that as well.
Andrew:​Nick, anything else before we get out of here?
Nick:​No. All good. I’m probably going to pick Vanderbilt Friday, Spivey. Just letting you know.
Andrew:​Oh, Lord. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Chris. My mentions will blow up.
Chris:​Sorry if I get you guys in trouble, but thank you for having me on.
Andrew:​You got it, Chris. Tell everyone where they can find you. We’ll get out of here, and we’ll hope to talk to you very soon, and good luck this weekend.
Chris:​Thank you. It’s VandySports.com. That’s part of the Rivals.com network. Also do a podcast, the Vandy Sports Podcast, that you can hear. It’s on iTunes. Guys, thank you so much for having me on. God bless you. Have a great week.
Andrew:​You too. Thank you so much, Chris.
Nick:​Thanks, Chris.
Chris:​You bet.
Andrew:​All right, Nick, good stuff from our pal, Chris, up there. I’ll be straight honest with you, Nick. I don’t know very much about Vanderbilt, besides the beating they took on Saturday, which you can’t draw very much from that. Thanks to Chris for coming on and making us a little bit smarter today.
Nick:​Yeah. I think that is probably about as good of a guy to bring on to talk about Vanderbilt as you can get. Thank you to Chris again.
Andrew:​Yeah. He made some good points. You and I were kind of talking in between talking to him and everything, and we were like, might be a closer game. Might have some thinking to do for picks on Friday for this game on Saturday, especially a noon kickoff. Florida struggles there.
Nick:​I know that Shurmur has been accurate this year. It’s kind of like you said, listen, you kind of throw that Alabama game out. It’s almost a perfect storm of that you know they got chewed all week for what they looked like against Colorado State, and it was just a perfect storm going into that game. I think, if you throw that out, you look at Shurmur and what he’s done. It’s not really Florida’s weakness. If Vandy’s strength is passing, that’s really not Florida’s weakness.
I think if you had a better offensive line, when you look at how atrocious Florida has been tackling, to me that’s where the game could be won. If you could run the ball and force Florida to tackle Ralph Webb, which they haven’t done in two years, to me that would be the way to go. Not when you have offensive line problems.
Andrew:​Exactly. That’s the key is how are they going to score points. If you’re into a situation where you can’t throw the ball, guess what? That defensive line that Florida has that’s really good is going to pin their ears back and just come.
Nick:​Florida’s defensive line continues to impress me. It’s not just the ends. It’s the ends. It’s all the freshmen too. Slaton, Conliffe. Who am I forgetting there?
Andrew:​Kyree. Kyree Campbell.
Nick:​Kyree Campbell. Those three guys, behind Bryan, Taven Bryan. I know it’s not really showing up in stats for Taven, but he’s been disruptive, and so has Khairi Clark. Then the four guys coming off the edge. It’s really, right now, I think the defensive line is playing scary, especially in the passing game.
Andrew:​Yeah. I think it’s one of those where you go into this game, and you have to look at the mindset of both teams. Chris made a good point. How is Mac and his staff, and how is these players after all this is out there? I think we all knew, and I think that as bad as it was surprised a lot of people yesterday. Maybe even have surprised some people in the football building of how bad it was. I think everyone knew there was going to be some big time legal problems, but I don’t think anybody knew how bad it was going to be.
Nick:​Yeah. A big problem is, and what could complicate things, and it’s something when I talked to the state attorney yesterday he said that they will look into, is scheme. It goes back to like how the FBI brought the mob back in the day. They created this thing called racketeering, and it was able to prove a criminal organization. Not saying that Florida’s a criminal organization at all, but scheme. If you can somehow prove that these nine guys were all working together, and that this is a big plot, that they had some big black book of credit card numbers that they were sharing and passing around, that makes it worse.
On the flip side, all of these guys don’t have a criminal history. People are quick to say, “What about Antonio Callaway?” Antonio Callaway’s never been convicted of anything. He was investigated his freshman year. He had the misdemeanor possession charge. Went through pretrial diversion for that.
Another question people have been asking, “Well, he already went through pretrial diversion, so he can’t do that here.” It’s different county by county. In Alachua County, going through pretrial diversion for a misdemeanor, which possession of marijuana is, does not preclude you from going through pretrial diversion for a felony, which is what these charges are. Now, if he was back at home and did this, in Miami Dade County, no luck. In Miami Dade and Brower counties, if you go through pretrial diversion once, that’s it. You get it one time. It doesn’t matter if it’s misdemeanor or felony. Almost lucky for him that he’s not doing this stuff back home, and it’s going through in Alachua.
The process now is that the state attorney’s going to be going through all the investigation. When you look at it, this is not a week thing. This is not a two week thing. This might not be resolved for three weeks, a month. This investigation with UFPD started August 15, and they just turned their stuff in September 25. That’s how massive the investigation was, and how much information they have that now the state attorney and his office has to go through, and then conduct his own investigation, do his own interviews. This is not a quick fix, by any means.
You will have all the lawyers representing the players starting the conversation. Saying, “Hey, Bill, this is what I have. This is why I think we can do a pretrial diversion.” Pretrial diversion is basically the defendant, the players, would enter into a contract basically with the state attorney that has certain criteria. You have meet all these things. Felony pretrial diversion is longer, anywhere from 12-18 months, a year, year and a half. You’ve got to follow all these things. It’s not out of the realm that, for guys like Callaway and Scarlett, who have had misdemeanor possession charges for marijuana, that drug tests would be part of that as well. If you fail to meet any of the criteria in your pretrial diversion, the charges are immediately reintroduced and brought back up, and then pretrial diversion is off the table.
Andrew:​Right. That’s the thing. Let’s hold that for a second, Nick. Let’s hold that discussion for a second, get back on this Vandy game real quick just for a second. What I was saying is how does Florida get past this? It’s been going on for three weeks, but now it’s out there in the light. How do they get past that? How does Vandy get past that game against Alabama? How do they get past that? How is the mental state of both teams going into this? How does the team react to Del Rio coming in and being that guy?
​There’s a lot of parts, Nick. I said this on Monday’s podcast, and I can’t keep saying it enough. When you have a team that is full of distractions, and you have to question every week the effort and this, that, and the other, you have a problem. Once again, guess what we’re doing this week? We’re questioning it.
Nick:​It’s going to sound harsh, but as far as the distractions go, I would say the team has to just operate, when it comes to the suspended players, the team just has to operate as they’re not here. They’re not part of the program. They’re not on the team. To me, it comes out, and guys were asked about it yesterday, and they’ll be asked about it today, but really I think it comes down to they’re not with us. They’re not here. I don’t think that should be a distraction.
Andrew:​Yeah. You got a good point.
Nick:​It’s hard. I think that goes back to, McElwain was asked weeks ago, are you concerned about these guys? He said, “No. I have no concern.” That’s not him saying I think everything’s going to be cool, everything’s going to be fine and dandy. It’s just, my job is to go win a football game Saturday. They’re not playing in the football game Saturday, so I can’t be concerned about them in that regard. I think that’s how the team has to handle it.
Andrew:​Yeah. Exactly. I don’t know, Nick. I don’t know what to say is going to happen in this game, because this team is just full of uncertainty. I say this again. If you can play four quarters of football, I’d like to see it. Haven’t seen it yet. You haven’t seen it yet. You’ve seen like one quarter of good football in the Michigan game, final 10 minutes of the Kentucky game, final 10 minutes of the Tennessee game. Put a full game together, and let’s see what happens.
Obviously, Vandy has some holes that you can go at. Florida should be able to run the ball this week against Vanderbilt, and then Del Rio should be able to get some play actions and take some shots and go forward. I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s possible.
Nick:​Like Chris said, it’s something that Vanderbilt always has to deal with, almost no matter who they play in the in SEC, is that skill player, talent discrepancy. It’s just hard to get into Vanderbilt. It’s really hard to get into Vanderbilt, and you don’t get the same kind of skill players that other teams have. That’s why teams in the past have kind of just rolled over Vandy. Maybe they hang on in the 1st quarter, but they have trouble running with teams for four quarters.
Why has that been the case with Florida though? Why hasn’t it been the case with Florida recently? Two years ago, at home, Austin Hardin’s got to kick a 40-something yard field goal, I think, to beat Vanderbilt 9-7. Last year, in Vanderbilt, really the game is still in question late, and you look bad.
I think Derek Mason is, I think we said it Monday, I think Derek Mason is probably the best defensive coach in the country right now, and has that defense ready to play. I just don’t understand why Florida has struggled with this team so much when you look, like Chris said, at how big the gap is between the players you’re getting, the recruiting.
Andrew:​I mean, I don’t know the answer to that question, Nick. Again, we’ll see kind of where it goes. We’ll see where the team reacts come Saturday. We know how Florida struggles on the noon kickoffs.
Nick:​You got to just get over that, man. You’re going to wake up early. It’s a different schedule. I get it historically, but get over it. Show up.
Andrew:​Exactly. Anything else you want to hit on with the arrest thing before we get out of here, or you feel pretty comfortable saying what you said?
Nick:​I have a story up our site that kind of explains everything that the guys will be going through from a legal standpoint. Hopefully, you guys listening haven’t had to go through stuff like this by yourself, and you don’t know by experience what’s going through, so that’s why I wrote it. There’s just a lot. It’s a whole process, and it’s kind of laid out there for you on the website. I think there’s just a lot of questions. I think I hit on them there. It’s just it’s a long way from over.
Take football out of the equation, just as being young people, you don’t need felonies on your record. Take football out of the equation, and that’s what they’re doing right now, their lawyers are doing, is “We’re trying to make sure this doesn’t affect the rest of your life.” Because football might be your life in your mind right now, but football ends. You have to go on living after that, and it’s a lot harder to do that with a felony on your record.
Andrew:​Absolutely. That’s something we’re going to have to continue to monitor as we go on. Nick, we’ll be back on Friday, have our normal predication podcast, all that good stuff.
Nick:​Which I am running away with.
Andrew:​Okay. That’s fine. Hey, I’m running away with the others.
Nick:​Got you. Maybe. I haven’t kept a record for that. I’ve only kept a record for players.
Andrew:​Anyway, tell everyone where they can find us. We’ll get out. We’ll see everyone on Friday.
Nick:​www.GatorCountry.com for all your Florida Gator news. The podcast is there in audio and transcript form. If you ever need to find the podcast, it’s also on iTunes. Hit subscribe, and you’ll get a nice little notification every Monday, Wednesday, Friday when the podcast comes up. You won’t have to ask questions. You can follow us on social media as well. @GatorCountry on Twitter and Facebook, and it’s @GatorCountry on the iTunes podcast store. Find us there. Me, @NickdelaTorreGC. He is @AndrewSpiveyGC.
Andrew:​Yeah. Follow us. Hit us up. If you’re looking to join, hit us up. We’ll get you a good special. Guys, we’ll see you on Friday. As always, go Braves, and chomp, chomp.
Nick:​You stay classy, Gator Country.