GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we give you our predictions for the 2021 football season for the Florida Gators.
Andrew Spivey and David Soderquist give you a game by game prediction for the football season for the Florida Gators.
Andrew and David look at the tough match-ups for the Gators and give you the games to watch for the Gators this coming season.
TRANSCRIPT:
David:What’s up, folks at Gator Country? This is your boy, David Soderquist, here along with Andrew Spivey. Gearing up for Week 1 of real actual college football this time in the SEC. A huge slate of games comes to you this Saturday, as Florida gears up to face the fighting Willy Taggarts of FAU in the Swamp. Today we’ll be doing a little season preview here for you folks before we officially are in game week, where we will preview FAU on next week’s episode. We might get a little bit into it today. Andrew, before we start this season preview, there’s some injury news on the cusp of Week 1. Would you like to go ahead and just give us the 411 real quick on that?
Andrew:Kamar Wilcoxson looks like he’ll miss a good amount of time. Down with a meniscus tear. Probably the second biggest injury, the second most significant injury of the fall with Kamar going down and Jaydon Hill going down before with a torn ACL. Two big injuries out of fall camp. We’ll see how long it keeps Kamar out. Some are saying six weeks. Some are saying eight weeks. I don’t want to say it was a successful fall that only two guys got hurt, because that’s downgrading those two guys, but a successful fall in that you didn’t have a lot of injuries, and that’s a good thing. That’s what you want out of all camp. It was good.
There’s several small injuries. Jaydon Hill’s dealing with the famous high ankle sprain. We know how that is. That could be two weeks, six weeks, twelve weeks, two years. Then Daquan Newkirk, some are saying it’s a growing injury. Some are saying it’s a little bit of a hamstring injury. Both of those guys are probably questionable for the FAU game, at best. It’s FAU.
David:Right. I was telling fans on Twitter. It’s like, don’t worry. We’re against FAU, Willy Taggart, and a quarterback that’s throwing for 52% for his career. I think if Florida struggles in that game I’m going to be really optimistic about what the rest of the year is going to look like, if that happens. It’s nothing to worry about really, especially this early in the season. I would say if Daquan Newkirk’s injury isn’t as extensive as reported I would say you rest him and get him ready for Week 3 against Alabama. I just don’t think it’s time to start worrying all of a sudden. Hopefully Kamar Wilcoxson will be good by that LSU game.
Andrew:With Newkirk, you worry about him, because of his injuries in the past. That was always the thing at Auburn was he was always had a nagging injury that bothered him. If he’s not fully healthy, don’t risk in Game 1, potentially have something tear or something else, and then you’re looking at three, four, five, six weeks down the road. You don’t want that to happen. You need Daquan Newkirk against Alabama in the Swamp.
David:Right. You think we see big meat Game 1 then, Desmond Watson.
Andrew:I think so. I think so. That new three game rule for the redshirts helps Desmond. The way I look at it is this. Des has Game 1 and Game 2 to show everybody in the world that even though he’s 30, 40 pounds over what Dan Mullen wants him to be, he can still be effective in a game.
David:Right.
Andrew:If Des goes out there and wreaks havoc in Game 1 and Game 2, the redshirt rule won’t matter to Des. If Des goes out there and looks slow in Game 1 and Game 2, rule will matter for Des, and he’ll be on a redshirt rule losing weight the next six, seven, eight weeks.
David:From all the videos I have seen of Desmond Watson, he does move really quick for his size. He was like 400 pounds going into practice, I believe. 410 or 400, and the guy’s moving around like he’s 280. I’m like, good lord. The reason I think he was rated so low was just because of his weight. I think if you drop that weight, you might even get a five-star production out of the guy. Who knows?
Speaking of production and overall talent ranking, we’re previewing the season here, and I was going over Florida’s overall talent profile on some of these websites. They’re about seventh in the nation, if you compare them to talent profiles across the nation, the SEC and nationally. They have six five-stars, 48 four-stars, nine of those top four-stars are top 100 players, and 31 three-stars. An overall talent profile of seven. So, Florida right now is sitting in the top 10 in an overall talent profile, which is good enough to compete in every game that they have on their schedule. I don’t see why they wouldn’t compete against the Georgias, the LSUs, the Alabamas, and all the other guys that are on the schedule.
Did a little preview for FAU looking at their talent profile and head coach Willy Taggart, on top of N’Kosi Perry, who played over at Miami, their starting quarterback, throwing 52% in his career. So, you’re going to have the fighting Willy Taggarts finally coming to the Swamp. Willy Taggart’s first home game. What do you think about that, Andrew?
Andrew:First of all, if we’re grading coaches, it’s a D- for Willy Taggart. Him and John Hevesy may get the same grade.
David:Right.
Andrew:You look at Willy Taggart. Listen, for all the crap and making fun of Willy Taggart and everything else, Willy Taggart probably will be successful at FAU. I think he will. I don’t think Willy Taggart’s as bad as he was at FSU. I don’t think he’s as good as he was at Oregon, which really wasn’t that great. He was okay at USF. USF and FAU, in my opinion, are on about the same level. We’ll see.
I think it’s a good game for Florida in a couple ways. I think Willy Taggart’s, he’s not going to have his team scared to come play in the Swamp, but you got to a talent disadvantage for him and a talent advantage for Florida, which is good. I think it’s a good one. I think it’s a good start. Not to jump ahead of ourselves, but I think it’s a good thing to go on the road to USF in Game 2. You get to go to USF, go through that routine of staying in a hotel away from home. Obviously, you stay in a hotel even when you’re in Gainesville, but to have to get on a bus, go to a hotel and do walkthrough in the parking lot, then go to a stadium and be in the away locker room, that kind of stuff, I think that’s good. That’ll be really good for Florida when you talk about having to go on the road to Kentucky. We’ll see how good Kentucky is, but when you have to go on the road to Kentucky in Week 5 of the year, that’ll be good for that.
David:You were talking about that first game. N’KosiPerry’s a dual threat quarterback. I think he was rated around 190ish in high school, so he has a really big quarterback ranking coming out of high school. Really didn’t work out there for him at Miami. I think it’s going to be a good test for this defense to have a dual threat quarterback out there with a strong arm, and this will really test that defensive backfield.
What did we see last year? We saw people confused. Didn’t know when the snap counts were. Just a whole complete mess last year on defense. Now, you go roll into this first game with a dual threat quarterback. I think it’s a really good test for this defense, and I think that you’ll see a lot of different formations, and hopefully everybody will be on the same page, because you have to account for a quarterback’s legs when you’re facing a dual threat quarterback.
Andrew:Exactly what you just said. The scary part, but also the good part, is you’re going to find out how good your defense is attacking on the perimeter. This was a team last year that was atrocious when the ball was outside the tackle box. The secondary was really bad at tackling. The linebackers were really bad at flowing to the sidelines. The defensive ends were both really bad at protecting and keeping the edge and setting the edge, which that’s really been a problem under Todd Grantham since he got here. I still haven’t seen a defensive end set an edge. Still, you need to be able to do that. Alabama’s going to do it. Bryce Young’s a dual threat quarterback. He’s going to do it.
Perry’s a guy, like you said, he’s not going to be scared. He’s been through it at Miami. He’s played against a lot of these guys in high school. He’s not going to be scared of it. So, it’s a good test. I think it’s a good test for a couple of reasons. Obviously, you’re going to have Perry escape and get some long yards on a run. You can just go ahead and pencil it in. It’s Game 1 of the year. It’s going to happen. It’ll be a teaching moment on the field on the game in the Swamp. It’s a teaching moment. I think that’s a good thing, but also I think it’s a good thing because the secondary will be tested a little bit, because Perry will be able to throw the ball decently. It’ll be a different guy throwing the ball. Kaiir Elam, Jason Marshall, you’re going to want to work all those guys. Jadarrius Perkins, Elijah Blades, all of those guys. You’re going to want them to.
David:Like I said, it’s going to be a good test. If you look at their overall talent profile, they’re 69th in the nation. Not bad. It’s still something that Florida could take advantage of. They consist of 0 five-stars, 5 four-stars, and 47 three-stars. My prediction, obviously I think it’s going to be a win. I think it’s going to be a good way to get Willy Taggart broken into his new coaching role over there at FAU at home in the Swamp. Since 2020 didn’t work out for us to do that in the Swamp, now we have it in 2021 at a different place, at FAU. I don’t know about you, got them up for a win in that game. What about you, Spivey?
Andrew:That’s a W. I was looking here a second ago. Give me just a second. I think it was 24.5 Florida. Florida was a 24.5 point favorite.
David:Would you take that spread?
Andrew:We’ll get into that on Friday, on our Friday show, predicting that out. I’m going to go ahead and say I kind of like Florida on that 24.5 prediction line.
David:If I’m betting money, I’m betting on that 24.5. Unless they throw some third and fourths in there and let them score some points towards the end, but I would definitely take the spread there. The next opponent will be an away game, like we were just talking about. USF. Their overall talent profile is 73rd in the nation, and their talent consists of 0 five-stars, 3 four-stars, and 51 three-stars. That’ll be an away game. Their first away game. Their first test away from home against USF. I think USF, they’re not too bad. I think USF will probably test Florida early, especially with it being an away game. I think you might get out of that first quarter, but once that second, third, fourth quarter goes, I think Florida overall with the talent and everything else will probably win this game as well.
Andrew:USF gets a good test. Thursday go up to Raleigh to play North Carolina State. That should be a good game. They get a little extra days off. I wonder if Dan Mullen’s going to be upset about that. Two extra days of rest. They do have to travel. Be interesting to see where they go at quarterback. Jordan McCloud transferred out to Arizona. They have the North Carolina kid, Cade Fortin, that transferred in from the Tarheels. Then Jarren Williams transferred in from Miami. David, I’ve been a big fan of Jarren Williams. I went up and watched him practice when Justin Fields and those guys were up there. JarrenWilliams is a baller. I don’t know why he didn’t end up working out at Miami, but the kid has a big arm. He’s a big kid, first of all. I’m very high on Jarren Williams. We’ll see. Coach Scott, he’s a really good coach, coming from Clemson. We’ll just see.
Again, it’s a road game, but will it be more Florida fans than Bulls fans there? We’ll see. Again, it’s not going to be a hostile crowd, by no means, but I think it’s going to be a good test for Florida to be able to go on the road, go through their routine, and be ready when it comes SEC time to travel up to Lexington.
David:If you look at the history of USF versus Florida, USF usually does give them a really good first, sometimes even a second quarter, but usually Florida pulls it off towards the end. So, it’ll be interesting to see, like you said, with the quarterback coming in there, how USF will evolve. Who knows? USF has one of those kind of up and down years, like USF will be really good one year, and then one year they’ll just completely crash and burn. Overall talent profile 73rd. If you had me betting on this, I would pick a win too. That would be 2-0 going into Alabama, the first home game.
Andrew:Don’t go out on a limb or nothing here, David.
David:I know, man. That was a hard one for me to predict right there.
Andrew:The next on is the one. Steve Spurrier’s already went out on it though.
David:Oh yeah. Steve Spurrier said that they’re going to come into home, and they’re going to lose. We’ll see. Alabama comes home to Florida. The overall talent profile for Alabama, don’t get nervous, guys, 2nd in the nation. 11 five-stars, 54 four-stars, 25 of those four-stars are in the top 100, and 8 three-stars. That’s a lot of depth.
Andrew:Who’s #1?
David:Your guy, Kirby, man.
Andrew:God. Wow. Had you told me that, I would have gotten that wrong 100 out of 100 times.
David:I think it’s the highest talent profile in history of 24/7 Sports. I think. I’m not sure. I’d have to look that one up.
Andrew:Holy cow. Wow. Does less with more every single solitary year.
David:Last year they were #1 too. Last year’s talent profile they had them #1 as well. You know how that shook out.
Andrew:That 3:30 kickoff, it’s going to be banging in the Swamp.
David:College GameDay there.
Andrew:College GameDay should be there. You expect both teams to come in 2-0. Alabama has Miami. We’ll talk about that a little bit more on our Friday show. I’m excited. I don’t know about everyone, but I’m excited for it. I’m excited to watch that game. I’m excited to see how the two teams are different a little bit from last year, but I’m just excited to see the chess match between Dan Mullen and Nick Saban. It’s always a chess match. Dan Mullen’s an offensive genius. Nick Saban’s a defensive genius. How’d Bill O’Brien adjust to the college game? How Bryce Young gets. I’m excited to see Bryce Young. I think Bryce Young is going to be a really good quarterback. I’m excited to see Bryce Young.
David:Bryce Young, a five-star quarterback coming out of high school there. Nick Saban has been using these dual threat quarterbacks now. He went from a pro style kind of offense, run the ball down your throat, play really good heavy defense. Now he’s starting to get these dual threat quarterbacks in here, like Tua Tagovailoa and all that. I think it’ll be interesting. It’ll be Bryce Young’s first year as a starter.
I think right now is the time that you could knock Alabama off, Week 3, real early with a new starting quarterback. I think Florida gives them a challenge. If you look last time, I believe, when Dan Mullen had played Alabama at Mississippi State, had a way less talent profile, and still came within seven points of beating Alabama. I think Dan Mullen has it better. I think this is the time that you could knock Alabama off, Week 3. You have a better talent profile. You have almost a five-star quarterback in Emory Jones. You got a guy behind Emory Jones that’s just as good, if not maybe better. I think this game could be really close. I think Florida can win it, but right now, if you had to get me a prediction, playing Alabama and their talent profile and Nick Saban being a really good head coach as well, I would take Alabama. I would predict a loss at home.
Andrew:That’s where I’ll go as well. Nick Saban, he said it. He said, you’re dumb if you don’t evolve with the game. He said, the game’s evolved to dual threat quarterbacks and spread offenses. The RPOs and stuff like that. Don’t mistaken yourself. When it comes fourth quarter, time to win a ballgame, Nick Saban reverts back to Nick Saban, and that’s my best five against your best five. I’m going to run the football. Good luck.
David:That’s where I was about to say. I think if it’s close when it comes down to that fourth quarter, I think he’s just going to try to run the ball down our throats. The more you run, the more 1st downs you get, the less time the offense has a chance to come back and score again. Dan Mullen being an offensive guru, he’s going to want to keep him off the football field as much as he can. I really think they lean really run heavy, especially towards the third and fourth quarter, and try to tire that defense out.
I would chalk that up as a loss, unfortunately. I’m hoping it’s a win, because it is Week 3, and Florida has enough of a talent profile to win that game. They have enough of a talent profile to win every game on their schedule. It’s just a matter of time and whatever happens. We don’t even know what the injury report’s going to look like by Week 3 either. We’ll just have to see what happens when Nick Saban comes to town.
The next opponent, which will be on my birthday, happy birthday to me, is Tennessee at home. A talent profile of 19th in the nation. Tennessee currently has 3 five-stars on the roster, 25 four-stars, and 52 three-stars. I predict that we’re going to win this game. Tennessee went through a whole bunch of McDonald’s bags and everything last year, and lots of players transferred out of that program. Having a new head coach in there, I just think that Tennessee- Let’s just be honest. I think Tennessee’s going to be awful this year. I really do. There’s some people out there that thing that they’re going to be great. No. Tennessee’s just going through too much right now. They’ll win their two, three games out of the season and come to Florida thinking their team is all high and mighty, and then probably just get crushed again, like always happens.
Andrew:It’s Tennessee, man. They always suck. What are you talking about?
David:Think they’re going to bring back the trashcan?
Andrew:Yeah. Exactly. Josh Heupel, let’s call it what it is. Josh Heupel was a reach for Tennessee. He did okay at UCF. He didn’t do great at UCF. The motto around him is he’s a lazy recruiter. That’s not going to be good. Tennessee needs talent, especially at the quarterback spot. Who’s going to play quarterback for them? Is it Harrison Bailey? We’ll see. They have a couple of other guys who are in the mix there, but we’ll see. They were just Transfer Portal You last year. Everyone in America was transferring out of there. They picked up some guys from UCF. Whoop di doo. Who cares? UCF players don’t beat Florida week in and week out. They don’t beat SEC guys week in and week out.
David:Right.
Andrew:If you’re looking at an offensive line that might be worse than Florida’s offensive line, you’re probably looking at Tennessee. They lost Wanya Morris to Oklahoma. They lost Jahmir Johnson to A&M, and Cade Mays is not there.
David:Right. They always find a way to lose any time that they’re in a game. I mean, if you look at it, you remember the trick play that they had a couple years back? It was a trick play. It was 4th down, they’re obviously going to score, like there’s nobody around them. CJ Henderson’s chasing them down, running his 4.3 or whatever. So, Henderson gets him before like the first, second yard line. We already know what happens. The football comes loose, fumbles out of the endzone. The most Tennessee thing you’ll ever see, and then, of course, you had the kick of the chalkboard there.
Andrew:Then you had the heave to Cleve.
David:The heave to Cleve.
Andrew:You had Will Grier.
David:Will Grier and Calloway.
Andrew:To Calloway. Where the coach laid on the field kicking his feet like a two-year-old going through a tantrum. Yeah. Tennessee is going to Tennessee, man. Gators don’t lose to Tennessee. Neyland Stadium is not happening this year. Tennessee is coming down to the Swamp. Swamp the Vols. I got the Gators rolling in that game. Josh Heupel, I think his tenure’s going to be very short up in Knoxville.
David:Could be Emory Jones’ best game.
Andrew:Could be everybody’s best game.
David:It could be. You might even see some Anthony Richardson. You may even see Carlos Del Rio, if they’re beating them that bad.
Andrew:Not to get off topic, that’s something to really think. Is it Del Rio, or is it Kitna? We’ll see.
David:That’s a good point you make there too. We don’t know. Who really is that third string on that depth chart?
Andrew:Both have struggled and have had highlights and stuff like that. It’s interesting to see. We’ll have to see who gets the mop up duty against the Vols.
David:That’s the big question. It’s not a matter of whether we can win or not. It’s whoever gets the mop up duty. That’s a good one. I got them predicted to win that game as well, pretty handily. The next game that will come up will be Kentucky away. They’re overall talent profile is 26th in the nation, consisting of 0 five-stars, 21 four-stars, two of those four-stars are in the top 100, and 62 three-stars. I have it predicted as a win.
Kentucky really, honestly, they don’t have the talent Florida has, plus they don’t have a quarterback. Now, I will say that Stoops has gotten that defense really good, considering the talent profile that he does have over there at Kentucky. They don’t have a quarterback, and they can’t run the ball, can’t throw the ball. Joey Gatewood leaves to go to UCF. I mean, on paper, I guess, if you look at the talent profile, they’re 26th, not too bad. Enough to be in the top 25, but I think Florida rolls this game as well.
Andrew:Who’s the starter? Is it Will Levis, Beau Allen? Who is it? Levis left Penn State because he couldn’t play up there. Who is it? Is it Beau Allen, sophomore? For whatever reason, he just simply cannot recruit a quarterback up there. I don’t understand why. We all knew Joey Gatewood was not the answer. Joey Gatewood’s not a very good player, not a very good passer. We all knew that was going to be an issue. Their offensive line should be still pretty good. They’re big old boys though up front. They always are. Kentucky’s always bigger up front.
I hate to say this, because I think Kentucky will be a better football team, and they’re much, much better under Mark Stoops, but the continuous every year talking about Kentucky’s going to be better, Kentucky’s going to be one of the best teams in the East. No, they’re not. Just forget it.
David:Some people have them second.
Andrew:Kentucky’s Kentucky.
David:I think it’s just to generate clicks, but I do not understand why some people, some guys out there, have them second in the East above Florida. I think it’s just a clickbait thing to get people to retweet, get angry. Look at all these clicks we got on our site, because we put Kentucky in second. Now, if you listen to Jake from the J-Boy Show, he has Florida at #4. Yeah. That’s some generating clicks. I even told Jake. I was like, how many clicks did you generate with that, man?
Andrew:I like him.
David:He’s a good guy.
Andrew:Diehard Braves fan too. But that was some clickbait. I was looking. You and I were doing some research, and I was looking at one of the blogs that covers Kentucky. They have Kentucky beating Florida 27-21.
David:Wow. Yeah. I think we’re going to be able to score more than 21 points on Kentucky. Kentucky fans, you had a couple close years. You had one year where you beat us. It’s probably not going to happen for another 30 years.
Andrew:I will say this. For whatever reason, Dan Mullen struggles against Kentucky, or has struggled against Kentucky. I don’t know why. It’s one of those things, and I say this every single solitary year. Every football coach, for whatever it is, struggles against a certain team. I don’t know why. There’s no science behind it. It just is what it is. Nick Saban struggles against Auburn. There’s no science behind why. Auburn’s terrible half the time they beat Alabama, but they do. I don’t know.
Again, Kentucky, they’re going to be okay. They’re going to contend. They’re going to make Florida work for it. They’re a better football team under Stoops, but I don’t see them winning this football game. Without a quarterback. Unless this defense is just terrible.
David:You’re right. Look at Kirby Smart. He struggles against South Carolina every year. I think Georgia, even under Mark Richt, struggled against South Carolina every year. You’re right. Every team has that one team that they do struggle against, and Kentucky is one of those teams for us.
Andrew:For whatever reason. Urban always struggled to blow out Vandy. It was always a close game with Vandy. Always. Never lost to them, but it was always close. It was like you went into that game, and you said, Florida’s going to win this game easily, and they never did. It was just weird.
David:You have a heart attack, and you’re on the edge of your seat for no reason.
Andrew:Exactly.
David:Next up would be Vanderbilt. Home game. I think Florida wins this pretty handily. I’m not going to go ahead and try to get behind the science of this one, but they do have a talent profile of 51st in the nation. 0 five-stars, 4 four-stars, and 72 three-stars. Not one of those four-stars is in the top 100. Not much to say about Vanderbilt. I think Florida wins this game pretty handily. They might even score 40, 50 points on Vanderbilt, maybe. I think, even barring some really terrible injuries, I don’t think that Florida struggles against Vanderbilt. Ken Seals did give them some trouble this year, but a lot of teams gave Florida trouble last year, because of the wonderful defense that we had last year.
Andrew:Seals is a quarterback I like.
David:Yeah.
Andrew:I know he plays for Vandy, and we can talk about that till we’re plum in the face, but Seals is a guy I like. I really do. I like Seals. I think he’s a good player. I think anywhere else and he’s probably doing a lot better for himself. We’ll see. We’ll see where this team goes under new leadership. We’ll see just where they are and see how long it takes for these guys to start to be a little bit more competitive. I don’t know how competitive you can be at Vandy. Derek Mason I think is a good football coach. I don’t think Derek Mason’s a bad football coach. I don’t know that we can really go too much into that. They return the Davis kid at running back. We’ll see. See where they go this season. Maybe they surprise some people and win a football game or two.
David:Right. Exactly. Like I said, not much to say on Vanderbilt. The next game is the one that I really want to try to get a little bit in depth, and that would be LSU. In LSU Tiger Stadium. That’s going to be tough. A talent profile of 5th in the nation. So, to Florida’s 7th to LSU’s 5th is pretty close back there. They got 6 five-stars, 42 four-stars. And I didn’t even know this until I looked it up, 15 of those four-stars are top 100 players. That’s a lot of good talent.
Andrew:For as crazy as Ed O is, he can recruit.
David:Yeah. Got a national championship under his belt. Probably that was more of Joe Burrow than it was anything else, I think. I think Ed Orgeron’s an okay coach. I don’t think he’s fantastic or one of those guys that you’re going to look at and be like, I’m scared of Ed O. He’s going to say, “Ooga ooga,” and you’re not going to understand what he says anyway. This game here, I think Florida has this game circled on their calendar. Last year with the big upset at home that wasn’t supposed to happen did happen. Luckily, the college football guys and gods were pretty nice to them and only knocked them down one spot before that SEC Championship.
I think Florida’s got this circled on the calendar, especially when they did the stadiums. They had to run stadiums, because they lost to LSU at home last year. I think Florida, they have the overall talent profile to win the game. I’m going to go ahead and say that they do, just because I think that these players want to get revenge for last year and how they were embarrassed at home and were on their way to a national championship, SEC championship. I think Florida’s players are going to be up for this game. I think they’re going to win this one.
Andrew:This is a tough one for me. A real tough one for me.
David:That Tiger Stadium holds 100,000 people, man.
Andrew:We’ll see with the vaccine mandate and that kind of stuff how that is. I mean, obviously it looks like the Johnson kid, Max Johnson, is probably going to be their quarterback, with Miles Brennan hurt, and the Finley kid transferred to Auburn. So, it’s going to be Johnson, and he’s the one that beat Florida. He wasn’t great. He wasn’t solid or anything when he beat Florida. It was just he was throwing it up for grabs, and Florida’s defense was so atrocious that they couldn’t stop it.
Again, it’s tough for me, because we have to see what Florida’s offense looks like heading into that game. We have to see what Florida’s defense looks like. It’s a tough game at Tiger Stadium. I’m going to say I’ll give Florida the edge in the game, thinking that Florida’s offense is going to be okay with Emory and thinking Florida’s defense is going to be better than they were last year, which it can’t be worse. I’m going to give Florida the edge, but I think this is one of those games, we always say every year there’s a tossup game. This is one of those tossup games.
David:I think Dan Mullen’s a better overall head coach than Ed Orgeron, but I can’t really say that, because like I said, Orgeron has a national championship ring, but I think on paper, if you look up offense and defense, I think Dan Mullen is a better head coach than Ed Orgeron.
You’re right. You brought up a good point too. We don’t know what Tiger Stadium is going to look like. I forgot that, what was it, you have to have a vaccine, or you have to have a negative Covid test. I did not know that. It may not be a packed stadium this year. You never know. To me, I think Florida’s going to be up for this game. I’m going to call it a win, but you’re right, it is kind of a tossup. I’m going to favor Florida and be a homer here, so I’ll give them a win in that category.
This is going to be tough too. Georgia comes up next, right after the LSU game. It’s a neutral site in Jacksonville every single year, and you wanted me to tell you about their talent profile, so here you go. Overall talent profile #1, 19 five-stars, 46 four-stars, 20 of those four-stars are top 100 players, and 20 three-stars. If you can’t beat Florida with all of that talent, you got a problem. Even if you have some injuries, that’s a lot of depth.
The jury’s out on Kirby Smart, I think. I think this is the year. The schedule lines up for you perfect. You’ve got more talent than Alabama. You’ve got a five-star quarterback. You got five-star quarterbacks behind that five-star quarterback. You got numerous guys at wide receiver. I think Pickens is out for the year though, I believe, but you have so many five-star receivers out there. You have everything lined up for you in schedule. You’re not going to have a hard schedule, so you probably won’t have that many injuries, because you’ll probably be able to take out your starters in the third, fourth quarter just about every game that you play this year, besides Clemson and Florida.
To me, Georgia, I predict it as a loss, just because I think Florida’s schedule is harder. Who knows what they’re going to look like coming into that Georgia game? Georgia has one of the top-rated classes in the whole nation, but it’s Kirby Smart, so you don’t even really know. If you ask me in October who’s going to win between Florida and Georgia, I might change my mind. I don’t know how the season’s going to shake out. I don’t know what their injuries are going to look like, what ours. Right now I have it as a loss, but if Kirby is Kirby, I might change my prediction.
Andrew:Yeah. Both teams get a bye week before the game.
David:Yup.
Andrew:Back to that finally. Before that, Georgia gets Kentucky, and they get Auburn. Whoop di doo. Auburn’s going to be terrible. Kentucky’s going to be Kentucky. To be fair, Kentucky has given Georgia problems as of late, especially last year. They gave them some problems. My thing is this. This argument on Georgia starts and ends with JT Daniels. Is JT Daniels the real deal that everyone is talking about and wants him to be? Is he the Heisman contender? Is he a guy, or is he the guy who left USC because he couldn’t win the job?
David:Right.
Andrew:That for me is the end all, end all. Last year, I’m looking at his numbers. He was 80 of 119 passing for 1,231 yards, 10 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. That was against Mississippi State, South Carolina, Missouri, Cincinnati. No good football teams there. So, again, it starts and ends with the quarterback play. If it’s not him, they have to go to the freshman.
So, for me, and I said this. Was doing a radio spot on Saturday, someone asked me, is Florida that much behind Georgia? I said, I don’t know. I can’t answer that question. I said, talent wise, yes. From the composites and everything else, they are behind them. But are they that much behind them as far as a football team ready to get wins and losses? I don’t know, because I don’t know how good JT Daniels really is when he goes against a good football team. In my opinion, Clemson beats them Week 1, and we’ll see. Does Clemson just absolutely shut down JT Daniels? I don’t know. We have to see. I really don’t know.
The problem for Florida is outside of that Clemson game they have zero big games until they play Florida. Their schedule is Clemson. They play UAB, which Bill Clark will give them a good test. They have South Carolina, Vandy, Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, and then they have Florida.
David:Yeah. A lot of Georgia fans will say, JT Daniels didn’t start the whole year, and he was thrown in there. I’ll give him credit. He was thrown in there. He didn’t have time to get familiar with the receivers around him. He was hurt. I understand that. Georgia fans are kings of excuses, so I’ll give them that. Now we’re going to see what JT Daniels is made of this year. He has a whole year. He’s practiced with the team. He’s gotten familiarity with his receivers, his tight ends, that they don’t utilize whatsoever. Who knows? I do have it predicted right now for Florida to lose that game in Jacksonville, but ask me in October before the game. I could change my mind.
Andrew:I have Georgia winning the game. We’ll see.
David:We’ll see. Actually, after this the schedule gets a little bit easier for Florida. You have South Carolina, but it is an away game, and South Carolina does kind of give Florida fits every now and then. I don’t see it. What do they have, a new head coach, what’s his name?
Andrew:Beamer.
David:Beamer.
Andrew:Shane Beamer.
David:Shane Beamer there. The overall talent profile for them isn’t too bad. It’s actually 21st. They have 2 five-stars on their roster, 20 four-stars, which 4 of them are top 100 players, and 51 three-stars. I think Florida wins this game pretty handily. New head coach. Don’t know how they’re going to run the system there. Will Muschamp doesn’t coach there anymore, so I got to give them that.
Andrew:Yeah. Will Muschamp, he’s coaching for Georgia, so does that mean Georgia’s going to be terrible.
David:Oh my God. They’ll recruit good defensively, but they always do anyway. So, what did they really get out of Will Muschamp?
Andrew:We’ll see. Beamer brought in a grad assistant, that Zeb Noland. Brought him as a grad assistant, and now he’s playing quarterback for him and maybe starting at quarterback for him. They got a freshman in Jason Brown. They’ve got a couple other guys that are competing at quarterback. I’ll say this. I was not a fan of the Shane Beamer hire. I thought it was a reach. I thought, no offense to Shane Beamer, but he got the job because of his last name. He was a special teams guy at South Carolina. He went through the ropes of keeping coordinators and assistants and all that other stuff when he was there. He went through all of that stuff, and so it was different to see how he got his offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and that kind of stuff. I think it’s a train wreck. I think it’s a train wreck.
David:I do too, man. South Carolina, obviously, doesn’t make the money that some of these other schools do, so they have to kind of, I don’t know how they paid off Will Muschamp, if they’re still paying him now. It’s one of those games I don’t think Florida’s going to struggle in. I think it’s going to be a pretty easy win. The next game is also a home game against Samford. Their overall talent profile you had to scroll down really far to find it, because it’s at 155th. 0 five-stars, 1 four-star, and 3 three-stars for Samford. Is there that much to go into this game really?
Andrew:It’s a win.
David:Yeah. Chris Hatcher I think is a decent head coach. They just don’t have the overall talent. It’s one of those games, even if you have a good quarterback at Samford, you just don’t have the overall talent to compete.
Andrew:What’s up with this schedule though? That’s my thing. Why is Samford ahead of the Missouri game? When did we get away from the cupcake game before the rivalry game?
David:Right. I actually like it though, because it gives some players the chance to rest. You know you’re probably going to be up 28-0 in the first quarter, maybe into the second quarter. After that, I could see second string guys being in there, or third string guys, resting some guys for the Missouri game, which will be an away game, by the way. They have an overall talent profile of 59th, 0 five-stars, 7 four-stars, 1 four-star in the top 100, and 47 three-stars on their roster. Missouri is one of those teams that sneaks up and bites Florida. If you look at their overall rivalry wins, they tie. It’s like five for five. Who’s going to break the tie this season, Andrew?
Andrew:Florida struggles in Columbia.
David:Yeah.
Andrew:Big time. Is it Drankowitz? Derkowitz? What is it? Something. I don’t know. Whatever his name is, coach up there. He had a decent year last year. The Connor kid, Bazelak, is back for them. He wasn’t bad for them last year. We’ll see. Florida’s a better team than Missouri. My concern becomes this, and that is if you lose the Bama game, and you lose the Georgia game, and you’re out of the East, where’s your mindset of a team? Is your mindset of a team as the year’s over? Mission not accomplished. Mission failed. If that’s the case, it’s a tough game. If I’m predicting right now in August for the end of November, I’m saying the Gators win the game. They’re a better football team than they are. Again, we’ll have to just kind of look at where things are at when it becomes game time. Just Florida’s mentality, Florida’s mindset, all that good stuff.
David:Yeah. You make a good point with that, especially if you got Samford. Now, if you had Missouri after Georgia, or even South Carolina, I would say I’m kind of questioning this game a little bit. I think you got Samford at home. It’s going to be an easy game. You’re going to have time to rest players. I think once you get out of that game you get the players rested. They’re nice and ready to go for this away game in Missouri. I think you’re going to get a win.
To me, the overall talent profile plus playing Samford before that, I would say a win. Now, if you had them after Georgia, like I said, or after South Carolina, I would say maybe a tossup. You don’t know what the team’s going to be looking like towards that. You play LSU, Georgia, then South Carolina, and then you have to play Missouri, I would probably say I’m kind of questioning this game, but you’ve got Samford. You’ve got time to rest. I would say I’m giving Florida the W here.
Andrew:I agree. Leads us into rivalry week. Finally. Gators and Noles play again.
David:This time at home. Again.
Andrew:McKenzie Milton’s at quarterback. He doesn’t look the same. That’s for sure. I don’t think it’s a good football team yet. I will say this. Norvell’s getting them better. He’s recruiting the talent, and I think they’re getting better, for sure. I don’t think they’re there yet. I like Florida in this game. I really do. Again, I don’t think Milton will ever be back to where he is after the injury.
David:Right.
Andrew:I think Florida State’s a year away from competing in this rivalry.
David:I think Copeland gets over 100 this game. Don’t you think? Maybe Copeland and Shorter get over 100 yards this game.
Andrew:Yeah. It’s going to be fun to see the rivalry again. We missed it last year, unfortunately. It’s good to see. Whether or not it’s competitive or not, you still like to see the game. It’s good for college football. It’s good for the state of Florida. It’s good for recruiting. I like it.
David:Overall talent profile 20th, 0 five-stars, 29 four-stars, 3 of those are in the top 100, 56 three-stars. I think Florida wins this handily pretty much too. Hopefully Norvell don’t try to get out of this one like he did with Clemson.
Andrew:For real. Are they 80% vaccinated, so they can’t use that excuse?
David:Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe they’ll use the bus got a flat tire excuse or something.
Andrew:The stadium’s not there. Be interesting to see how they honor Bobby Bowden this year.
David:Yeah. Bobby Bowden, a very respected head coach. I’ve always liked Bobby Bowden. I’ve always been a big Bobby Bowden fan. Even when Steve Spurrier was insulting Florida State, he kind of just laughed it off and always had a good attitude about it. Really going to miss Bobby Bowden and his just being on planet Earth. It just sucks that he was taken away from us this year, because that was one personality that I actually did like, even though he was the head coach of Florida State.
Andrew:He understood. He was the perfect guy to go against Steve Spurrier in that rivalry. He was the perfect guy. He took it. He understood it was part of the football game. I know there was mutual respect between the two. The two talked about the mutual respect for each other. So, he was the perfect guy to go through it. Like you said, it sucks. Good football coach, better man, for sure. It’ll be interesting to see how they honor him. I haven’t seen anything yet. Be interesting to see how they honor him this year up at Doak Campbell.
David:Bobby Bowden was one of those coaches that nothing really fazed him either. That’s what I really respected about Bobby Bowden. He took his team serious and winning serious, but he also took everything with like- Steve Spurrier said so much stuff about Florida State, and he would just laugh it off. I think they kind of just ribbed each other behind the scenes, just for fun there.
Andrew:Would things be different if Bobby Bowden would have took the Alabama coaching job after Bear Bryant?
David:I don’t know.
Andrew:Would Florida State be Florida State?
David:That is true. I didn’t think about that one. Maybe. Possibly. You still have Willy Taggart though. What if Willy Taggart wasn’t the head coach? What if we had Willy Taggart?
Andrew:Said from the beginning you didn’t want the guy, because he was a train wreck behind the scenes. What does that put us at here? 10-2?
David:I got 10-2. Did you predict LSU as a loss?
Andrew:No. I have them as a win, but I had it as a tossup. 10-2. I think that’s, unfortunately, second in the East, because obviously the Georgia-Clemson loss will not factor into the SEC. I think that puts Georgia there. They probably have one SEC loss at most throughout the year. I’ll say this, and I’m going to ask you this. If Florida does not go back to the SEC Championship, is it a failure of a year?
David:I guess to me kind of. I would go 50/50 on that one, because part of me is like, you’re starting a new quarterback. It’s not Kyle Trask, but that quarterback has been in that system for over three years. You have a better overall talent profile than what you did at Mississippi State. These are your guys. You recruited these guys. I know you missed out on a bunch that you tried to recruit as well. There’s no excuse to me.
If you come into this season, and say you win against Alabama Week 3. You catch them off guard early. You lose to Georgia, and you win every other game. You still actually might be in the playoff, because if Georgia wins the East, and you lose to Georgia, they have to play Alabama in the SEC Championship. Florida avoids that. If you beat Alabama early, lose one game, you can still probably make it to the playoff. There is different scenarios, but I will say that to me, like we discussed last week, I don’t want to be Mark Richt 2.0. I think the ceiling’s a little bit higher. I know a lot of people have us going 9-3. They don’t think we’re going to beat LSU, Alabama, or Georgia. I think 9-3 would be an upset. 10-2 I would be okay with, but not okay with at the same time. If we’re 10-2 this year, I’m hoping that we’re 11-1 or going to the playoff next year.
Andrew:It’s tough for me, because you win 10 wins. That’s not a bad football season. But Mark Richt won 10 games a lot and never won anything. I say it’s a failure and not a successful year, and that sucks to say that, because you win 10 ballgames, you’re doing pretty good. Again, you don’t come to the University of Florida to be pretty good. You don’t come to the University of Florida to win 10 games. You don’t come to the University of Florida to make it to New Year’s Six Bowl games.
You come to the University of Florida to compete in Atlanta the first week of December, to win in Atlanta in the first week of December, and to be competing for national championships. That is the ultimate goal, whether it’s happened in the last 10 years. Let’s see. 2008, so 13 years. It hasn’t happened in 13 years, but you still come to the University of Florida to do that. Anything less than that is not a success.
This is Year 4 for Dan Mullen, with Year 4 of Dan Mullen’s guys. You have, like you said, all of his guys. These are his guys now for the most part. I do. I know it sucks, because Emory Jones is in Year 1 as your starting quarterback, and maybe it’s not fair to say, you have to lead your team to the playoffs this year, but it is where you’re at. We’re not the only ones saying Dan Mullen is Mark Richt 2.0, and I don’t mean that harsh to Dan Mullen, but that’s what people are starting to say around the country. This is Dan Mullen’s ceiling. Right now is where he’s at. He’s going to win 10 football games and take you to a New Year’s Six Bowl.
If you’re okay with that as a fan, then great for you. It should be a successful year for you. If your goal is like most fans, like myself who covers the team, that is to get to Atlanta and win in Atlanta and win championships, then it’s not a success. I know that’s a long drawn-out answer, and I know that that’s kind of harsh, but that’s just kind of where I’m at. If you don’t get to Atlanta, it’s not a good year.
David:What about this? What if you lose to Alabama, you lose to Georgia, and say Georgia has some off year, because Kirby Smart’s the head coach there, and you still wind up going to the SEC Championship? Say Georgia loses two SEC, maybe three SEC games. If you go into that SEC Championship, and you win it, losing to Alabama early, and you play them again and you win it, is that a success? You’ve never won an SEC Championship since Dan Mullen’s been here.
Andrew:Yeah. If you win the SEC Championship game, it’s a success. However you get there, it’s a success. When they won the national championship with Urban, they didn’t go undefeated. They lost. They lost to Ole Miss, and then they won. Yeah. I hate to say it like that, that being 9-3 and winning the SEC Championship is better than being 10-2 and not, but that’s what you do. You come to win championships. I’ll use a reference from my Atlanta Braves. If we win the wildcard but win the World Series, I’m perfectly okay with it. I don’t care. That Eastern Division Championship means nothing to me, if we win. Again, do you want to be 11-1 and go win the SEC Championship? Sure. But if you’re 9-3 and win the SECChampionship, great.
David:Yeah. Absolutely. We’ll see coming up. We got one week away. We have FAU, the fighting Willy Taggarts. Willy Taggart’s first game in the Swamp, and the tailgating is probably going to be crazy, since nobody really got to do that last year either. I’ll be done there. I’ll be taking some videos. I’m going to be sitting right there next to the tunnel, so going to try to capture some videos for you folks, get into some of those tailgates down there as well. For Andrew, you got anything else before we wrap this one up?
Andrew:No. We’ll be back. You guys will hear it on Friday, as we’ll get in and talk about the FAU game in depth and really break that down. David and I are going to continue podcast tradition of doing our three players to watch, pick some games around the country, and get ready. Miami-Alabama, Georgia-Clemson. A lot of good football. I’m excited. I know you’re excited, David. Even if it is Florida-FAU, it’s football in the Swamp.
David:Football in the Swamp. That’s right. Watch out for UCF and Boise State too. That one will be a good one, I believe.
Andrew:I’m going Boise State.
David:I’m going for Boise State, man. Screw those Knights.
Andrew:That’s right. Hold on. My Jaguars, South Alabama Jaguars do play Southern Miss on Friday night. Go Jags.
David:There you go. A ton of games lined up, even Thursday and Friday games. That’s what’s cool about the first week of SEC football. You get all these good games on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday as well.
Andrew:My Braves are out west, so I’ll catch a little football before the Braves come on.
David:Braves #1 right now in the East.
Andrew:That’s right.
David:There you go.
Andrew:That’s right. David, looking forward to it. Looking forward to a good year, guys. We’ll officially get underway here on Thursday, or Friday. You’ll listen to it on Friday. We’ll tape it on Thursday. We’ll officially get underway.
David:All right, folks. That’ll wrap it up for this episode of GatorCountry.com. Next week we will preview FAU and some of the other games next week on GatorCountry.com. So, that’ll do it for the GatorCountry.com podcast. You can follow Andrew Spivey @AndrewSpiveyGC on Twitter. You can follow me @SoderquistGC on Twitter as well. That’ll wrap it up, folks, for this episode of the GatorCountry.com podcast.