GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we give you the latest news surrounding the Florida Gators football during their now bye week.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre breakdown what the team is doing during the break and when they will return to action.
Andrew and Nick also talk about the games around the country from this past weekend.
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrew: What’s up, Gator Country? Your man Andrew Spivey here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, we’re back. We’re on two-week hiatus, I guess. In the last week of it, as I’m sure you guys know by now, Florida-Missouri has been pushed back to Halloween night, and so now this is considered Florida’s bye week.
Nick: I don’t really consider it a bye week if you’re not practicing.
Andrew: Yeah. But in technicality, it’s a bye week.
Nick: Technically it’s a bye week.
Andrew: Seven straight weeks of games going forward.
Nick: Yeah. That can be rough. Let me look at Georgia’s schedule too.
Andrew: Georgia will have a bye sometime after the Florida-Georgia game.
Nick: Anyway, basically Florida caused the SEC to kind of scrap some things and redo a number of games.
Andrew: They caused the SEC just to throw the schedule out the door and say, we’re going again.
Nick: I think this is exactly what happened and why Florida’s dealing with this now. There were a couple guys who had symptoms, didn’t report their symptoms, because if you’re feeling a symptom on Friday, and your Friday test comes back negative, you’re probably thinking I don’t have Corona. I just have maybe a cold, or maybe I have allergies. Maybe I just have a headache. I didn’t sleep well. You get on a plane with your team, even though you have it, even though you haven’t tested positive yet, and now you’re breathing recycled air. So, instead of five guys having it, which is what showed up on the Sunday test, now you’ve got more than 31 guys that have tested positive.
Andrew: Including your head coach and including two other assistants. Here’s the thing, Nick, and I’ve thought about this. I know some fans are upset that certain guys got on the plane, and I get it from the standpoint of you should have been more responsible. I get it, but at the same time, Nick, if the test came back and told me I was negative, I would feel the same way you just said and say, it’s probably just a cold, and I’ve have probably went ahead and played too, because you get the test for a reason.
Nick: Yeah. But they’ve also been told.
Andrew: They should have reported it. Yes. They should have reported it.
Nick: I’m playing both sides of the fence here, because I get it. They’ve also been told there’s an 8, 9, 10-day incubation period. You could have it and not test positive, even though you have it, so report any and all symptoms to us. But like I said, it’s going to be tough. You only get 10 games this year. It’s going to be tough to tell a 19, 20-year-old. We live in Florida, man. I’m sniffling right now. I cut the grass, and I’m sniffling now, because there’s so many different kind of allergens in Gainesville. We got pollen, and we got all kinds of stuff. To have the sniffles, I got sniffles all year round, and I didn’t test positive.
Andrew: The thing is, and we’re not naming names. We’re not going to do that at all. That’s just unprofessional. The guy that we heard who has it is a guy who is it’s money year for them. It’s a situation where he’s a senior, and it’s money year for him. For him to sit out a game because he has a cold was crazy to him. Again, I don’t blame him at all, because he tested negative. Everyone wants to throw blame at somebody, and that’s the world we live in now, and I get it, but at the same time, it was bound to happen. It’s happened to a lot of teams. Look at the Titans and everything else. It’s bound to happen. I think the biggest thing is going forward what happens if, Lord forbid, Georgia gets it or Tennessee or LSU or somebody else gets it down the road? When do you make these games up if somebody else has it?
Nick: Yeah. The issue I’ve found with the SEC is they were so quick to be like, game’s cancelled, let’s play on 12/12. That to me should have been your last resort. That’s the last date you have. Now you look, Kentucky and Missouri were supposed to play November 7th. Now Florida and Georgia in Jacksonville, they didn’t want to move that. I don’t know why, because the Jags don’t play in Jacksonville on November 1st, the day after Halloween, but they do play in Jacksonville November 8th. So, it didn’t make sense to me why you couldn’t just move Florida-Georgia to October 31st.
The whole schedule’s a mess. Basically, Georgia goes up to Kentucky to play Kentucky, or Georgia’s off this week. They play Kentucky next week, and then play Florida on the normal date. I guess they really didn’t want to play a midweek game, which I laid out for us last time.
Andrew: I think the problem with the midweek game is, and I think it was feasible for sure, but then again, the NFL is very lucky in that they can move their games to pretty much any day of the week and be fine. I don’t know that the SEC has that ability, contract wise, to do that. I think that’s where a little bit of it comes in. Everything is TV oriented. That’s what everything is based off of, so I think that might have played into a factor. At the end of the day, it’s a mess, and you’re hoping and praying that this the last outbreak for a team. I think, Nick, I don’t want to sound negative, but I don’t see how you can feel comfortable this is going to be the last outbreak with what you saw last week and really a couple weeks before.
Nick: I think this’ll be the last outbreak for Florida.
Andrew: 100%, but I’m saying for other teams in the SEC.
Nick: Especially considering the way that they’re testing. If you tested previously, you’re not getting tested again for another three months. Florida’s got damn near half the team, from the 11 that have tested previously, from when guys came back to now, and more than 31 now. You’ve almost got 50 guys. You’ll be ready to go the rest of the year.
Andrew: Yeah. I get that.
Nick: For another team.
Andrew: For another team. I brought this conversation on a radio that I was doing. What happens if LSU gets it December 12th? What do you do?
Nick: I don’t know. You said you need to have all the games played.
Andrew: Right. That’s what I’m saying. So, what happens if that’s the case? What happens if Kentucky gets it here in late November, and the schedule has to be changed again? I think that’s why I’m like you in that December 12th, yes, it was there for a reason, but at the same time, that should have been your last option. Here’s hoping that the rest of the season just goes by quick.
We reported some news on Monday that Florida will not even be back in the facility again until Sunday. Like you said, there’s zero practice. Some people have said, can the guys work out on their own? That is strongly asked not to, simply because you don’t know who is going to get it and who’s going to test positive, so you’re asked not to. Like you said, how many guys could even really do it? You’re over 50 of the guys who are either quarantined from having the virus or who have been in contact with somebody with the virus.
Nick: Yeah. I would say strongly and explicitly discouraged.
Andrew: Yeah.
Nick: Here’s the thing. Florida will get a bunch of guys out of quarantine. All the guys that tested positive, the first 19 that tested positive that we knew of by Tuesday, they’ll be out of quarantine this week. They’ll be out of quarantine. The guys that were contact traced and put in quarantine from them, will be out on Friday. That’s why Florida’s not playing Missouri this week. Florida would have had enough players to play Missouri this week, but you would have gotten people out of quarantine on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, with no practice.
You’re going to get most of the guys out to practice. Practice is going to be truncated. You’re not going to get a normal week of practice, because even though Dan Mullen will be out of quarantine and some of these other guys will be out of quarantine for Sunday, you’re still going to have people in quarantine. Those are the breaks. It sucks. It’s going to happen to somebody else too. It’s happening to you. Don’t cry, it’s not fair. Should have had players not get on the plane when they had Coronavirus.
Andrew: I think the biggest thing that I’ve been asked is just how in shape are these guys going to be? Because at the end of the day, you’re looking at a bunch of guys who haven’t worked out, who haven’t ran, who haven’t done anything. I guess they can run at the dorms or whatever, wherever they live, but they haven’t worked out. They haven’t done any football activity for two weeks. Your body is not used to going three, and then having two weeks off, and then trying to ramp it right back up. What kind of shape are you in that way? I get concerned a little bit of injuries, Nick. Maybe I’ve overreacting, but that’s just me.
Nick: Yeah. It really just is what it is.
Andrew: Are you concerned about injuries?
Nick: Yeah. Potentially. For sure.
Andrew: Okay. That’s just my thing. Hammies and that kind of stuff. Stuff that you’re used to could easily have a problem. That’s just my take.
Nick: Florida just released their information. Obviously, we already know it, but since football has returned to campus on May 26th, total tests on campus 2,480, total positives on campus 62. Like I said, you’ve already had 62 football players test positive for this. Total tests for October, 1,107. We are 20 days into October, and they’ve done 1,000 tests, and 31 total positive tests.
Andrew: You got to think about it, Nick, that when you’re talking 120-some guys, including walk-ons and everything else, and staff members and everything else, that adds up quickly. Times seven, you’re at almost over a thousand in seven days. I know it’s not everybody, because if you tested positive before or tested positive this time, then you’re not doing the daily testing.
Nick: Yeah.
Andrew: Crazy, crazy, crazy overall. I don’t know. That’s what someone asked me when I was doing radio this week, and that is do you basically start the season over now? My answer was, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve never been through this. I don’t know how the season is going to be when you come back. Is the team going to be completely different? Is the defense going to show up this time? I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you.
Nick: That number only includes football players, student athletes. That doesn’t include Dan Mullen, the two other assistant coaches, or the staff that have it. You got to think, if players have it, which people are working closely with the players? One of the players that had it spoke to the media while he had it, so there’s a bunch of people that he’s now coming in contact with. That 31 is just players.
Andrew: Right. I guess the one positive in all this is you’re able to kind of take the film from the first three games, and you’re having a ton of Zoom meetings and that kind of stuff. Basically, you’re using your whole allotment of practice time from the NCAA to go out and just do virtual meetings, film studies, that kind of stuff. I guess you’re getting some of that. That’s all fine and dandy. I don’t know how much of this team needs that. I guess they do, because there has been a lot of missed assignments, so I guess that’s definitely a plus, but you can only get so much out of that.
Nick: Yeah. Well, I think the only good thing we can take out of this is you’re going to deal with it. You dealt with it last week. You’re dealing with it this week, and you’re probably done dealing with it for the rest of the year.
Andrew: You would hope so.
Nick: When you’ve got 62 football players that have already tested positive, you’re still going to have some pop up. Some are still going to creep up.
Andrew: But hopefully it’s just one or two, not enough to shut down the program.
Nick: Yeah. You’re not going to have enough, I don’t think, to shut down the program again.
Andrew: Right. That’s the key going forward is not having to shut it down. I think it’s going to be a challenge. We say, is Dan Mullen ready for it or anything else? I don’t know that there’s an answer. I don’t know that there’s an answer either way, because nobody’s been through it. I guess Florida, no, the hurricane it was only one week. To my knowledge, I don’t know when the last time Florida’s had a two-week bye.
Nick: No. No. It wasn’t even the Miami week, because the Miami week was play a game, off, play a game.
Andrew: Yeah. It’s tough, because your body’s not used to that. You’re kind of accustomed to what’s going on and doing the same thing every week, that kind of stuff. Again, I think the best news out of all of this is that nobody that we know of is sick, sick. There’s a few people with some mild symptoms and some people who just are asymptomatic. That’s the best news out of all of this.
Nick: Yeah. That’s the best news out of all this. You don’t want anyone to be really sick. I’ve had friends who have gotten it, who have had Covid, and have had no symptoms. I’ve had a friend who was in the ICU for more than a week, for 10 days, so it can affect people differently, completely differently, regardless of your age or your health. But it looks like at least for now Florida’s not having to deal with anything that is super serious in terms of symptoms.
Andrew: At the end of the day, that’s the best news. Football’s a huge deal. That’s why we get paid to talk about the podcast and everything else, but at the end of the day, it is a bunch of people’s lives we’re dealing with. I think Florida has done the best they can possibly do on this whole situation. I don’t know that there is too much that could have been done differently. You put the policies in place, and guys have to follow the policies, or the policies don’t work.
I don’t know that you can really blame Florida in this instance that things didn’t work and that the team got it. I just think that at the end of the day it’s a bunch of 17, 18, 19, 20-year-old kids that are going to do that. I know for the most part, because I talked to a bunch of different people, for the most part the guys are staying away from Midtown and that kind of stuff and trying not to go out, as least as they have to. I don’t think that it’s a situation of that. I don’t think that it’s the guys being hardheaded and doing things they’re not supposed to.
Nick: You might want to check your source. Last Tuesday there were a lot of Gator football players out at the bars that I was made aware of. Maybe they’re taking it more serious this week, but last week they certainly weren’t.
Andrew: Maybe you should recheck your source, Nicholas de la Torre.
Nick: My source is the bartender that served them drinks.
Andrew: Oh, maybe yours is right. Maybe I should resay my statement. The people that I’m talking to are saying that they’re taking it serious and that their group of people are not going out.
Nick: Okay.
Andrew: That’ll be the way I’ll say it then, and we can both be right. Wild week in football though, in the SEC, Nick. Tennessee fires their defensive line coach after only four games. He’s only been there four games, because Chris Rumph just left to go to the Houston Texans. Wild week over there. The Gus bus, Nick. I continue to tell people the guy needs to be fired. He’s terrible.
Nick: Yeah. You love talking about Gus, but I think the game of the week, I think we learned a lot about Alabama. We had talked about Georgia, and we talked about is Georgia elite. I had said, look how Georgia’s finishing teams. Look at Georgia’s defense. Still at times, I think Alabama’s offense is just really good, but I watched Georgia’s defense, and I’m looking at it saying, why doesn’t Florida play like that? They play fast. They play downhill. They play aggressive. Granted, they get crushed by Alabama, give up 40. I think it means that maybe Alabama is the only elite team in the SEC. Florida’s not there yet.
Andrew: Here’s the thing for me, Nick. Yes, we said Georgia was good and everything. Nick, we talk about Georgia, and I think you and I both said that we thought they were good, but after last week, do you go back and look and say, maybe, especially after what happened for Bama, and then what happened to the teams that we thought were good that they beat. Now they look, Auburn looks like trash, like we have thought they are for years, and Tennessee, who was looking decent for a while, is now looking like straight trash. So, was it a product of Georgia playing just bad football teams and looking good? And now against a real Alabama team, I think this was for sure, and that is Stetson Bennett looked like a walk-on quarterback on Saturday.
Nick: Yeah. I mean, it was like the general sentiment on social media was, what’s the difference between Alabama and Georgia? There was a clear difference at quarterback with our buddy Mac.
Andrew: Mac Jones is better than Tua.
Nick: No.
Andrew: Yes.
Nick: No.
Andrew: Yes.
Nick: You’re crazy.
Andrew: He’s playing better than Tua, for sure.
Nick: You’re crazy.
Andrew: He’s playing better than Tua.
Nick: My boy’s starting for the Dolphins this week.
Andrew: I don’t care who he’s starting for, but he’s playing better than Tua. I don’t care who he starts for. The Dolphins are lousy. Come on, man.
Nick: The Dolphins have a better record than the Patriots right now, so you’re welcome.
Andrew: Okay. The Patriots are terrible too. They got Scam Newton playing quarterback for them.
Nick: Well, this is one of the first times in my lifetime I can even make that statement, so I’m going to make it as much and as often as I can while we can.
Andrew: I know we’re getting off topic, and we’re going to go back to this Georgia game for a second, but did you see where Cam Newton was saying he’s not just pointing fingers at his teammates, he’s pointing thumbs and everything?
Nick: Yeah. I don’t know what that meant.
Andrew: Who do you think you are, dude?
Nick: I don’t know what that meant.
Andrew: The way I understood it, from people on social media who are hip and not like me, that meant he was pointing his whole hand at them. I’m like, okay. Whatever. Anyway, let’s go back to Georgia. I think that when you go back and you start to now look at what they’ve done against the teams they’ve done it against, I think that now it becomes a real maybe Georgia isn’t so good, and the teams they’re just beating are just really bad. Now, you can go back and look at the Ole Miss game and say Arkansas’ defense shut them out and Florida’s defense and Bama’s defense both got rocked by those guys, but I think that’s also Lane Kiffin getting his guys up for those games and not necessarily getting them up for the Arkansas game. After watching games Saturday, I thought Florida had a decent shot to beat Georgia, and heading into the week I did not. I thought it could get ugly.
Nick: Shoot. Well, it got ugly.
Andrew: No. I’m saying it could get ugly for Florida. I thought it could get ugly for Florida heading into the week, because I thought Georgia’s defense was elite, and their offense had gotten to the point where they finally had a guy who was halfway decent. Now we know both of those are frauds.
Nick: Yeah. It’ll be interesting. It’ll be interesting to see for me how does Georgia come out of that Kentucky game, and how does Florida come out of, talk about rust. I mean, we talked about shaking off the rust and finally being ready and no more excuses. Well, the next time Florida plays they’re going to be having not done anything since Monday, two Mondays ago, the Monday right after losing to A&M, and they’re going to have like four practice days before. I think they’re going to look rusty again.
Andrew: Yeah. They have to. I mean, from a standpoint of not being able to play. The guys who were sick or whatever with mild symptoms, you think about it when you have a cold, and you haven’t done anything for a week or two, or a week, whatever it may be, then you come out. You just feel groggy.
Nick: Yeah.
Andrew: You don’t have your legs underneath you.
Nick: Yeah. No. Maybe still dealing with fatigue. Certainly, like you said earlier, you’re not running. You’re not lifting. You’re not throwing passes. You’re not catching passes. You’re not.
Andrew: You go back, and you look at some of those guys in the MLB this year who had it, and then finally tested negative after having it, and even had mild symptoms, they’ll tell you that they were weak feeling, even though they had mild symptoms. They were still weak feeling at times, and they didn’t have any energy. They didn’t have an appetite, that kind of stuff. That’s why they were kind of lethargic coming out and everything else, just because they had some symptoms, but the symptoms they have were the fatigue and not wanting to eat, that kind of stuff.
Nick: Yeah.
Andrew: I don’t know. I guess we got to build in the excuses again, even though we said no more excuses.
Nick: I don’t like it.
Andrew: I have a question for you. I’m going to put you on the spot. We’ve ignored this and ignored this, but how does Dan Mullen testing positive look on him after his comments?
Nick: Oh, exactly how it should. It looks terrible. The coach that, now everyone listening to our podcast has more perspective on it. Obviously, if you’re listening to our podcast, if you’re on our website, you are a huge Gator fan, and it might not seem like a big deal to you, but Dan’s comments after the loss created national news. Now you’re getting a casual football fan, a casual football fan in Illinois who doesn’t know what’s been going on with Florida, just follows Covid, has been following football a little bit, waiting for the Big 10 to come back.
Andrew: Right. Yeah. Just following football.
Nick: Now, you’re getting national news from in their perspective some idiot calling for 90,000 people in the Swamp, and you’re like, what are you talking about? Then 36 hours later, they say, they’ve got five more. 72 hours later it’s 19.
Andrew: And he has it.
Nick: A week after he says it, he has it, and he had it for more than a week. He tested positive Wednesday. He came out and said it.
Andrew: Saturday.
Nick: Saturday. To me, if you’re a casual fan who doesn’t follow Florida, you’re probably thinking, serves you right. Called out Corona, and now look what happened. That’s how it’s playing nationally. Dan is getting roasted by guys like Dan Wilkin, Pat Forde, some of the columnists down in South Florida. He’s been getting absolutely torn apart by these guys.
Andrew: Yeah. And it’s warranted. Period. End of discussion. I know some people are going to say you guys are being too hard on him. It’s warranted. Sorry. It is what it is. When you make that statement, you better be sure you’re good, and you weren’t. At the end of the day, those comments, and he had to come out and retract them. It was after being pushed to come out and retract them, and that’s because it looked silly. Period. It looked silly.
At the end of the day, the fans had nothing to do with the game, had nothing to do with the outcome of the game. You were pissed off at your defense, and you wanted to turn the table and talk about something else. You made a dumb comment. Now you have to live by the consequences. Here’s the thing. We know he tested positive way before Saturday. He picked Saturday in the middle of the biggest football game in the country to announce it.
Nick: That kind of news.
Andrew: I was going to say, and it wasn’t exactly unplanned. That was planned.
Nick: It kind of gets lost in the cycle if you do it then. If you do it on Wednesday or Thursday, you are the cycle until the games start on Saturday, and you’re talked about all Saturday morning before the games get started.
Andrew: Yeah.
Nick: Smart PR. It was a smart PR move.
Andrew: It is. It’s just you wish Dan Mullen would have understood and listened to the people around him who told him on Monday to come back and retract that statement, because it would have helped things a little bit. I know some people are going to say, you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill on this, and maybe we are. It’s just one of those things when you’re the head coach at the University of Florida, you cannot make those statements. It goes back to the same thing with Jim McElwain and the death threats. You cannot make those statements. You can’t. It is what it is. When you’re that guy, you cannot make it. If you’re the head coach at FAU, sure. You can get away with it. Nobody cares. If you’re at Florida, you can’t. Florida State, they care. You just can’t. The old saying, karma hits you, and it kind of did.
Nick: Yeah. Quit calling out Covid.
Andrew: Yeah.
Nick: Quit calling out Covid. It’s going to win.
Andrew: Yeah. It sucks. It does. It sucks for everybody involved. You look at it, and you say, I wish nobody would have got it, and I wish the stupid thing would be over with in general. There’s nothing more I want to do than get back there. It’s just it is what it is. It’s a virus, and like we said before, everybody was going to get hit by it. That’s what I think made the comments even crazier is because you had no clue what was about to come down the table, and then it happened. Now you kind of look retarded in a way.
Nick: You look bad.
Andrew: Anything else, Nick? What’s going on? I know baseball’s coming up and basketball’s coming up.
Nick: Baseball stuff this week. October 22nd baseball starts. Basketball is coming down the pipe. Yeah. Thanks Mike White, because if it wasn’t for basketball starting, I don’t know what I’d have to write about. I’m working on a story about some stat stuff. Florida’s offense is good, especially when you consider that the defense can’t get off the field, and the offense was only getting a couple drives per game. I’ll have that up this week. It’ll be basketball coverage and basketball and baseball this week, while Florida is off. Football is off.
Andrew: Basketball is practicing, and they’re about to get ready. Get your fire Mike White tweets ready, I guess, because it’s coming.
Nick: Please spare me those.
Andrew: You know they’re coming.
Nick: Spare me those tweets.
Andrew: No. @NickdelaTorreGC. That’s the Twitter handle. Give him all the mentions about Mike White and what’s going on there. I think it’s going to be a good season for him. I do. It’s going to be interesting to see. Have they announced what they’re going to do attendance wise?
Nick: Basketball has not.
Andrew: I was going to say. Not to my knowledge. They haven’t announced what they’re going to do attendance wise, so it’s going to be interesting to see, because that’s indoor.
Nick: Baseball, they’re not playing for a while.
Andrew: Basketball is an indoor, closed air environment, so I wonder how that’s going to work.
Nick: That’ll be very interesting to see.
Andrew: Yeah. That’ll be interesting. Then just to get some normalcy back, play some out of conference games. It’s going to be fun. Anything else you want to talk about before we get out of here? We’ll be back Friday. We’ll talk Friday about some games going on this week. Really that’s about it. We’re kind of just in shutdown mode, I guess is the best way to say it. Nothing going on. Unplanned bye week, and it sucks.
Nick: Yeah.
Andrew: I wasn’t ready for it. I was ready for football.
Nick: No. We were doing so well. We were doing so well. It just reminds you. I told you, and I know the football players are going out and doing stuff like that. It sure reminds you how quickly this virus can spread, and it can take away everything you worked for. The University of Florida, the University of Florida Athletic Association, and the players have worked so hard since they came back. We’re talking a long time right now that they’ve been working, I mean, since June, July, to not have something like this happen. It’s easy to just think we can just relax a little bit, we’ve been basically like we’re in the military. It’s been so strict, and we’ll just relax a little bit. This should be a very real reminder why you can’t do that and what happens.
Andrew: Those who have it can just say, I’m partying now.
Nick: I guess.
Andrew: Not to joke about. I’m just saying. Nick, tell everybody where they can find us. We’ll get out of here. We’ll see everyone on Friday, and we’ll pick some games and see what else is going on in the world, because Florida has a way of keeping everybody busy.
Nick: Never a dull moment.
Andrew: Yeah. Tell everybody where they can find us. We’ll get out of here, and we’ll see everyone on Friday.
Nick: www.GatorCountry.com for all your Florida Gator news. The podcast is there in audio and transcript form. 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. Guys, we appreciate it. As always, chomp, chomp and go Braves.
Nick: You stay classy, Gator Country.