GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we recap the Florida Gators big win over Ole Miss on Saturday.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre recap how the Gators looked on Saturday and how the offense looked.
Andrew and Nick also breakdown how the Gators can improve on defense after giving up 31 points to Ole Miss.
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrew:What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, we had football, so that mean’s football is officially back, and it came back in a big way. 51-35. Gators offense comes out rolling. I believe that was an SEC record for yards in a game, 642 yards. Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts, the two Kyles had a game.
Nick:Yeah. First off, first things first, after watching football the first couple weeks it was nice to get some SEC football back. Now I’m sure Jeremy Pruitt and Will Muschamp didn’t make it look so, what I’m about to say.
Andrew:A&M and Vanderbilt either.
Nick:Just watching Florida and Ole Miss and watching Kentucky, who I thought was going to play better, but Kentucky and Auburn. I missed me some SEC football. This other stuff has been okay, but I missed some SEC football, that’s for sure.
Andrew:A&M was terrible against Vandy. Miami embarrassed Florida State once again. What an interception. What are you doing, Florida State? That might be worse than blocking yourself.
Nick:They’re really bad, and they’re going to be bad for a little while. I was talking to a buddy of mine who played baseball for them. Obviously, played sport for them, huge fan. I told him last year, you guys are in for a long rebuild. He’s like, the players are there. I talked to him last night, and he’s like, this sucks. I was like, I told you. You’re in for a long rebuild.
Andrew:The thing about it is they’re still recruiting terrible. I always say this, and there’s no science, I guess is the best way to say this, but when you have a new coach that comes in, obviously when he comes in that year recruiting is not usually going to have a huge uptick, but the following year of his first full year is when you really see how he’s going to be.
For me, Nick, Florida and Florida State, when they’re going good, they should be battling each other for recruits. When Florida State lost to Georgia Tech, people on the message board asked me, who’s Florida going to go poach from their class? The answer is nobody. Florida’s not recruiting anybody Florida State is. Miami’s not recruiting anybody Florida State is. That’s just how bad it simply is. To me, that tells you everything you need to know about the state of the program at Florida State. It’s also this. You know this as good as anyone. It seems like there’s always one program in the big three that’s going to be down. It’s Florida State’s time to be down.
Nick:Not to kick a dog while it’s down, but they’re awful. They’re horrendous. Clemson legitimately has an opportunity to go put 100 on them.
Andrew:Yeah. It’s really bad. If you’re a Florida State fan, and you were mad that you didn’t play Florida this year, what are you doing? What are you doing? Florida would score 70 on you guys. It’s just bad. Here’s the thing, Nick. Maybe I’m looking at this with some bias, but I don’t even think Miami’s really that good, and Miami just embarrassed them.
Nick:I think Miami’s good. In that exact tone. I think Miami’s good. It’s not like I’m saying, Alabama looked good yesterday. Not like that.
Andrew:Clemson has looked good.
Nick:Clemson has looked good. Miami looks fine. They’re going to be completely exposed by Clemson in two weeks. They have to play them on October 10th, and Clemson will expose Miami.
Andrew:Right. That’s the thing. You look at the ACC, and it’s Clemson and everybody else. That’s just what it is. Clemson and everybody else.
Nick:For as much as people in the ACC, when people try to knock the SEC, they’re like it’s Alabama and everyone else. Cool. It might be. Alabama’s also one of the two elite, elite programs of the last decade, so yeah. You’re not wrong, because Alabama’s been better than most every school in the country for the last 10 years. Sometimes it is Alabama and then the rest of the SEC. It’s literally Clemson and then a huge gap.
Andrew:Oh yeah.
Nick:In the rest of the ACC. A huge gap. Like I said, Miami’s good. Right now they’re ranked 10th, or right around the top 10. That’s not them.
Andrew:Eight in the AP poll.
Nick:They’re not a top 10 team, and they won’t be after they lose to Clemson.
Andrew:Then the SEC has two, three, and four. Florida moved up to three in the AP poll. I think it was the first time since October of 2012 they’ve been in the top five. Two, three, four in the polls. Auburn jumped up to seven in the polls, and A&M is 13. I don’t think A&M is that good. Mississippi State did jump up to 16 after a huge win over LSU. I thought LSU would be bad, losing everybody, but LSU is bad.
Nick:That’s not the defending National Champion. That is a bunch of dudes who found the jerseys that the defending National Champions wore, and they just put them on. There is nobody left.
Andrew:They went from Joe Burrow to Myles Brennan. They went from Burrow to Myles Brennan.
Nick:The cupboard is bare in Baton Rouge. That’s going to be a team, they’re going to go like 4-6, 5-5. I would say more comfortably that LSU will go 3-7 before I’d say that they’re going to go 7-3. That’s a team with a losing record. Florida should beat that LSU team by double digits in Gainesville.
Andrew:Right. 100%. Same thing with Georgia. That’s not a good Georgia football team. Not a good Georgia football team.
Nick:Here’s the thing. From talking to my buddy, you remember Ryan Young, he was out at SC. After he left Florida, he started covering Southern Cal. He doesn’t think JT Daniels is very good. Even when Georgia’s sitting there, when we get our quarterback back. It’s like, no, dawg, your quarterback was Jamie Newman, and he said peace, out.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:Now you got JT Daniels, who still isn’t medically cleared, and you’re hoping and wishing that he’s going to be the guy that makes you a good team. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Andrew:Yeah.
Nick:You look at the polls. Florida hopped Georgia, despite both teams winning. Florida hopped Georgia in both the Coaches and the AP poll. Last time Florida was here was October 21st with Will Muschamp in 2012, started off 7-0. That was the year they went down to College Station and beat Johnny Manziel. Beat LSU. Beat Vandy, Tennessee, Kentucky. Were 7-0, and then lost to Georgia. That was the last time that Florida was ranked this high, when they were 7-0 in 2012.
Andrew:That’s the thing. When you look at this Georgia team in general. It’s more than the quarterback too. That’s the thing. A halfway decent Arkansas team wins that game by double digits last night.
Nick:Yeah.
Andrew:Let’s get into Florida. Everything’s not all happy and giddy for the Gators either. 51 points, we’ll talk about the offense here in just a minute, but defensively, whoo boy. You and I and everybody else was talking about how good the defense possibly could be. They got embarrassed on Saturday defensively. 35 points, 613 yards, 443 through the air. First of all, 3rd and Grantham showed up many a times. Second of all, this secondary.
Nick, here’s the thing. I know people get on Ron English for his recruiting. I’m getting on Ron English for his coaching. What are you doing? What are you doing? I know Shawn Davis went out of the game, but you had plenty of time to get Donovan Stiner ready. Donovan Stiner didn’t look good at times on Saturday. You had plenty of time to get your guys ready, and it just didn’t happen. What are you doing there?
You made no adjustments in the game either. Trey Dean I thought played decently early on, and then he was MIA in the second half. They pulled him. Rashad Torrence was beat several times. CJ McWilliams was beat a lot in the game. We heard all offseason about how this is a versatile defense and how the linebacker corps was going to be able to run with these guys. Never seen Tyrone Hopper on Saturday. Ventrell Miller and James Houston were in coverage multiple times, and they were getting exposed like they should.
Nick:The numbers that you said. 613 total yards, 443 passing yards, and Elijah Moore wanted to come to Florida. Previous staff told him they didn’t think he was good enough. Said no thanks. Thanks, but no thanks. Ten receptions, 227 yards. The last time any of those numbers were that bad was 2014 when Florida was at Alabama, and the receiver there was Amari Cooper that had a 200-yard game against Florida. Those are bad numbers.
Just to take the other side of you, Ole Miss is a good offense. They’re going to hang 35, 40 points, and they’re going to have 500 yards off offense on a bunch of teams this year. They’ve got some good skill players. They’ve got a good quarterback. I thought Matt Corral looked very good. Lane Kiffin, he’s going to scheme up. They’re going to do that to some teams that they play this year. Was it Alabama they did that to last year?
Andrew:Yes.
Nick:They’re going to do that. The other thing I will say, which will be negative. I can’t say it for one team and not have it count for the other. I think right now, early on, this is like in spring training when the pitchers come back a little bit earlier, and it takes a while for the offense in baseball to kind of match up to the defense. I think this is the opposite. I think right now you’re going to see defenses struggle a little bit more than offenses, because like Dan Mullen said, they hadn’t tackled live other than twice in scrimmages since the Orange Bowl. I think what you’re going to see right now, probably across the league, are defenses probably playing a little catchup to offenses, because that’s so much tackling and getting used to game speed, and probably offenses taking advantage of that a little bit.
No excuse to give up 600 yards, to give up 443. I just think that that’s probably something. We were worried about tackling, and tackling reared its ugly head. Missed tackles. I’m not ready to say that’s what Florida’s offense is, get ready for a 50-30 game every week, because it’s going to be a dog race every week. I’m not ready to push panic on the defense yet. Was that a good performance? No. Was that acceptable? No. Do I think that’s going to be a week in, week out thing? No. I think when we get to December and the season’s done that will be the most yards passing and the most total yards and maybe the most yards rushing Florida gives up in a game all year long.
Andrew:Oh, 100%. I agree that the defense is going to be better. Again, we knew it. We said that there was going to be some issues because of that, because of no tackling, that kind of stuff. The biggest issue I had was just simply the ball thrown up, and you don’t have your head turned ready for the ball. CJ McWilliams one time the ball’s in the air, and he’s still looking to the endzone, not even looking at the ball. Just simple things. It was how easy they moved the ball, Nick. It wasn’t so much that they moved the ball and scored like that. It was how easy they moved the ball. Basically the lack of any kind of push, I guess, that they had.
Another thing, I just wonder a little bit on how much this was Grantham or how much it was just the score dictating this, but Florida had a really good pass rush for most of the game, and then at times, especially in the second half, it seemed like Florida was playing more coverage, almost wanting them to have to take 10-play drives to run the clock. Maybe that was the case. This team’s going to be built around their pass rush. Brenton Cox is what we thought he was. Zach Carter is so much better as pass rush. Gervon Dexter did a really good job in the game. Bogle and Chatfield played really well. This team is going to need their pass rush, and that’s how they’re going to win and lose ballgames is how good their pass rush is. I think in the second half they kind of took that away, because they almost said let’s not do this.
Nick:I thought Brenton Cox came out of the gates like a bat out of hell.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:He’s the one that batted down the pass that was intercepted, or got a finger on it, got a hand on it. He caused that. He had a sack and a couple tackles for loss. I think he looked like a guy that hadn’t played in over a year. I don’t want to say he looked like he was taking plays off. I think he, gas tank might have been on empty towards the end of the game. There’s a difference. Look at the kid. He’s an impressive physical specimen, but there’s a difference between in shape and in football shape. I think across the line I could probably point to some of the guys on Florida’s defensive line and be like they just looked maybe out of it, tired, towards the end of the game.
Andrew:I’m with you there.
Nick:One thing that’s terrible, and you can’t make excuses for, is just the big chunk plays.
Andrew:That’s what I’m saying. They had it too easy, and that’s the concerning part for me. Just simply not contesting it.
Nick:That’s not good. I would be more concerned, and maybe you agree or disagree, but I would be more concerned, I’m looking at the drive chart. Ole Miss had 13 total drives. Only three times did they have drives with double-digit plays. They had one drive, the first drive of the game was 13 plays, 52 yards, ended up turning it over on downs. Then they had two touchdown drives. One touchdown drive was 11 plays for 75 yards. Another one was 16 plays for 75 yards.
If you would have seen more drives with 9, 10, 11, 12 plays, like Florida just can’t get off the field, I would have been more concerned than I know you gave up chunk plays for 25, 35, 55 yards, 40 yards. You got to fix that, but I think you could be able to point to a play and say, our eyes got stuck here, which allowed this spot of the field to open. You can make an excuse and say we’re starting a guy at star that we don’t think should be starting there, and that’s on Brad Stewart, because Brad Stewart should be starting there. He’s putting himself in a position where he’s not playing.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:Me personally, I would be more concerned if you saw those long, sustained drives where Florida just couldn’t get off the field. You didn’t really see that, other than those three drives that I just read off and just mentioned. Still, if you’re going to let some guy throw those haymakers. We’ll call those chunk yards, we’ll call them haymakers. If you’re going to let that happen, you’re going to catch one. Someone’s going to knock you out. If you stand there and let somebody throw bombs on you, they’re going to connect once in a while. Someone’s going to catch you.
Andrew:I think it’s one those things that we always talk about. There’s a positive and a negative. There’s a positive for that. Yes, they didn’t, but at the same time, it’s one of those things of how do you allow those two plays? The thing that I think was concerning, and you and I are baseball guys all the time, and we talk about shutdown innings. You kind of want that shutdown drive, where after Florida scored Ole Miss rebounded. You can’t have that happen there. Again, I think that this defense will get better. I just was very concerned about the secondary. Not even so much Marco and Kaiir. It was more up the middle, and that safety play and that star position were just really bad. Amari Burney really didn’t have a good game either in that game.
You had to go into that game knowing that that was what was going to happen with Ole Miss. They were going to throw the ball around. You knew Lane Kiffin was going to do that. Again, I wasn’t happy with the game plan, and I definitely wasn’t happy with the execution of the game plan. Just didn’t seem like they ever made any adjustments in the game.
Nick:That’s probably the one thing. I talk about it all the time. I give the coaching staff, Mullen and Grantham, really all of them, so much credit, because I think they are really good adjusting inside of the game.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:Maybe they did some. I need to watch the game over again, but maybe they didn’t do enough. At the end of the day, you look at the numbers. I don’t like doing this. I saw somebody, I can’t remember what coach it was. Struggled, but they got a win. It was, we got a win. I was like, you guys looked like crap. Getting a win sometimes is just not enough. We would say that about the Jim McElwain teams. It was a house of cards. You’re winning games ugly.
Andrew:Will Muschamp teams.
Nick:Same thing. It’s nice to get a win, sure, but you’re building a fragile house of cards and propping yourself up with bad wins where you’re just sneaking by. I’ll say this with Dan Mullen and the Gators. Good teams know how to win games, and sometimes you might have to win one ugly. This wasn’t an ugly win for Florida. There’s a wart, because the defense didn’t have a great game, but we’re going to talk about the offense. There’s not enough good things we can say about the offense.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:This game might have a pimple, but this isn’t like a wart. Florida didn’t go in and sneak out of Oxford with a win. They earned that win. We’re just talking about the defense. When you get teams and you play at Texas A&M, and they didn’t look good at all versus Vandy, but when you go on the road and play at College Station, and when you play Georgia, and when you play Kentucky, when you have to go up and play Tennessee, even though I don’t think Tennessee is very good, you got to batten down the hatches on defense.
Andrew:Right. Yeah. No. The game was never in doubt whatsoever. The game was never in doubt at all.
Nick:Lane Kiffin said, and I meant to ask Dan. I didn’t get to ask Dan about it, but I didn’t really agree with Lane Kiffin. Lane Kiffin said that roughing the passer changed the entire game.
Andrew:I don’t know if it changed the entire game, but it definitely had a little bit of an effect in the game. Ole Miss was definitely trending in the right direction, had the momentum there. I’ll say this. You and I say this every time, I feel like, but I hate that call. It wasn’t even that it was late. They said that he drug him into the ground. I hate that call.
Nick:By the rule, the ref threw the flag, and that’s how it should be called.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:I don’t like the rule and how it’s called.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:Just like Shawn Davis. Was that targeting?
Andrew:No.
Nick:By the rule, yes. What they’ll probably do is they’ll probably put that clip of Shawn Davis and what he did on the highlight reel when they show referees. They’ll say, this is targeting. If you see this, call it. Do I think that’s targeting? No.
Andrew:Right. No.
Nick:By the way the rule is written and the way they want it implemented, that was targeting, and that was roughing the passer.
Andrew:Yeah. Shawn Davis going out of the game potentially changed the game in a huge way.
Nick:Shawn Davis leaves the game in the first drive. Completely changes the game. Now you’re having a freshman, Rashad Torrence. I think he’s going to be a great player, but like you said, he gets beat a bunch.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:That’s because Lane Kiffin’s smart, and they’ve got good players on offense for Ole Miss. They just replaced a senior with a true freshman starting his first game, a kid who wasn’t here in the spring, didn’t go through spring football, had a quasi-fall camp. Target him. Smart to do it. Tough spot for Rashad to be in. But then the only time Trey Dean comes in the game, thank God Rashad Torrence has some big hair, because that’s the only time Trey Dean came in the game is when Torrence’s helmet came off.
Andrew:Trey looked good I thought.
Nick:I through Trey Dean looked good at safety.
Andrew:I thought he did as well.
Nick:But then like you said, he’s on a milk carton in the second half. I would like to see more Trey Dean. I think he’s a kid who works hard and is maturing. I think I would like to see more of him, especially with as much as you rotated the safeties last year. I would like to see some safety rotation on Saturday.
Andrew:Didn’t rotate at all. You would like to see that there. Again, it’ll get better. The brightest spots were definitely Dexter, Cox, Carter, Chatfield. Bogle had a good game. VentrellMiller, oh my word. Homeboy might still have a headache from that hit. That was a hit. That was definitely the hit of the game for sure there. Some good performances there.
Nick:If you’re playing linebacker for Florida and Brandon Spikes tweets about you, that’s pretty special.
Andrew:You wear that 61, you better.
Nick:Brandon Spikes tweets about you and says, he might be better than me.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:You made a play, son. You made a play.
Andrew:Yeah. You better be a dang good linebacker to be playing and wearing that 51. Again, I think it’s a situation for Florida where they’ll get better as the year goes on. South Carolina’s a good team to get that going.
Nick:If Florida’s defense was bad, a Will Muschamp offense is exactly what the doctor ordered for Florida’s defense.
Andrew:100%.
Nick:Will will come in there, and like that bozo did last Saturday, kick a field goal down seven with three minutes left.
Andrew:What are you doing?
Nick:Almost worked out for him, because Jeremy Pruitt’s a bozo too, but it didn’t work.
Andrew:What are you doing, man? Really? What? Second of all, what is your team doing? Peter, peter, peter means get out of the way. Get out of the way. You can’t lose a game like that, but he did. Let’s go to the offense. My oh my did the Trask Pitts connection, let me just read these numbers. 30 of 42 for 416 and six touchdowns for Kyle Trask. Eight catches, 170 yards, four touchdowns, and a 21.3 yards per catch for Kyle Pitts.
Some bozo for Notre Dame literally said Kyle Pitts was playing nobody, and that he would have three catches against Notre Dame. I sent out an LOL to the tweet, because there was no sense in responding. What are you doing? Here’s my thing. If you’re guarding Kyle Pitts, you better put two guys. That’s all I can say. The man has catcher mitts for hands.
Nick:Maybe like the San Francisco 49ers have a guy that they could be like, we’ll put him on Kyle Pitts. There’s no defense, there’s no college defense in the country that has a guy that they can go, we’ll just have him shadow Kyle Pitts, and we feel good about that. Teams are going to have to double him. They’re going to have to shadow him. They’re going to have bracket him. He’s just a menace. He’s a problem.
Andrew:Huge problem.
Nick:The only issue I see right now is that it’s really unfortunate that Kyle Pitts and Kyle Trask are going to take Heisman votes away from each other when they’re in New York. That might keep the fourth Heisman out of Gainesville.
Andrew:Yeah. The thing for me with Pitts is Trask has that trust with him, and why wouldn’t you? Has that trust with him that he can just put it up, and he knows that Kyle’s going to get it. That fourth touchdown late in the game, where it was a post route, and Trask was going to be hit and did get hit, and he put it at a spot, and he said if Pitts isn’t going to get it, nobody’s going to get it. To have that trust is huge for Trask, but it also speaks of Pitts. If you’re an opposing team and you go into a game, your game plan has to be Kyle Pitts ain’t going to beat me.
Nick:Those are the marching orders. If you’re a defense, and you’re playing against Florida, preparation begins with 84.
Andrew:Kyle Pitts ain’t beating you.
Nick:Know where 84 is. How do we slow down 84?Because no one’s stopping him.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:Someone can stop him. You can put three people on him all game long, and Florida will just not throw to him, because at that point you’ve got a guy wide open, or two guys wide open, somewhere. That’s how Dan Mullen will do things. They will take what they give, and if somebody wants to really take Kyle Pitts out of the game, they’re going to have to commit so many resources to doing that that they’ll give up 50 points to Trevon Grimes, Kadarius Toney, Malik Davis. They’ll give up 50 to them. If you want to lose to Florida but not lose to Kyle Pitts, put three guys on him.
Andrew:Yeah. You’re going to have to bracket cover him, have safety help over the top, because it’s just not going to work. Again, it’s because he’s got catcher mitts for hands. He has a vert that’s really good, and he runs like a receiver. Good luck. That’s basically all I can say is good luck. If you think you’re going to cover him, good luck. You’re not. If you do, like you say, double or triple team him, they’re just going to throw the ball around to Grimes, throw the ball around to Copeland or any of the other receivers who looked really good in the game. You’re going to throw it to those guys.
Here’s my question to you, Nick. Does the Emory Jones plan almost have to go now with how good Trask looks, or are you okay with Emory? Let me state my opinion real quick first. I’m okay with Emory still getting a package, but again it seemed like it was scripted to where Kyle had a really good drive, and then they brought Emory in the game. It’s like, you just took away the momentum from Kyle. Why didn’t you wait?
Nick:And it was the arm punt too.
Andrew:Right. Why didn’t you wait? Are you still good with the Emory package, just needs to be better thought out? What’s kind of your take?
Nick:I know a lot of people aren’t going to like this. I don’t know where he fits in right now. If Kyle Trask is going to go out there slinging the ball like that, and it wasn’t just the numbers. The numbers are eyepopping. Sure. Absolutely. They’re record breaking. Sure. Absolutely. It’s just everything that he did looked good. His pocket presence, the way he was moving around in the pocket, his decision to check down instead of forcing passes.
There were a couple passes that people called drops that I don’t call drops. He laid Jacob Copeland out to dry on the first or second drive, threw a ball over the middle that he shouldn’t have thrown Jacob Copeland, and Cope got popped. It happened later. I can’t remember who. I’m blanking on who the receiver was. Threw that guy into a defender and got him popped. He didn’t play a perfect game. But to me, if that’s the kind of game that you’re going to get from Kyle Trask, game in and game out, Jones should have a package, but this whole, like we were asking do we see more of Emory Jones? In my opinion, if I’m the head coach, not when your starter’s looking like that.
Andrew:Here’s my only argument to that, and I know somebody’s going to jump my case when I say this, because Florida did have 196 yards rushing. 55 of those were from KT on jet sweeps, and then Emory had 37 of them. I mean, that still leaves 100 yards rushing. The offensive line still doesn’t get the push they need up front. Emory Jones does help get the running game going, but I almost feel like I’m going to talk bad about myself when I say this, because we just talked about this earlier in the podcast in the preseason of don’t bring Emory in just to run, but I almost feel like when you need to get the running game going with Emory, do that, more so than have him throw the ball. Just simply because you feel so good with Kyle Trask throwing the ball, and you know Emory can get the running game going with his feet.
Nick:Yeah. I guess then my worry would be are you then telegraphing what you’re doing?
Andrew:Are you really not telegraphing it now? Are you really not telegraphing it now when Emory comes in, and then pretty much you know it’s going to be a run almost?
Nick:The first play was a pass play.
Andrew:That was not a pass. That was special teams.
Nick:You threw a popup. He threw a popup.
Andrew:Yeah. We’ll get on the offensive line in a second. I don’t know. I still think Emory needs to be in the game some. I like him coming in and establishing the running game as well. When you’re in throwing situations, you need Kyle there. Then I don’t like that it was so scripted that as soon as Kyle had a touchdown, I think it was the third drive of the game, they bring Emory in. It’s like, Kyle was rolling.
Nick:It’s that thing that we talk about where it’s like are you making this decision based on feel and how the game is going, or is it we told Kyle he was going to get three drives, and Emory’s going to get the fourth? It’s the fourth drive now, so.
Andrew:That’s what I’m saying. That’s the part that concerns me, or not concerns me. Dan’s got this under control, but that’s the part that I just don’t like. It’s a situation of really getting the offense, and you run the risk of what happens if the offense just don’t get back rolling again? At times last year that happened. You don’t want that to happen this year.
Let me go to the offensive line. I’ll ask you this, Nick. What did you think of the offensive line?
Nick:I thought the pass pro was good again. I thought at times created lanes. I was surprised they didn’t run behind Stewart Reese more. I don’t know how much, because you and I had both heard that Jean Delance was going to be competing for that right tackle spot. I don’t know how much Ethan White going down changed the landscape. I know that it moved Brett Heggie from left guard to center, and it forced Gouraige to go and have to play left guard. I think the line will be better with Ethan White at center. I think. Again, I haven’t been able to see that. It’s like I said on the Friday podcast, I felt the least prepared that I’d ever felt, because I hadn’t been able to see stuff with my own eyes.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:I think Ethan White will make the team better, with Heggie at guard, White at center, and Reese at right guard. I don’t know if Jean Delance is your answer at right tackle. I don’t think the offensive line was as bad as it was at times last year.
Andrew:Agreed.
Nick:There’s definitely still room to improve, because like you said, there’s still not that consistent push on running plays. I want to spend more time on that, on Malik Davis, but I think there needs to be more. I think you need to be better against the run. To me, when I think of John Hevesy, I see a guy that wants to pride himself on we’re big uglies. We’re going to move the line of scrimmage two yards, and we’re going to run the ball down people’s throats. I don’t think Florida’s in that position where they can do that.
Andrew:Yeah. You would think with Hevesy, like you said, you would have guys that just absolutely flew off the ball and was blowing people off the ball, and that simply just didn’t happen. Pass pro at times was very good, and then at the second half when Ole Miss kind of figured out Florida’s not going to run the ball very much, it struggled, because the two tackles, Stone and Delance, allowed speed rushers at times. Then Stone at times wasn’t picking up linebackers, and there was a miscommunication between him and Gouriage where he still blocked the guy inside and let the linebacker go free. That’s a concern. Like you said, I think it’ll be definitely better when Ethan White’s there, for sure.
Still, there was one play, and I told you this after the game, where Malik Davis beat Jean Delance to the hole on a counter play. That simply can’t happen. When Jean Delance is pulling, he better be pulling and beating. It looked like Malik was the offensive lineman leading Delance, because Delance was following him, and that simply can’t happen. Kyle makes it a lot easier on those guys, because he gets rid of the ball so quick. You just want to see that.
Again, we’re nitpicking, because everything was pretty good. Safety and offensive line are two positions that I’m still concerned about, and that’s kind of it. I know you want to talk about Malik, and I’ll beat you to the punch and say he looked like we thought he was going to look and had heard he was going to look. He looks like the guy we seen his freshman year. He’s back healthy and explosive again.
Nick:I love to see it. I love to see it. People last year, they know that Lamical Perine was our boy, and I never wanted to put Malik down. He’s one of the players, if you had to list the top three players that you get asked about the most, he was definitely in that group. It just gets frustrating having to answer the same questions over and over again. You’re like, LamicalPerine’s having a really good season. Why are you asking about his backup’s backup?
I think if you really sit down and think about everything that Malik Davis has gone through, two season-ending injuries, one of them coming shortly after his freshman year, where he had what seemed to be a breakout introduce yourself game against Kentucky. What he’s had to go through mentally and physically, and then I see him come out. Dan Mullen told us, this looks like the Malik Davis that I saw on tape when I took the job in 2017, and you say, I’ll wait to see it.
When I see Malik plant his foot in the ground, make a cut, make a guy miss, and then the way I see him running behind his pads, this isn’t like scatback trying to make people miss. He was like, there’s nowhere to go, let me put my head down and run through some people.
Andrew:Right.
Nick:I was so impressed with Malik Davis.
Andrew:I was just happy for the guy. I’ll be honest. More so than anything, I was just happy to see the guy. You know this. I know a lot of people know or read about Malik and everything. Malik’s one of the best people too off the field, so you hated it for him there. Some of those plays was just really good. The thing, Nick, for me was how explosive he looked, and then also his ability to cut and trust that his foot was good enough and his ankle was good enough to make the cuts he wanted to was there.
I thought Damien Pierce played okay. He had his moments of playing well. I don’t think he played bad at all. Then Nay’Quan. Nay’Quan probably has the play of the year so far where he hit the juke button. He hit that right stick and said, see ya.
Nick:He’s another one. You go down, you talk to some coaches down in Miami, and they’ll tell you how good Nay’Quan Wright is. Unfortunately, he’s a guy that we’ll see sparingly this year, because of Pierce and Davis.
Andrew:Lingard ain’t got a spot. No wonder he didn’t even make the depth chart. Where’s he playing?
Nick:I don’t know, man. You bought a Lambo, and you’re leaving it in the garage, but you’ve got some other nice cars that are driving you around.
Andrew:They did. They looked really good. A guy I wanted to talk about, and this is going to be a guy that doesn’t get talked about enough, and we can probably say this after every game. Trent Whittemore really replaced Hammond, Swain, perfectly. That guy that when it was a crucial situation was going to make the catch, do what he was supposed to do.
Nick:Johnny on the spot.
Andrew:Yeah. Blocked really well. Did everything you wanted to see from him. I was really impressed with him. I thought Grimes had a good game. Copeland had a good game there. Didn’t see a ton from Justin Shorter in the game. Didn’t see a ton from Xzavier Henderson in the game. That’s going to happen.
Nick:I think he was targeted like three times.
Andrew:Eleven different people caught passes. It’s going to be tough. When 11 guys catch balls, that’s going to be tough.
Nick:That’s this offense. That’s what it is. Listen, you’d rather have a team where you can throw to 11 guys than a team where it’s like we got one legit player, and then a bunch of JV guys that we got to try to figure out how to disguise around and do stuff like that. You’d rather have more talent than not enough.
I agree with you. Whittemore to me, I think that probably fits his role perfectly. He’s a mix of Swain and Hammond. They were just so dependable. I think he might even have some of that big play ability. Really looked impressive and super athletic on the field as well. Of course, as a white receiver, he’s a gym rate, studies really hard. First in, last out. Sneaky fast. All those things that you say about white receivers. I think that’s a really good comparison you just made about him filling that Hammond, Swain role.
Andrew:You need somebody to fill that role. We always said this about Freddie, and we always said this about Josh, and both of them are on NFL rosters right now, and that is you never really expected them to say, oh my gosh, what a play. Freddie had the big play in the Auburn game where everybody was like, wow. You never expected, not never, but you didn’t expect every game.
Nick:When it’s 3rd and 8, you know I can depend on getting Freddie the ball, and he’s going to know where the down and distance is. He’s going to run his route to there. I can know the same thing about Josh, and I think you’re going to know the same thing about Trent Whittemore. It’s like if his route is a dig on 3rd and 8, you know he’s running that route. He’s running that route nine yards.
Andrew:Right. You know that if it’s a ball that you’re going to throw to a spot, he’s going to be in that spot. Another guy, Nick, and this is a guy I tweeted this on Saturday, and I’ll say it again. The most improved player for me was Kadarius Toney. For the first time, and listen, KT, if you’re listening to this, don’t bash me. You and I are boys. Don’t bash me, but for the first time you looked like a true receiver. I don’t mean that in a bad thing. Kadarius Toney’s one of the best athletes in the country, but for the first time he looked like a polished receiver that I think could run the route tree.
Nick:Long story short, that’s the best Kadarius Toney has looked in a Florida Gator uniform.
Andrew:Yes. 100%.
Nick:If you look at the numbers, the numbers aren’t Earth shattering. Five receptions for 59 yards. That’s okay. He had two carries for 55 yards.
Andrew:Bro, that one he almost fell. He was on the ground it seemed like.
Nick:He had two feet on the ground and a hand on the ground.
Andrew:You want me to tell you the biggest thing that impressed me?
Nick:I’m beating you to it. Kadarius Toney knows he’s only going to get a certain amount of touches, and then you put him out on special teams. Now, if I’m Kadarius Toney, or the Kadarius Toney that I think of the last three years, if I’m only going to get these amount of touches per game, I know when they punt the ball I’m going to have the ball in my hands for sure. If they got me on kickoff, I know the ball’s going to be in my hands for sure. I’m going to run everything back, for better or for worse. Nope. Every single punt that was sent to him sky high, guys were all around him, waves his hand. Fair catch. Catches the ball cleanly, no problem.
A kickoff. On kickoff, listen, if you give Kadarius Toney five yards, he thinks I got all kinds of space. On kickoff, you’re going to have 25 yards of space, 30 yards of space, when you catch the ball. There was one where he caught it on the one- or two-yard line, and it was really high, and Ole Miss’s cover teamwas coming down. He threw his hand up. I’m thinking, no way Kadarius Toney is calling a fair catch on a kickoff to give his team good field position. The old Kadarius Toney would have just brought that back and maybe gets hit right away and fumbles. Maybe he runs it back for a touchdown. You don’t know. This Kadarius Toney did what he supposed to do, waved his hand, got a fair catch, starts his team off with great field position. That’s maturity right there.
Andrew:That was basically what I was going to say, but I was going to say it about on offense. A few times on crossing routes he had a short gain, and instead of trying to reverse fields and try to make the homerun play, he took what was given to him. Again, that part is what shows maturity, shows the growth, shows everything you want to see from Kadarius as a playmaker.
Nick, we’re running out of time here. Let’s run through our players. You got them pulled up?
Nick:I got them pulled up. I’m three for three this week.
Andrew:I don’t even remember who I had.
Nick:I’ve got them written down. I had Trask, VentrellMiller, Kyle Pitts. Obviously, we talked about Trask, and we talked about Pitts. Ventrell Miller still gets exposed a little bit in the passing game, but my dog had 15 tackles, 13 solo, a sack, two tackles for loss. One of those tackles for loss I think the guy’s still feeling that hit. I’m three for three this week. Yours we’re going to have to talk about, because we might set some precedents with the way we go.
Andrew:We got three minutes, so let’s go. Three minutes.
Nick:Malik Davis. Seven for 49 yards, seven yard average, I’m willing to give him to you just because I was so happy for him, the way he looked.
Andrew:He almost had 100 yards. That’s a win.
Nick:What do you mean almost 100? He almost had 50.
Andrew:All purpose.
Nick:Okay. That’s a win. Brenton Cox. I’m going to give that to you too.
Andrew:That’s a win.
Nick:I’m not giving it to you, like that’s a win. The one that we need to talk about is Jacob Copeland.
Andrew:I’m not taking a win for Cope.
Nick:Three catches, 39 yards. They really target him. They target him I think twice on that first drive. How many targets did he have? He had four targets total for the game. I think he had three on one drive, so they kind of just went away from him.
Andrew:No. I can’t take a win. I would love to.
Nick:I take a 3-2 lead.
Andrew:I would love to take a win there, but there’s no way I could take a win there. It’s just not enough. Not enough. Here’s the thing. I get a loss, but I love his game. I’ll take the loss there. Tell the people, Nick, where they can find us and what the week’s got ahead of us and so on.
Nick:We’re up against the clock. Ton of stuff coming this week. Find it www.GatorCountry.com for all your Florida Gator news. The podcast is there in audio and transcript form. You can find the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Just search Gator Country. Hit subscribe. Never miss an episode. Do your social media thing. @GatorCountry on Facebook and Twitter. @TheGatorCountry on Instagram. I’m @NickdelaTorreGC. He’s @AndrewSpiveyGC.
Andrew:There you go. On Wednesday we’ll have a guest on here to talk about it, and we’ll also talk some playoffs. Your Marlins are in.
Nick:Playoffs?
Andrew:Playoffs. Your Marlins are in. That is that. I might be talking about Dan Quinn getting fired from the Falcons. He deserves it. Two straight weeks of losing a 20-point lead. Come on, Dan. You’re killing me, bro. Come on, Dan. Anyway, we appreciate it. Looking forward to the South Carolina game. As always, go Braves and chomp, chomp.
Nick:You stay classy, Gator Country.