Thompson joins the podcast to talk Florida Gators offense

Gator Country brings you a new podcast as Dan Thompson break his numbers break down to the podcast to help break down the Florida Gators during the bye week.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre talk with Thompson about the numbers that show Florida’s offense has improved but just isn’t finishing drives when in opponents territory.

Andrew and Nick also ask for Thompson’s mid season MVP’s, plus they gave you their picks, plus talk about the breakout players so far this year.

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, back with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, it’s a bye week, but it’s not a bye week at the same time, because the Gators are out recruiting. If there’s a big name prospect in a state across the country, chances are the Gators are seeing them on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday.

Nick:                         This class needs a little pick me up, right?

Andrew:                 I think, usually you don’t see the coaches out on Tuesday. You see them back at home, either just game planning a little bit or other things, but I think that with that loss of that LSU it was a must that Florida see everyone they possibly could. Especially, Florida didn’t go out, despite what Clay Travis said, didn’t host recruits that week of the canceled game, so you miss a huge recruiting weekend. Then you miss it completely when the game gets moved. So important for Florida to get out and get some face time with some of these guys who they’re going to need to fill this class, because there’s a ton of talent leaving next year.

Andrew:                 I think things are not as half full as some people see it. I’ve been very impressed with a lot of the guys on defense, but we’ll talk about that more in a minute. We’re going to be joined by Daniel Thompson today, our statistician, our numbers man. He’s going to come on and talk about some numbers. I think he comes on, and I think he’s going to talk about that offense. He told us a number before we taped today about that the offense wasn’t as bad as everybody makes it out to be. I talked to someone about that over the weekend, and they were like, this offense is improving. I’m like, still not scoring a ton of points, but the stat Dan wants to talk about today is going to prove that.

Nick:                         I think what he really does well is not just say, “Here are the numbers.” Dan does a really good job of saying, “Here are the numbers, and this is how the numbers are affecting what you see on the field. So you think person’s bad, statistically, no, they’re not, but look at this other stat. That’s what makes you think that someone’s playing worse than they are, or that the offense is worse than it is.” We’ll get into some stuff with him where people are complaining about Florida’s offense, but it’s really not that bad.

Andrew:                 It’s just the simple fact of stupid penalties at stupid times, and it’s one of those things where I hate to just continue to harp on Willy Muschamp, but it’s most of the penalties are against veterans, for the most part. It’s against veterans, and it’s stupid stuff, and it’s continuing to happen. Anyway, we’ll go to Dan here now. We’ll talk to Dan real quick. I know he’s waiting on us. We’ll talk to Dan, get some stats, and then we’re going to come back here in a minute, after Dan does, we’ll talk kind of about what he talked about, and then we’ll also pick some mid season awards. We can do offense, defense, just some surprise guys, maybe freshman of the year, that kind of stuff. Sound good, Nick?

Nick:                         Perfect.

Andrew:                 Let’s go to Dan real quick.

Welcome back, Gator Country. We’re now joined by the statistician, or the numbers man, Mr. Daniel Thompson. Mr. Daniel Thompson, how are you doing, my friend?

Dan:                         Great, man. It’s good to connect with you guys again. Nick, it was great seeing you in Gainesville on Saturday.

Nick:                         Absolutely.

Andrew:                 So we brought you back on, because you promised not to be boring. Are you still keeping that promise?

Dan:                         I don’t know if I can promise you that. I’ll try my best though.

Andrew:                 My judgement will be reserved until the end. Twitter, you can reserve it to the end as well. Dan, let’s talk. You broke down the numbers. We’re just talking before we got on here real quick. I wanted to start off with this number, because I like to throw the negative out first, end with positive. The negative is what in the world is Florida doing on finishing drives when they start in the opponent’s territory?

Dan:                         Not good. They’re really struggling. They’ve struggled all year. This is the first game that they’ve really seemed to do a little bit better against Missouri, but ultimately going into this game they were ranked 81st in the country on entering the opponent’s 40 yard line and then getting the fewest amounts of points out of that possible. So there’s two things that contribute there. One, they have stupid turnovers, like the one that Jordan Scarlett had there on the 1 yard line, and, two, they just don’t seem to have the playmakers to be able to convert in the red zone line you need. We’ve not seen much out of Deandre Goolsby or C’yontai Lewis in the red zone. We don’t seem to have a real power back that can break the tackles at the goal line, so that they’ve struggled all season once they get to the 40 yard line. They’re lucky they have a field goal kicker this year, but for some reason last year and this year once they get to the 40 yard line they stall, and it’s really discouraging, because the rest of the offense actually is doing pretty well up to that point.

Andrew:                 I was about to say, the lack of production from the tight ends in general is probably the single most disappointing thing of the year. When you look back and McElwain and Nuss with their production from the tight ends, you think they always have been really good. Now you look at this with Goolsby and Lewis this year. Lewis is MIA, and Goolsby is catch it, fall down, because he’s not going anywhere.

Dan:                         That’s discouraging, because you and I and Nick even thought that before this year that this was C’yontai Lewis’ breakout year. I think last year with Jake McGee that gave you a target, but there should be no reason that both C’yontai Lewis and Deandre Goolsby, who both have some size and both have height, are not only unable to get open, because they’re both pretty athletic, but they’re not able to make the play when it counts. When you get down to the 40 yard line, or certainly get down into the 20 yard line where the Gators are 117th in red zone offense, once you get down there, the problem is that they don’t have targets, because Antonio Callaway is now able to be guarded by multiple players.

Tyrie Cleveland may be an option in the future, but it’s tough to rely on him now. So you really count on your tight ends to be able to get open in the flats or to make plays or to be able to throw the jump ball, and Florida doesn’t have that right now. That’s probably the most discouraging piece of this offense going into the year.

Nick:                         Why doesn’t it though, because if you look at it you’ve got a 6’4” and a 6’3” tight end. You’ve got Tyrie Cleveland, who’s 6’2”, can jump out of the gym. You’ve got, at least on paper, you’ve got those red zone threats, and it’s just is a play calling thing? I don’t know if any of us have the answers. Is it play calling? Is it scheme? Is it on the players not doing what they need to do? It’s not like Florida has a bunch of 5’6” receivers when they get down to the red zone, and now you’re trying to fit the ball into a tight space, crossing routes and slants. You’ve got guys that you can say, “Put it up, and he’s going to go get it.”

Andrew:                 I think the game’s changed a little bit. I think you don’t see the jump ball as much anymore. You don’t see that in the NFL. You don’t see it in college very much anymore, because corners are bigger. The game has evolved, and now it’s more of throwing your inside slants, throwing your out routes, that kind of stuff. Quite frankly, Florida hasn’t been successful throwing the slants. They haven’t been successful throwing across the middle. You look at Florida’s touchdowns, really most of them have come on crossing routes from Powell, Cleveland, Callaway, those kind of guys, or running plays.

Dan:                         Right. I think that there’s a couple of things to look at. What’s interesting, I was just looking through my spreadsheet here. Since the middle of last year, the highest that Florida has ranked in red zone offense has been 94th. They’ve been more closer to like the 110, 120 range since then, but they were only ranked 94th.

Nick:                         Out of 128 teams.

Dan:                         Yeah. I mean, they’re absolutely terrible. I don’t want to say it’s only the players, because there’s obviously something happening that from last year to this year Florida has never ranked better than like 70th in the country in red zone offense, and that was at the beginning of last year. So what the heck is going on with the playbook that it’s not opening the Gators up to score more points in the red zone, because that’s probably the most frustrating piece of it is that you’re getting that far, and then you’re having to settle for a field goal.

Andrew:                 I’ll say this too. This is something that I’m sure we could pull up, but penalties. It seems like that penalties are more noticeable and happen more in the red zone. That was particularly the case against Missouri. That was the case against Kentucky a couple times as well that when they got close it was either a false start, a holding. I think they’ve even had an offense pass interference this year. It’s always been something that has pushed them back.

Dan:                         Yeah. Florida’s terrible at penalties, and the excuse that everybody has is the Gators were ranked really high when they had a ton of penalties in the years that they went for the national championship. That’s because they had an offense that could make up for those lost yards. Now that they don’t these penalties really hurt more. That’s one area that that’s really hurt the Gators. We saw it against Missouri, and we’ve seen it a couple times this year, where points have come off the board, or certainly the progress towards the goal line has been halted because of a lack of attention to detail, because that’s the one area on the field that you don’t want to have a penalty is inside the 40, or certainly inside the 20 yard line. I mean, the Gators are committing 8.25 penalties a game. That’s a lack of attention to detail. That might fall a little bit on coaching, but ultimately, I mean, they’re picking the worst times on the play field to actually have a penalty.

Andrew:                 I think it’s a couple things. I think that it’s lack of discipline that starts with the staff, and I think it goes back to kind of what I’ve been on all year, and that is a lack of leadership on this team. There’s not that one leader on offense. I think it goes back to that. I think that you made a good point and kind of led me into my next thing that I want to talk about. I think that the penalty yards has made the offense look worse than it really is. When you look back at that game on Saturday, and you see Florida had 500 yards, you’re like, the offense just doesn’t look that good. At the end of the day, offense is only judged by how many points they score, and I think that that took a lot of points off the board, especially on those first two drives of the game.

Dan:                         Absolutely. When you’re only averaging a little bit more than four points for every time you get to the opponent’s 40 yard line, you’re ranking really low nationally, and so you could have the world’s best offense, and then if you’re constantly stalling at the 20 or the 15 yard line, because you need to settle for a field goal, because there was a false start on the left tackle, or one of the wide receivers wasn’t set in his formation, then you’re going to constantly be hindered in terms of what you’re able to accomplish. Until they can get over those silly mistakes, Florida’s always going to look more average than they probably are, because the statistics say that Florida actually has a pretty decent offense. They haven’t played the best defenses in the country, but still they’ve played some pretty decent defenses, but they constantly are stopping at the 20 and the 40 yard line, because they don’t have the attention to detail that you would hope that a team six games into the year would have by now.

Andrew:                 Maybe that’s a couple things. Maybe that’s a little bit with the lack of a steady quarterback there, maybe that is, and then also with the changing of the running backs. Maybe that’s a little bit of it as well. There might be a couple things that can lead into that.

Dan:                         Yeah. It certainly could. I would say my only argument against that is that it’s been that way for the last 20 games. Since the beginning of last season Florida has really struggled with their cadence, with the constant penalties. I mean, they’re stupid penalties. It’s not like offense pass interference or a lot of holding calls. It’s a lot of silly false start penalties or illegal formation, because a wide receiver wasn’t set on the line properly. They’re a lot of real mental mistakes, and maybe this week when they focus on the fundamentals those are the things that they’re going to focus on.

Nick:                         When you have a regular game week, you’re focusing on scheme, what are they trying to do to us? How can we be successful against them? Maybe a bye week, not even maybe, the week after eight false starts on offense, you can’t ask for a better time for a bye week. I’m sure that will be worked on. Eight false starts is really unacceptable. At home, it’s not even like you’re dealing with crowd noise. To me, that’s unacceptable, and you’re right. You get down to the 20 yard line, it’s 1st and 10, false start. Now it’s 1st and 15. Holding, now it’s 1st and 20. Then you’re putting yourself behind the 8 ball when you get down to where the field gets shorter.

Dan:                         It’s not even that the penalties get called on Jawaan Taylor all that often. I think he had one, maybe two penalties at the most against Missouri, but it’s against Martez Ivey, who’s third year in the program. David Sharpe’s third year in the program. Antonio Callaway, who’s second year in the program.

Nick:                         Martez is second year.

Dan:                         Sorry, Martez is second year, but these are guys that should know the cadence. They should know their call, and you just look at it, and you kind of have to shake your head. I mean, three years into the program for David Sharpe, and he’s getting called what’s seemingly multiple times every game for a false start.

Andrew:                 Lack of discipline.

Dan:                         Yes.

Andrew:                 Yeah. It’s inexcusable for a guy like Martez. I mean, it’s inexcusable for any of them, to be honest with you. You could have made a case for Jawaan if he had done it at Tennessee in his first road game, but even for Jawaan in front of his home crowd where the fans aren’t cheering when Florida’s got the ball, that’s inexcusable. At the end of the day, that all starts with their coach, Mark Summers.

Dan:                         Yeah. At the end of the day, Mark Summers isn’t the one that’s out there, though. So that would be the one thing that I’d have to say is that these guys, I mean, the coach I think can only tell them to do so much, but now it’s know your mark, know your cadence, and be prepared. Just be prepared. Mentally prepare yourself to be the best that you can be that game, and if you’re not, then kindly take yourself off the field and let somebody else that’s going to be more in tune to the game, but these silly penalties are probably the most frustrating thing that Gators fans could want, because they’re getting down the field. They’re just not scoring.

You can’t do that. You can’t leave points on the board against Georgia and against LSU and against Arkansas or certainly against Florida State. You can’t leave points on the board, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. I guarantee you, without these silly penalties, Florida would probably be averaging 10-14 more points a game. Now the discussion is no longer why does Florida have such a bad offense, and why does Doug Nussmeier need to be fired? Now it’s, how much better can they get? It’s a lot of optics, but they just need to be soundly and fundamentally better.

Nick:                         You look at the numbers, and this was in the game notes that I got after the Missouri game, Florida had 523 yards of offense. They had 564 against Kentucky. That’s the first time since 2008 that the Gators have had multiple 500 yard games against an SEC opponent. Luke Del Rio right now is averaging just over 249, about 249.5 yards per game. That’s the most of any quarterback, my record only goes back to 2008, so that includes Tebow’s Heisman season. The offense isn’t bad, but I think it goes back to the point of those teams that overcame the penalties, they were breaking tackles. You had a stat in your latest story that ran Tuesday. Florida ranks 91st in the country in fewest percentage of tackles by solo tacklers, which means catch the ball, first person that hits you, you’re going down. The play stops there.

Andrew:                 The YAC yards this year has been awful.

Nick:                         What’s a YAC?

Andrew:                 Yards after catch.

Nick:                         I don’t know what that is. I’ve been watching Florida this year.

Andrew:                 It’s just bad. It’s really bad. Deandre Goolsby is probably the worst I’ve ever seen with going down at one tackle. It is like, “Someone hits me. I’m either going to fall down, or they’re going to take me down.” There is no breaking. Quite frankly, it makes those play action roll out passes to him not effective, because when you watch good teams do that, or watch good players catch that, they always break one tackle and are able to get a lot of yards afterwards, because usually it’s man coverage where when you beat one guy you got a little bit of running room. Not for him. One tackle, he falls.

Dan:                         Yeah. Absolutely. That play is so good, because it opens you up in the flat that if you’re able to break that one tackle you should be able to get at least 10 or 15 more yards beyond that catch, right? The problem is every time that he gets touched either he’s falling down to the ground, or he’s bouncing off the tackle and immediately running out of bounds. I need to do an analysis on how many yards he actually gets after the catch, because, like you said, Andrew, it’s not even that he’s falling forward and getting five or six yards, or even two more yards. He’s over 6’. If you just fall forward, you should be able to get at least two more yards. It feels like he constantly either falls backwards or falls sideways. I don’t know if they need to practice with him on falling, but maybe a quick trip to the skydiving facility might get him used to falling a little bit. At the end of the day, that’s most frustrating.

I had somebody, I tweeted that stat out on Monday night, and somebody asked, “Well, that’s because the team is constantly getting hit at the line of scrimmage, and they can’t possibly break tackles.” Florida has the 8th best offensive line when it comes to not allowing people to get stuck at the line of scrimmage. So don’t even give me that garbage. This team simply can’t break tackles. The offensive line’s doing their job to allow them to get into the hole, or to allow a play to be made, but they’re simply not able to break tackles, and I don’t know if that’s a strength and conditioning thing. I don’t know if that’s a fear thing, or if that’s just again going back to fundamentals, but it’s really frustrating. Again, if Florida’s able to break those tackles you’re talking about maybe an extra 30, 40 yards a game.

Andrew:                 At some point or another you have to blame the guys doing it. There’s only so much coaching that can be done. Dan, we’ve got about five minutes here left. I told you that I wanted you to think about something, and now here’s the time. Florida is realistically halfway through the season now. If you had to say who your offensive MVP was, who would that person be?

Dan:                         You guys ready for this, because I’m about to create a little bit of a stir. I know a lot of people would say Antonio Callaway, maybe Jordan Scarlett, maybe Luke Del Rio. I’m going to throw a curve ball.

Nick:                         Do it, Dan.

Dan:                         I’m going to say Jawaan Taylor is my guy. I’m going to tell you that not because I think that he’s a sexy pick, or that he’s been perfect, but because I think that he’s done a lot more for that offensive line and has allowed that offensive line to do a lot more collectively, because he’s done an awesome job as a true freshman. I mean, people were really concerned before this year started about the right side of that offensive line. Now, I listen to your podcast three times a week, every week, and all I ever hear you guys talk about is the left side. So I think Jawaan Taylor has allowed that right side to be completely covered for the most part. He’s not perfect, but I think at a position of need he’s done an unbelievable job to allow Luke Del Rio to do better, to allow Jordan Scarlett to do better, and to allow plays to be made. So that’s my pick for offense.

Andrew:                 You’ve led me into it. Who’s the defense? By the way, Nick and I are going to pick ours in a few minutes. Jawaan Taylor’s a great pick. Who’s defense though?

Dan:                         For defense I think I’m going to go with Jarrad Davis. I think that the defense has done spectacularly. I mean, I tweet about every week. I write about it in my article every week. Nearly every single defensive category Florida is in the top couple in the country, but I’m going to go with Jarrad Davis, just because I think he’s done a great job of leading this team, and I hope that his injury’s not too bad, for the sake of Florida’s defense, just because of how important he is. I think in terms of making plays, but more importantly calling plays and being the leadership that that team needs, because that team’s not committing a lot of defensive penalties. Maybe there’s a pass interference or a hold every once in a while on a defensive back, but when it comes to false starts, when it comes to silly mental penalties, Jarrad Davis isn’t allowing his defense to do it. That’s my pick.

Nick:                         Jarrad Davis is on pace for well over 100 tackles this year. He has 48 already, around eight per game.

Andrew:                 He hasn’t faced the run teams of Arkansas and Georgia and LSU yet. Dan, we appreciate you joining us, and we always appreciate those Tuesday stats. I’m sure everyone else does. We will see you soon, and we’ll see the stats next Tuesday.

Dan:                         Thanks for having me on, guys. Hopefully it was a little bit better this time, Andrew.

Andrew:                 We will give you a grade of a B, just because you agreed on a lot of my points.

Dan:                         Okay.

Nick:                         That’s how it works in Andrew’s world.

Dan:                         That’s right. I know.

Andrew:                 Give the man a letter grade, Twitterverse. Dan, we’ll talk to you soon, buddy.

Dan:                         Have a good one guys. Thanks so much.

Andrew:                 Alright. We’re back. Good stuff from my man, Dan. Yes, Dan, you heard me. I said you did good. I hate to say that, because that means you’ll have to come back on again, but good stuff from Dan.

Nick:                         Always good stuff. I don’t know why you give him a hard time.

Andrew:                 You know, I wouldn’t be me, and he wouldn’t be him, if I didn’t give him a hard time. I can’t let him think he does a good job over here. He’d want to be on our show every week.

Nick:                         That’s true. We need to bring Zo on. I was talking to Zo after the game. We need to bring Zo on and maybe Fee too.

Andrew:                 Lord, my man, Fee, be getting going like me. This podcast would be turnt if he came on.

Nick:                         So we asked Dan players of the year, or players of the midyear.

Andrew:                 Before we do ours, Nick, I wanted to talk about that stat that Dan gave. He talked about the stat of the scoring points in the red zone, that kind of stuff. I think it’s a combination of a couple things, now that I’ve had a little bit of time to dissect what we were talking about.

Nick:                         Digest?

Andrew:                 Dissect, break it down. Break it down in my mind. I’m trying to break it down of why that is, because Dan kind of caught me a little bit off guard with how big of a problem it really is. So I’m trying to sit here while we’re doing this, while we’re talking to him, and think about the red zone drives that Florida’s really stalled on. I keep going back to one thing, and that is a lot of times when they are going in the red zone area they’re going more big, which means that the box is more loaded. I’m wondering if Florida should maybe still spread it out some more and try to get the box a little less jammed to put less pressure on the offensive line.

Nick:                         Why do you feel like they’re going big?

Andrew:                 I think they go big because of the fact that they want to run the ball. I mean, that’s a McElwain, Nussmeier kind of thing. They want to go big. They want to run the ball, but when you go big you’re bringing C’yontai Lewis in to block, and, quite frankly, he’s atrocious right now at blocking. He’s not doing well there, and then, quite frankly, when they do throw the ball to those two tight ends, things aren’t happening. So I’m wondering if it might be best to maybe spread it out a little more. I would love to see, it was the Kentucky game that Brandon Powell had the slant for the touchdown. I would love to see some more of that stuff, see some of that middle of the field passing. Callaway and Cleveland should be, and are, strong enough and more physical enough that they should be able to catch those inside routes. I wonder if that’s something they look at.

They did throw in a little wrinkle last week of getting Brandon Powell motioning and that kind of stuff, something we did see a lot last year. So I’m wondering if that’s something that’s going to be done. I don’t know. I’m just starting to think about things. Like I said, I was dissecting the film in my head as we were going, and thought about, what are they doing different? A lot of it is they’re going big.

Nick:                         Does the emergence of Tyrie Cleveland last week, does that help you? Did you have the personnel to spread the field out before you have a second weapon on the outside, like Cleveland?

Andrew:                 I don’t know. It’s tough to say, because you still had Callaway there to where you should have been able to throw him the ball inside. I think that does help. Something that I was thinking about, and I actually thought about this last week, and some of the big plays that Bama did when Mac was at Bama, and one of their plays that I would be scored a good percentage of their receiving plays was what I call the stand pass, where they just stand up and throw it to Callaway in the red zone. That’s something they did a lot, because you think, Callaway’s going to probably break one tackle. He is a guy that has broken tackles this year. He should be able to score, and that’s something we haven’t seen a lot from Mac this year in the red zone. I’m wondering if that’s something maybe they’ve been just holding onto. Maybe that’s something we see down the stretch.

Nick:                         You and I have talked about Tyrie Cleveland being a good option there. Callaway’s a good option there.

Andrew:                 Even Josh Hammond.

Nick:                         Even Josh Hammond, who’s been kind of absent for about the last two, three games.

Andrew:                 Haven’t seen much of Josh lately at all. Yes. So that’s kind of what I was thinking about as well. To the people who think I’m hard on David Sharpe, Dan’s stats just kind of backed up what I’ve been saying, and that is that the veteran guy, the junior on the offensive line is, quite frankly, not playing like a junior.

Nick:                         Real quick on Hammond, Hammond had seven catches in Florida’s first three games. One catch in his last three.

Andrew:                 He’s kind of been replaced by Tyrie, honestly, lately. He’s kind of been replaced by Tyrie. I wouldn’t mind seeing them try to get him the ball in some way. Get the hell rid of Ahmad Fulwood coming in as like a fullback, H back.

Nick:                         They lined Ahmad Fulwood up at tight end last week and had him block.

Andrew:                 Because that’s about the only thing he can do effectively. I’m saying, don’t line him up if you’re going to throw him the ball, please. Please. Just stop.

Nick:                         Another milk carton candidate is Freddie Swain. Six catches in his first four games, no catches in the past two.

Andrew:                 Haven’t been impressed with Freddie. I’m just going to be honest.

Nick:                         What about the push? Get Freddie to the Swamp.

Andrew:                 No.

Nick:                         Fan favorite.

Andrew:                 I’m not saying that long term. I’m saying I just haven’t been impressed with a lot of what Freddie’s done. I think he still needs to gain some weight.

Nick:                         You mean that every recruit that comes in, every freshman, is not an All American right away?

Andrew:                 Yeah. For real. They’re definitely not. Let’s go. Let’s talk about this. Nick, you and I pick our players of the week every week. I would say for the most part we’re usually right on top of things. Even if we miss, it’s usually not a big miss. If you were going right now, we’ve gotten through six games already, going to get the bye week, and then Game 7, who would you say is your offensive MVP?

Nick:                         The only one I can go with really would be Luke Del Rio, and that would be just Florida’s undefeated with Luke Del Rio. It hasn’t been great, but I’m going to go with the specialist.

Andrew:                 You can’t say Johnny Townsend.

Nick:                         I’m going with the specialist as my offensive. Who’s the offensive MVP? Who?

Andrew:                 Johnny Townsend hasn’t had a great year.

Nick:                         What? Johnny Townsend ranks 3rd in the country in punting average with a 47.54, and 3rd in the country with a punt success rate. Townsend has a fair catch/punt inside the 20 on 64.3% of his kicks, and has allowed only 8.5 yards per return. He allowed 0 punts to be returned against Missouri, the second time he’s done that this year. Johnny Townsend’s flipping the field, which is helping the offense. Eddy Pineiro has 9 field goals on the season, which is more than Florida has last year. He’s also perfect on extra points, something Florida hasn’t done since 2011. I don’t know who’s helping the offense more than those two guys.

Andrew:                 I go back to, especially like the Missouri game, and Johnny was punting. Yes, he got it inside the 20, but when you’re kicking the ball, and you’re on the 50, and you land the ball on the 15, it’s not a very good punt.

Nick:                         There’s no return. It’s different if you’re kicking it low to the 15, and then they can return it, but if you’re kicking it high, and there’s no return, then coach will take that.

Andrew:                 I think if you ask Mac and Nord they would say they want him to do a better job.

Nick:                         Ask Nord.

Andrew:                 Anyway. For real. I’m going to go Del Rio, because I think that when you see what the offense does when he’s in the game, and I know that they’re still not scoring points the way they should. They still had that leadership when Del Rio is out there. So I’m going Del Rio. Del Rio is that guy for me. 100%. I’m going Del Rio, and it’s followed by a close second of Jawaan Taylor, because without Jawaan Taylor this offense is shit.

Nick:                         I think both of those are good picks. Last year I said Will Grier was your offensive MVP, and he only played half the season. I said, “Look at what the offense looked like the first six weeks versus the last eight, and it’s clear.” That was your offensive MVP, and you lost him, and that’s what happened.

Andrew:                 If you were going defensive MVP, who would you go?

Nick:                         Defensive MVP for me is Quincy Wilson. Three interceptions on the year. Quarterbacks that are throwing at Wilson have a 0.4 quarterback rating when throwing his way. Jalen Tabor has been the guy that was talked about, the guy that was the preseason All American. Quincy Wilson has turned himself into a first round NFL pick the way he’s playing.

Andrew:                 Yeah. My pick is just going to show how much this team, how good this defense really is, because we’re going to have three people, and three people have picked different guys. I’m going to go Alex Anzalone, because that guy is a wrecking machine right now at linebacker. You could say Jarrad Davis is that guy. I couldn’t argue with you. Quincy Wilson, can’t argue with you. Jalen Tabor, couldn’t argue with you. Marcus Maye I couldn’t argue with you. I’m going Anzalone though, because I feel like he might be the emotional leader for this defense, because it seems like when he gets the big play the emotion on the defense comes back.

Nick:                         I would say that the emotional leaders are both of the linebackers. I say that because when Jarrad Davis gets a pick Alex Anzalone’s jumping up and down in front of his face. Those two guys really seem to play off of each other, and a lot of times I feel like the defense goes as they go. I hit him with the D2 Mighty Ducks bash brother gif last weekend.

Andrew:                 Pull up that real quick, Nick. You got the stats in front of you. What’s Anzalone at right now tackle wise?

Nick:                         He’s second on the team with 40 tackles.

Andrew:                 How many did Davis have?

Nick:                         Davis is at 48.

Andrew:                 Okay. See I just think that Anzalone does so much for your defense that I think he’s a guy that is just that emotional leader. I really think so.

Nick:                         Can you guess the rest of the top five? Davis leads the team. Anzalone is second. Without looking can you guess the rest of the top five? I bet you cannot.

Andrew:                 Can you tell me the number for the third?

Nick:                         The totals are 35 in third place, 22 in fourth, and 20 in fifth.

Andrew:                 I would say third, since you told me that, I would probably say it’s one of the safeties. Am I close?

Nick:                         I’m waiting on you.

Andrew:                 I’ll say third is Nick Washington.

Nick:                         No, Nick Washington is fourth though. I didn’t think you would get Nick Washington. Marcus Maye is third.

Andrew:                 See I figured Washington was up there. So Washington’s fourth. Maye’s third. I was going to say Maye.

Nick:                         Marcus Maye has 35, very impressive. 20 of those 35 are solo tackles.

Andrew:                 I was going to say Maye, but I figured that was going to be too obvious, because you know my passion for Maye. Fifth I will say is probably, dang that’s tough. Is it Joey Ivie?

Nick:                         Jordan Sherit with 20 tackles, and this has him playing five games. He’s really played four games. Played a little bit against Vanderbilt, but came out of the game, so really 20 tackles in four games.

Andrew:                 Yeah. That’s about right. I’m going to throw this at you too. Freshman of the year so far is?

Nick:                         It would have to be Jawaan Taylor. You could make a case for a redshirt freshman like Jabari Zuniga, but really it’s Jawaan Taylor, and for the reasons Dan said. The offensive line, you come in, and you’re talking about Fred Johnson, great freshman year. He’s going to hold down right tackle spot. All of a sudden, Fred looks like a doorman just holding the door open as people run by him, and where do you go from here? Jawaan Taylor was a guy that was a biscuit away from 400 pounds in high school, had to lose weight to even earn a scholarship. You’re thinking still he’s probably a guard, definitely a redshirt. To get from that point preseason, and not even an early enrollee, so to get from that point in the preseason to where he is now, I think without a question that’s your freshman MVP.

Andrew:                 I agree as well. If you had to say a surprise player this year, offensively or defensively, who would that be?

Nick:                         I still, to me…

Andrew:                 Can’t be Jawaan.

Nick:                         It’s obviously Jawaan, so I’m picking for second now.

Andrew:                 I’m saying a returner, someone that you didn’t expect as a returner, not a freshman.

Nick:                         A returner that I didn’t expect. Good or bad?

Andrew:                 Good. Okay. Give me a good and give me a bad.

Nick:                         For me, bad is Martez Ivey. I expected him to be one of Florida’s better offensive linemen, and he’s been one of the worst. At least I did, I think a bunch of people did, but you questioned, he didn’t play great at the end of last year, how much of that was his shoulder injuries? Is he still hurt and they’re just not talking about it? I don’t think so. To me, that would be my biggest disappointment.

Then for guy coming back, I’m going to say biggest surprise would be Nick Washington. He was a guy where I said, “If you took Nick Washington and Marcell Harris and combined them you’d have an All American safety, but you can’t do that.” I think Nick Washington has earned that starting spot next to Marcus Maye, and I’m getting comfortable with the idea of you’re going to lose so much on the defense. I think having Nick Washington back and what he brings from a mental aspect, and he’s getting better physically on the field, I think he’s been the biggest surprise to me. You feel better about where Florida will be in 2017 with him being kind of the quarterback of the defense.

Andrew:                 I’m surprised you didn’t go this one, but my surprise is Scarlett, Jordan Scarlett.

Nick:                         You know me. I have so much confidence in my STA boys that nothing surprises me. I’m surprised he’s not getting the ball more, that’s it.

Andrew:                 Heading into the year I’ll be honest, I was very down on him, very down on him. I think there was a lot of people down on him. Even inside the program I think people were down on him. He’s really turned it on. He’s really, really turned it on. He’s even taken Lamical Perine under his wing a little bit, teaching him a little bit. So that’s my surprise.

My biggest disappointment is a toss-up. It’s between Duke Dawson and David Sharpe. It really is. I expected a lot out of Duke, and I haven’t seen it. Maybe it’s because they’re picking on him a little bit more, so Duke’s there. Then David is just not doing well. I can even throw Tyler Jordan in there as well. He’s just kind of turned into a guy, not great. So really those three guys. It’s so tough for me to go against Sharpe, because I just expected Sharpe to be a guy that wanted to get to the League early, like he said. He was going to have a decent year, and he just really hasn’t. So I’m going to go Sharpe.

Nick:                         Yeah. That is true. Like you said, guy that you would expect to go to the League.

Andrew:                 He’s telling people, “I want to go to the League early.” So you think, “Okay. I’m going to work my ass off, and be the best possible player I can be.” Quite frankly, I do. I question how hard he’s working. You should never question that, but I do.

Nick:                         Especially from your big guys down there on the offensive line.

Andrew:                 In the trenches. Nick, Wednesday podcast is here. We’ll have our Friday one. We’ll pick some games around the country a little bit. Won’t have any predictions on the Gators, because, of course, Gators don’t play. We’ll talk about the rest of that. We’ll also talk recruiting on Friday, because the coaches will have seen more players, and if you’ve got any buy or sell for us for the rest of the year, send them to us. We’ll get that. If you’ve got any suggestions that you want to hear on Friday, let us know that as well. Friday will kind of be a mixture of all things. It won’t be the normal Friday prediction podcast.

Nick:                         It’ll be different, and yet it will be a good podcast.

Andrew:                 Absolutely. Nick, tell the people where they can find us. We’ll get out of here. We’ll see everyone on Friday, and you guys come on, check out Gator Country for recruiting news, some baseball news as well, and everything else Gator sports.

Nick:                         www.GatorCountry.com for all your Florida Gators news. If you’re not on an Apple or not on iTunes, the podcast that you are listening to now, the transcript is there. Audio is also there. If you do have iTunes, subscribe to the podcast. Search Gator Country in the podcast shop. On Facebook, @GatorCountry. On Twitter, @GatorCountry. On Instagram, @TheGatorCountry. Don’t forget the the in front of Gator Country. I’m @NickdelaTorreGC. He’s @AndrewSpiveyGC on Twitter. Send us in your buy or sells, and wish me a happy bye week. I’ll be going down south, south Florida this weekend.

Andrew:                 I’ll be hitting the golf course this weekend. That’ll be good for me as well. Send us anything you got, and we’ll have plenty of stuff. Like I said, we’ll talk some recruiting on Friday as well. Guys, as always, chomp, chomp. Go Braves. Butch and Mark, on that losing streak.

Nick:                         You stay classy, Gator Country.

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.