Podcast: Recapping the Florida Gators 70-52 win over Samford

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David: What’s up folks of Gator Country? This is none other than your boy David Soderquist, along with Andrew Spivey. Finally, we get to announce some good news on this podcast, after five weeks. Florida in football gets a victory over Samford at home 70-52. A lot of things that were going on in this game that we want to discuss, but also, Florida defeats Florida State in basketball. Finally gets the monkey off their back. The Gators dominate Florida State 71-55 in basketball.

After having five weeks of bad news and nothing really good to talk about, it’s finally relaxing and kind of makes you feel good this week that we can actually have some good news on this podcast today.

Andrew: Basketball gets that seven-game losing streak over with against FSU. Mike White’s team looks good. They’re rolling. That new group is an experienced group. As my man Eric said, I believe it was Friday, or maybe it was Thursday, he put out a story about how the offense has kind of changed and evolved a little bit the last few years under Mike White. You can tell that it’s a lot better now. It’s allowing his guys to go at it. That was the good news.

The bad news is Florida gave up a program record 42 points in the first half. Not to just an FCS team, overall. They had never allowed 42 points in the first half to a team, and Samford did that. The same Samford team that was blown out by UT Chattanooga.

Let’s first address the monkey in the room, and that is after the game Dan Mullen said saying a win is a bad win is disrespectful to the game. He said he allowed his players to celebrate, and there was the video going around of the players celebrating in the locker room, dancing and high fiving each other and you name it after the game.

I think there’s a couple ways we have to look at this, David. On Monday, Dan Mullen said he’s got to find a way to get the confidence back with the guys. A win is a confidence. Is there a bad win? No. There’s no bad win. I don’t know the best way to describe it. There’s no bad win, but there is also not pretty wins, and it wasn’t pretty. The offense has every reason to be jumping up and down. 717 yards. Emory had a school record for all-purpose yards. I don’t know.

David: I think he was 20 yards away from setting the passing record for a single season. That was Kyle Trask last year that set that, right?

Andrew: No. I believe that’s still a Tebow record.

David: It could be still a Tebow record.

Andrew: Passing in a game. He set the overall record for all-purpose yards. He had 550 total yards.

David: 550 total yards. 28 for 34, six touchdowns. Actually, seven total touchdowns in all, rushing and with passing.

Andrew: That tied the record.

David: 82% completion rating. A passer rating of 255.2. Zero interceptions. No turnovers from Emory Jones. Finally, we get a non turnover prone Emory Jones in one game. Offensively, you did what you were supposed to do to an FCS team.

Andrew: Right.

David: A 4-5 FCS team. I have nothing bad to say about the offense. The offense came out there.

Andrew: I will say this.

David: What’s that?

Andrew: You did what you were supposed to do offensively, but the offensive line, still no push.

David: Yeah. That was bad.

Andrew: 3rd and 1, couldn’t get it. 4th and 1, they were the beneficiaries of a good spot.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: Most of the runs were outside. Hardly none was inside the tackle. That’s the part that frustrates me. I know I’m nitpicking on the offense a little bit, but that’s the part that just irritates the snot out of me, David. You’re an offensive line. You’re bigger, stronger, everything, more physical, and you can’t dominate Samford up front? What are you doing? It’s frustrating.

David: That play call on that play too. A quarterback sneak. Emory Jones, I know he’s only 215, considering that, that’s a pretty small guy considering when you’re putting him out on a football field. I didn’t agree with the quarterback sneak call on that play. I believe you should have at least ran a running back like a Dameon Pierce, who I’m going to get to later, who’s a bigger running back. You only need one yard. You get a 1st down, whatever, but you’re right. I even remember texting you during the game saying, that shouldn’t have been a 4th down conversion at all. There’s no way that he got that much push to get over there. I think that call was a little bit skewed. It should have went to Samford. Kind of glad it went to us, but it should have went to Samford.

Overall, like I said, offensively you scored 70 points. That’s what you should have done an FCS opponent. You put up 717 total yards. I remember saying this to somebody, and it’s cool that they broke school records. It’s good that they got a win. It’s good that they got their confidence going. Whether they’re recording them dancing in the locker room or not, who cares? Whatever. It looks silly, according to other schools, SEC schools and other media outlets there, if you ask them. Like you said, you needed the confidence. At the same time, you shouldn’t have to put up 717 yards, 70 points, against an FCS team to beat them, because your defense is giving up a touchdown just about every single play out there.

Andrew: You didn’t have the lead until the middle of the third quarter.

David: I’m saying, most teams that play FCS teams probably have about 500 or 600 yards total. Maybe 400 or 500. But they don’t have to put up 70 points to beat them. They usually don’t, because they have their second and third team in by halftime, so they don’t put up those kind of points.

Andrew: When they do put up 70, it’s a 70-20 or 70-15 score.

David: Right.

Andrew: It’s definitely not 70-52. You give up a 99-yard kickoff return to them. The special teams showed its ugly head on Saturday. Even when you look at the onside kick. Dan Mullen said he talked about it before they went out there. They’re going to go surprise onside kick. They did, and they got it. Listen, it’s surprise onside kick for a reason, but at the same time, you have to prepare that that was going to be there and that was going to come. Florida lost two out of the three on Saturday. They lost defense, and they lost special teams.

Special teams, David, the frustrating part for me was offsides. There was four offside penalties in the game. The guys still were not lined up at all at times. Guys were just getting beat. Avery Helm, Jadarrius Perkins. Those guys were just getting beat. One on one and just getting beat with the guy out jumping them. That can’t happen. Missed tackles. Too many missed tackles out there.

Again, cool you won, but the problems didn’t go away. We talked about this on Friday’s podcast with Clifford. There wasn’t much to gain from winning here, but there was a lot to lose, and you lost a ton. The hot seat talk on Dan Mullen, and we’ll get to that in a minute. It’s still there, and it’s still there big time. The defensive guys, they showed nothing on Saturday to say we deserve to stay. Listen, I get it. The defensive scheme didn’t change just because Todd Grantham was fired. It’s still the same defensive scheme, but I expected the calls to get in a little quicker. I expected the guys to have some more energy. The guys played with no energy on Saturday.

David: No.

Andrew: That’s a problem. That’s a very bad problem is that guys play with no energy. They said everything that was right during the week about how they were fired up to play for Christian Robinson, and they were glad for Christian Robinson. They didn’t show it on Saturday.

David: They absolutely didn’t. You alluded to Jadarrius Perkins and Avery Helm. I clued into that too today. I had posted this on Twitter. I put, “Jadarrius Perkins and Avery Helm were picked on quite a bit yesterday. Perkins would give up 88.9% of his targets, which is eight for nine for 109 yards and 30 yards after the catch and one touchdown. Helm would also give up 83.3% of his targets, five of six for 61 yards and 37 more yards after the catch. Samford landed 34 of its 51 targets for 417 yards, landing 66.6% of their total targets yesterday against Florida, and would also average 12.3 yards per reception.” I noted the stat that you just said. “Florida would also break and SEC record for most points allowed in one half against an FCS opponent.” That’s not good, man.

I understand that Todd Grantham is gone, and I understand that you have an assistant coaching the defense, but against an FCS team that’s 4-5, I don’t care who’s coaching your defense. You could have bozo the clown out there coaching your defense. You still shouldn’t be giving up 52 points and over 400 yards passing to an FCS opponent. That’s just unacceptable.

I’m happy for the win. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that we’re finally able to discuss a win on this podcast, but I am so pissed off and ticked off that the defense allowed this to happen. It’s embarrassing. It’s completely embarrassing. I don’t care if you won the game or not. That is embarrassing. You got teams in the SEC looking at this. You’re going to go and play Missouri next week. If you give up this amount of points to Missouri, we’re not scoring 70 points on Missouri. It’s not happening. The defense can’t come out here this lackluster and give up this many yards passing. Even over 100 yards rushing they gave up as well. They had one receiver, Samford had one receiver with 120+ yards. You can’t give that up against any SEC opponents and expect to win the football game.

Andrew: Montrell Washington, that kid’s a stud.

David: He was.

Andrew: That kid’s playing on Sundays. That kid’s a baller. That kid’s a good player. That kid might have been the best player on the field not named Emory Jones and Dameon Pierce on Saturday. That kid was good.

Like you said, you go through it, and you know that that effort is not good enough for Missouri. That effort’s not good enough for Florida State. That’s the same effort you put out in the South Carolina game and got beat. That’s the same effort that you came out with LSU and Kentucky, and you got beat. You’ve got to figure that out, and you’ve got to figure that out quick of what it is.

I don’t know. Maybe the fans getting on the players a little bit for celebrating this week, maybe that gets them going. Maybe that puts a chip on their shoulder to make them understand the fans are upset, yada, yada. Maybe that fixes some things. I don’t know. There has got to be an energy. Again, I put a lot of it on Dan. The mindset starts up front with the head man, and that’s Dan himself. Some people said, how come the offense came out playing well? First of all, it’s against an FCS team, so they did what they’re supposed to do.

David: Yeah. They should.

Andrew: Secondly, the offensive line didn’t come out with that energy. Emory was just throwing it around, like he was supposed to. Guys were making plays.

David: It seemed like every 50/50 play that Samford had on offense, Florida couldn’t cover it.

Andrew: Right.

David: That receiver, Washington, I got to give him credit. He had some ridiculous catches this game.

Andrew: That touchdown catch? Oh my God.

David: It was like one handed, brings it in. I could not believe it. Every time they threw it to him it seemed like he caught the football.

Andrew: That 99-yard touchdown, kickoff return. He was so patient when he waited on those holes to come open. It was unreal. You’ve got to figure it out, and you’ve got to figure it out quick. To go to your point a second ago, once again, Dameon Pierce comes out. Dameon Pierce plays really well. 48, 78, 110, 126 total yards of all-purpose yards. Three touchdowns, two rushing, one receiving, and he didn’t get a carry until midway through the second quarter.

David: What the hell is up with that? I don’t understand what goes through Greg Knox’s head and what kind of film he’s watching as a coach.

Andrew: Screw what Greg Knox says for a second here. Where’s Dan Mullen, the head man?

David: Right. Yeah. Exactly. It’s Dan Mullen’s choice. He should be telling Greg Knox, Dameon Pierce needs more carries. Dan Mullen don’t care. That’s what I think. I just don’t think he cares. If you’re watching film, if a fan and multiple thousands of fans can tell you, look at Dameon Pierce. Look what he’s doing. I’m going to discuss Dameon Pierce right now. You said 78 yards, two touchdowns. 11.1 average yards per rush, five forced missed tackles, three runs for 10+ yards, 45 yards after contact, four 1st downs. All on just seven carries. He would also have three receptions for 48 yards. This is just one game in seven carries, and he’s not getting the football.

Andrew: Most of his carries was in trash time.

David: Yeah. In trash time, when you needed him at the first half of the game when Samford was throwing bombs on your defense and scoring consistently at will.

Andrew: Right.

David: His career statistics. 448 yards rushing, 6.6 average yards per rush, 10 touchdowns. Good stat here. Zero fumbles. 217 receiving yards. He’s also 18 for 18 in those receptions. He’s 100% in receptions, in catching the ball. 274 yards after contact, 17 runs of 10+ yards out of 68 carries, 28 runs resulting in 1st downs, 33 forced missed tackles. And the guy is only getting seven carries a game.

Andrew: Yeah. It’s a problem. Xzavier Henderson, he has a good game. Kemore Gamble has a good game. Nay’Quan was 8 for 47. Okay. Malik was okay, 6 for 33 with a touchdown. They were okay. Again, Dameon Pierce has been that workhorse, has been that guy really all year, and you continue to fail to get him touches. Not even just touches. You fail to get him in the game. It’s very weird.

I go back to this, David. I just don’t get it. I don’t get giving up 52 points to Samford. Mullen came out, and he wanted to give credit to Samford and said their air raid, pass happy offense. Chris Hatcher, he’s from the Hal Mumme tree. That’s all good, but guess what, you can’t. You cannot give up 52 points to Samford. It makes you really question if everybody’s given up.

Again, I hate to do that. I really do, because I know the guys haven’t exactly quit, but it makes the question out there. Whether Dan Mullen likes it or not, it just signals problems in your program. Again, if Grantham and Hevesy were the issues about the energy, that would have been fixed, but it wasn’t.

David: Right.

Andrew: Now, the scheme still sucked, but again, you can coach effort. You can coach that stuff, tackling, that kind of stuff, and it just isn’t happening. Again, many national analysts are saying that was the dagger, that was the nail in the coffin for Dan Mullen. I think Pat Forde said that, and Bruce Feldman said that. I’m almost kind of agreeing with that a little bit, because I don’t know how you recover from that. Obviously, you won, but you were still embarrassed.

David: Yeah. I’ll even throw this out as an example. I’m not trying to change the subject. I used to be in a bowling league when I was 18, and we were the #2 team. We had to play the #1 team, and you play a three-game series. We won three. We got all three series. We won. We completely beat them in every single game, but I played really poorly. I played below average. I was not good. I was lucky that my three other teammates played really well, and we won the game. When I went home, I felt so terrible about it, and I said, I got to get this fixed. What did I do wrong? I kept thinking about it and thinking about, even though I was happy with the win. I was still upset with myself.

Throwing that into today, these players, this coach, be happy with the win, but sit down and realize you gave up 52 points to Samford. Sit down and realize that you gave up 40 points to a South Carolina team that can’t even average past 20 points on offense the week before. You’re literally on defense giving up so many yards, so many pass plays, so many rushing plays that your offense literally has to do what it did last year, score over 40+ points per game just to win a game. That’s a problem. That’s nothing to celebrate.

Andrew: Again, this was supposed to be a team that was run first, not pass first, and it’s not happening. Here’s my thought on this. A win’s a win.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: You should be happy you won the game. But you also have to know the opponent and know that things aren’t there. Now, I don’t have a problem with the guys celebrating it. I don’t have a problem with Dan Mullen telling them to celebrate it. But some things are better done, not said.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: Not coming out and saying, we’re celebrating the win. No. You fumbling at the mouth again, Dan. You’re fumbling at the mouth. Some things just are better left unsaid, and that was one of them that should not have just been said. It should have just been left alone, because when you said that you opened yourself up for more scrutiny from people, and you can’t say they’re wrong, because it shouldn’t be close. You can’t say they’re right either, because you won the football game. You did what you were trying to do.

This is the thing that I will say, David, and this is kind of where I’m at. If this was Year 1 of the program, and you were trying to rebound from a winless season or a two-win season, and you got a win and snapped a losing streak, that’s one thing. This is Year 4. You shouldn’t be rebuilding.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: Florida doesn’t rebuild.

David: Yeah. That’s what Butch Jones does. He goes brick by brick every year and doesn’t do anything. Look, I had a clip that I wanted to play, and I watched the Alabama game. I watched a lot of games yesterday. I watched the Alabama game. They played their opponent, their out of conference opponent. They beat them 59-3. I’m going to go ahead and play a clip that Nick Saban did. Nick Saban mentions the Samford vs Florida game and our game, and he’s not taking a shot or anything. He just kind of mentioned it, because somebody had asked him a question. Let me go ahead and play the clip real quick.

Reporter: It was kind of a strong effort from the first half starters, but it was kind of still fairly slow start on both sides in the first quarter, like for the first half of the first quarter. So, how much of an emphasis has the first quarter been in the week of preparation?

Nick Saban: You know, I think you really got to be digging deep. It’s hard to win. I see people getting beat. What was the Florida score today against Samford?

Reporter: It’s 62-52 right now. They were down at the half.

Nick Saban: So, do you want me to be critical of my team because they had to pump once in the first quarter, and they got a field goal? I mean, I’m not going to do it. Like I said, they did a couple things. We made a couple mistakes. They did some things different. We adjusted to it. I think the players did a good job. I’m not going to be critical of anything that our players did when we win 59-3.

David: And he’s right. 59-3. That’s what you’re supposed to do against an out of conference FCS opponent. It’s funny that that’s the exact game that he thought of. He’s 450 miles away, and somebody mentions just a mistake that they had had during the game and the other team scoring a field goal, and that’s the first thing that comes up in his mind is that game against Samford. You already got head coaches looking at that game saying, wow. Samford scored 52 on Florida. That’s the thing.

Georgia, next week they’re going to have to play a 4-5 FCS team in Charleston Southern. I guarantee you that score is not going to be 52-70. I guarantee you they may not even score a point. They may score a touchdown. They may score a field goal, but Georgia’s going to go in there and get the job done, because they have better talent. They recruited really well, and Kirby, I can’t say that he’s the best coach out there, but he knows what he’s doing for the most part to get the best players on the field and beat teams that he should beat handily.

Andrew: Right. Like Nick said, it’s hard to win. And it is. It’s very hard to win.

David: Yup.

Andrew: It is very, very hard to win. You look in the NFL. If you win three out of four of your games, you’re considered elite almost. Again, it hasn’t been an undefeated team since ’80-something or ’70-something with the Dolphins. You had Brady and New England, who that was probably the greatest franchise of the last 20 years or so, and they never went undefeated.

Again, it’s hard to win, but it’s the way you win, and it’s perception. I keep saying this over and over. It’s perception. It’s perception of your program. When you’re 4-5, and now you’re 5-5, and you’re in Year 4 of your program, there’s a perception about it. You look at A&M right now with Jimbo. It’s perception. Is A&M better as a program than they were when Jimbo took over? The answer is yes. Now, they have a couple losses. They played like crap against Ole Miss on Saturday, but they’re a better program. This isn’t a better program that Dan Mullen has. This is Year 4, and you’re having these same problems. Furthermore, you’re questioning the attitude, the mindset of the program in Year 4. To me, that signals the end. That signals Dan Mullen has lost the program.

David: Yeah. Personally, going into next week, I’m not confident we’re going to win that game. I think we drop it, to be honest. Missouri’s got a running back that’s rushing for 1,200 yards, and we can’t tackle a jersey with grip tape and Gorilla Glue on our hands. Something’s got to give. I’m going to say this. If you’re a player on this team, and you absolutely would die for your head coach. And we talked to Clifford Taylor last week, if you would absolutely die for your head coach and want your head coach to be here next year, you’re going to do everything that you can to win these next two games, and you’re not going to play like crap on defense. You’re not going to get pushed around on the offensive line.

Defensively, I want to get into a little bit more notes here. Only two sacks, four tackles for loss, and four quarterback hurries on the defensive line, against a 4-5 FCS team. Those numbers should be higher, to me, if you ask me, playing an FCS team. Samford had a total of 14 total drives, only one three and out. They scored on seven of the 14 drives. Six touchdowns, one field goal, and averaged 6.2 yards per play. Obviously, the special teams’ touchdown does not count for their offense.

The thing, the defensive line didn’t even really get that much push either. I noticed in the second half, they made good halftime adjustments on defense, especially on the defensive line. I noticed there was more blitzes in the second half. I noticed that they were putting more pressure on the quarterback, or trying to get pressure on the quarterback, and that’s why Samford kind of sputtered there on offense, because the quarterback wasn’t doing really well when he was pressured.

I think in the first half they didn’t try to blitz as much. They tried to play a little bit more man, and they kept getting burned. Avery Helm kept getting burned. Jadarrius Perkins kept getting burned. Kaiir Elam only allowed 27 yards, but did give up three penalties, a quarter of the penalties here in the game. He had a couple holding calls and a PI call. They did the right things at halftime to make the right adjustments, but there’s still no excuse for you to give up 42 points in one half to an FCS team.

Andrew: You know why the defensive line didn’t get any push?

David: Why is that?

Andrew: They have injuries, and they have no depth. Do you know why they have no depth? They don’t recruit.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: There’s three defensive tackles, outside of Gervon Dexter, are transfers.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: Newkirk was out on Saturday. It just doesn’t. When you don’t have depth, and you don’t recruit well, it shows its ugly head, especially on the line of scrimmage. It’s showing, and it’s showing big time. Florida continues. They lose Raymond Cottrell this past week. He decommitted. You’re continuing to go down this trail of not getting recruits. You’re expecting a new DC to come in. If I’m a new DC, and I’m coming in, I’m saying, what am I working with?

David: Exactly.

Andrew: What am I working with? I have no depth. This isn’t basketball, where you can go recruit your whole team in the transfer portal. You can’t. It doesn’t work that way. I just doesn’t. Basketball’s a little different. There’s not great players at Charleston Southern, like it is in basketball or whatever, because there’s not as many programs. I’m at the point where I’ve seen enough. I really have.

I think the pressure is there now on the administration. I think they administration knows it. I saw a couple people talk about social media. Social media is buzzing. If you don’t think the administration sees it, you’re crazy. It’s the same thing with boosters and stuff like that. They see it. The support on Saturday, the crowd was awful. Now, I knew it would be bad being Samford at noon, but not that bad.

David: Of course, the weather was terrible. It is a noon game against Samford at home, but if you think that Florida’s going into this game maybe 6-2 or 7-1. I didn’t expect them to be undefeated, but say they were going into this game undefeated, there’s going to be a lot more people there wanting to be in the stands and watch the game, even though they’re playing Samford. They’re going to be excited to want to see plays, even though they know they’re going to blow the team out. They’re still there to support the team.

That’s the thing. Now you’ve got fans that are trying to sell their tickets. They don’t want to show up. That’s what I call a downward spiral, when you got fans selling tickets, fans aren’t showing up. There’s season ticket holders that won’t even show up anymore. I’ve seen a few of them talk to me about it. I said, look, if you want to show up to the games, support the team, that’s fine, but if you don’t want to support what’s going on right now, I completely understand. It’s up to you. Every fan is going to have a different opinion. There’s going to be fans out there that no matter what they’re going to look at it, a win’s a win, and we’ll go onto the next game. I saw it all over the place, and that’s fine.

At the end of the day, it is a win, and I’m glad we can talk about a win, but just looking at the downward stretch of these last two games. If you’re one of those guys that doesn’t like to lose to Florida State every year and lose to your rivals, I don’t know. It’s not looking good. I know Florida State’s not good. They’re not good either. I just saw them have a complete conundrum of a game against Miami last night. They’re still going to give you a challenge, because your defense can’t stop anybody. They can’t stop a running game. They can’t stop a counter play. They can’t stop a deep bomb pass play from anybody. They can’t block a Samford FCS receiver and get an incompletion. They can’t do anything.

You’re going to have to go into that Florida State game and play lights out on offense. You’re going to have to play another game like you did against Samford, and it’s probably not going to happen, because Florida State has better talent. Even though their talent is really bad right now, like ours, they still got talent. They’re going to push you to win this game. I don’t know.

Me personally, I’m happy for the win. I’m just not happy with the result, and that’s the problem. They’re going to have to clean things up. They’re going to honestly have to clean things up coming into Missouri. Like I said, they got a 1,200 yard rushing running back, and I’m not confident that they’re going to be able to stop that guy, based on the fact of what I’ve seen so far now. They did pretty good on defensive line stopping the run. They still were able to rush 100+ yards. If you’re giving up 114 rushing yards to an FCS team that’s 4-5, and then you give 280+ yards the week before to a South Carolina team that’s just awful, what makes me think that they’re going to be able to stop a Missouri running back that’s already rushed for 1,200 yards?

Andrew: Yeah. The thing is you’re going to Missouri. You’re going to Columbia, where it’s going to be cold. It’s going to be a long flight. It’s the longest flight of the year that you have to go on every year, or every other year. Florida typically doesn’t play well there. There’s a lot of recipes for bad things. I’m looking at Saturday’s forecast. 54 is the high. 35 is the low, and it’s going to be 15 mile an hour winds and a cloudy day. It’s going to be bitter.

You see that, and you know that. Again, you see the energy. You see the passion that they had on Saturday, and you say, it was already really low. You hope the win over Samford, even though it’s a win over Samford, will get it up to travel to Missouri. Because you got to find a way to win one of these two games. You do not want to go into the Florida State game needing that win. That’s tough. It’s a rivalry game. Anything can happen.

David: I took a poll out there on Twitter. I asked the fans, what do you think happens? Do we go 2-0? Do we lose one game then win one game, or do we lose both? A lot of people voted for lose both. A lot of people voted for one out of one. Very little voted two out of nothing. If you win the Missouri game, but then Florida State comes to home, and they just completely pound you, does Dan Mullen still keep his job?

Andrew: No. I think he has to win out. Even if he wins out, I don’t know that he keeps his job. It depends on how they look. I think that’s the biggest thing is how they look over these three games. They better come out with some energy.

Here’s the thing for me. I don’t like to bash players, per se, when this is going like it is, because this is a thing that starts with the head man. We don’t know right now. We may never know. A lot of times it comes out. There’s always something that the head man changes or does that makes thing go sideways. Something has went sideways in the program and caused this. Again, not blaming it so much on the guys. Obviously, they do have to come out with energy. They have to come out with a pride factor for the name on the back of the jersey and the name on the front of their jersey as well. Also, it starts at the head man, and it’s just not happening right now.

David: Right. Speaking of starting with the head man, I actually stayed up till about 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning Saturday night, and I was watching SEC Network. I don’t know who said this on the panel. I don’t know the guy’s name. It’s a 35-second clip. I want to play it real quick.

Man: Quite honestly, the biggest problem right now in Gainesville is there’s a feeling there’s a lack of concern by Dan Mullen. There’s a feeling that he’s nonchalant about certain things.

Man 2: Like dancing in the locker room.

David: Yeah. You hit the nail right on the head.

Andrew: It does. I forgot who it was. I know what it was. It was the Athletic article a couple weeks ago where opposing coaches said Dan Mullen’s problem is he makes more excuses after losses. That’s that. It is. Again, I hate that this is a down podcast. Hopefully, Friday’s will be a little bit better. Let’s get ready for Missouri. It’s just kind of where the program is in general. There’s a lot of questions and not enough answers. Honestly, the issue is things are not good in Year 4. If this was Year 1, it’s a little different. It’s Year 4, and it’s not and what’s coming ahead is not. The noise in the system is out there.

David: Yeah. There is. If we want to end this podcast on a positive note, I’ll go ahead and mention some offensive notes from this game that I haven’t mentioned yet. The Gators would only punt twice today, turn it over on downs once. Every other drive resulted in a touchdown. Florida would score touchdowns on 10 of the 13 total drives. Each scoring drive would result in three or less minutes, except for two drives, one of three minutes and 30 seconds, and one for four minutes and 19 seconds. Average time to score for Florida this game was two minutes and 25 seconds. That’s a good note.

It was good to see Emory Jones slinging it around. As much of a bad year, I can’t even really say Emory Jones has had a bad year, as much of turnovers and interceptions that he’s had, he cleaned it up this game. There were zero turnovers. He threw for almost 500 yards. That’s something you want to see. You want to see from a quarterback a game that can boost confidence. Emory Jones probably felt really good this game, almost breaking school records. Broke a few school records as well. I’m sure he’s probably feeling good. He's probably feeling a lot more confident going into Missouri and all that. It was good.

I was kind of glad to see that he got the bulk of starts. I wanted to see Anthony Richardson. A lot of people thought we were going to see Anthony Richardson, and we did, four minutes left into the game. I’ll get into that in a second. It was good to see that if you’re going to start a quarterback for a whole game that you put him out there, and you just keep letting him sling it. Emory Jones won us this game. The offense won us this game. The defense didn’t do us any favors. Don’t get me wrong. But Emory Jones won us this game, and that’s something good that you want to see as your quarterback. You want to give him confidence. Right now he’s feeling, oh my God, we were down. We kept having to fight back, and I kept this team in the game. Obviously, he’s not going to just say it’s himself. He’s going to say his teammates helped him too, which he should, but he’s got to think in his mind, I put up 70 points. It’s a good confidence booster is pretty much all I’m saying, for Emory Jones. I’m glad he got that.

I also didn’t get putting Anthony. I guess you could put Anthony Richardson in there towards the end of the game, but I didn’t get him putting in Bowman, considering Bowman’s played three games already. This would be his fourth, so after this game you’re sacrificing a year of eligibility if you play him again. You only had him run the ball three times in four minutes. I would have at least had Lingard out there or somebody that’s already been on special teams every game or something and doesn’t really matter. I didn’t get why they put Bowman out there.

Andrew: I think the thing with Bowman is this. It doesn’t matter for Bowman either. Bowman is a guy that if he has a good year next year, he’s gone. He’ll be three years in. He’s not staying six year, because that would be six years if he was to redshirt, and he had last year with Covid. He’s not staying six years. I didn’t have so much of a problem with that.

I definitely didn’t have a problem with Anthony not playing until late, just simply for the fact that you needed Emory. Emory was having a career day. Don’t pull him there when that happened. Again, it was tough with Bowman and Lingard, just because you do have three guys going really well right now. Dameon needs more touches. I’m okay with it. Again, I don’t think Bowman, the redshirt thing doesn’t matter to me with Bowman. He’s not staying six years. If he is, then he’s not good enough anyway.

That’s kind of all I got. I’ll be honest with you, David. It just kind of is yeah right now. It’s got to go to Missouri, and you got to find a way to play better. Again, you need to show some life. That’s kind of where I’ll end it.

David: Yeah. You heard Anthony Richardson, well Emory Jones in the press conference say that Anthony Richardson didn’t even want to come in, because he wanted Emory Jones to break the record, which was kind of funny. I thought that was cool that they have that kind of camaraderie between each other, and they want to see each other do well. You’re right. You got to stick with the hot hand. Unfortunately, Dan Mullen just doesn’t get that at running back, but at least he gets that with quarterback right now.

Andrew: Yeah.

David: That’s all I got. Florida’s going to have to face off against Missouri away. I think they’re a 10-point favorite as of right now. If I’m betting money, and I hate to say this, because it makes me sound so bad, but if I was betting money, I wouldn’t put in on Florida. I’d put it on Missouri. You need more of a 10-point spread against that, the way that this defense is playing. If you’re a betting man, take that advice. I still hope for a Florida victory. I still hope for them to beat Missouri, beat Florida State. I want them to prove me wrong. That’s what I want. Just prove me wrong. Make me look stupid next week.

Andrew: If I was a betting man, I’d have never said it got the over on Saturday, and it was at the over. Two minutes into the second quarter it was already at the over. I think it’ll be a close game. We’ll see. I said this last year, and I said it the year before. I’ve said it every year with Dan. We’ll see what team comes out. That’s the issue. That’s why we’re talking about Dan and his hot seat in Year 4.

David: Right. Are we going to get the defense that came out against Alabama and Kentucky, or are we going to get the defense that came out against Samford last week and South Carolina the week before? We’ll see. Defense is up and down this year. There’s a good slate of games. Michigan State vs Ohio State next week. We got Wake Forest and Clemson too. That’ll be pretty good. Clemson’s still got good defense.

Andrew: Does that one decide the Coastal?

David: Which one? Wake Forest-Clemson?

Andrew: Yeah.

David: That is at South Carolina.

Andrew: No. Does that decide who wins the Coastal Division?

David: I think so. I think that does decide. No. Clemson’s 5-2 in the ACC and Wake Forest is 6-0. I think Wake Forest might take it, or they might have already taken it.

Andrew: That’s right. You had the situation where the Wake Forest-North Carolina game didn’t count in the ACC standings.

David: Right. You got Arkansas-Alabama. That should be a decent one. I still see Alabama taking it there. SMU plays Cincinnati. SMU ain’t too bad of a team. Cincinnati’s been a little shaky this year, barely getting out and escaping some wins here. We’ll see what happens in that game. You also have- I was looking at it earlier. Auburn-South Carolina. I believe Auburn will take that game. You have Oregon and Utah. Oregon actually had almost a close one with Arizona State last night, but they were able to pull it off. We’ll see what happens with Oregon and Utah there late at 7:30. Other than that, that’s all I got here for Gator Country’s podcast here recapping the Samford game. Andrew, pretty sure you don’t have anything else.

Andrew: No, man. That’s all I got.

David: Besides the fact that there’s good news this week. We got a win in football. We got a win in basketball. We got a great win in basketball. We dominated Florida State, so that makes me a happy Gator this week. That’ll wrap it up, folks, for this episode of the GatorCountry.com podcast. You can follow me @SoderquistGC on Twitter, and you can follow Andrew Spivey @AndrewSpiveyGC on Twitter as well. That’ll wrap it up, folks, for this episode of the GatorCountry.com podcast.