It’s Tuesday, which means Andrew Spivey has his Spivey Senses podcast ready as he breaks down the Florida Gators big win over the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday in Jacksonville.
Andrew also breaks down how the offense did and also what some of the key schemes and players were on the defensive side of the ball for the Florida Gators on Saturday.
Also in this podcast Andrew gives you the latest in Florida Gators recruiting including who plans to visit Florida on Saturday for the Vanderbilt game in Gainesville, Florida.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, Gator Country. This is your man, Andrew Spivey, back today for Spivey Senses. Just going to break down this Georgia game, talk a little recruiting, talk all things Florida Gators pretty much. Got to start with that big win Saturday, 27-3. The Gators destroy the doggies up in Jacksonville. Big game for Florida overall. It’s a game that you look at Florida, 413 total yards. A lot of that was rushing, 258 was that rushing, only 155 yards passing. Treon Harris struggled. He was 8 of 19 for 155 yards and a touchdown, and he also had a fumble and 39 yards rushing. I’ve had a lot of people say, “What do you think the problem is here? What do you think is the difference with Treon?” Treon is what Treon is. That is Treon’s always going to be a guy that is more of a rollout quarterback, a guy that doesn’t exactly go in the pocket, stay in the pocket, and he’s not exactly a great short game thrower.
It’s kind of weird to say, but it’s almost like Treon needs to throw the deep ball early and work his way in to get settled into the game. It’s kind of backwards. Most quarterbacks would rather throw short than work his way deep in the game, but overall I just never saw Treon get comfortable in the game. That’s what ended up hurting him. The majority of the game he just wasn’t comfortable, never looked in sync with what the game plan was, and that was that. At the end of the day he got the win, and the Gators are 7-1 with a chance to lock up a bid to Atlanta on Saturday against Vanderbilt.
Couple guys that I really want to single right now are Kelvin Taylor and Jordan Scarlett. Jordan Scarlett is just playing really good football right now, hitting his holes really well. I think the main thing is he had a good conversation with the staff during the bye week from what I was told, and apparently Scarlett was able to see some things that he wasn’t doing right, and ended up looking at that and doing better in practice. He definitely looked like the guy that we had kind of expected this year. He’s a very confident guy in the Georgia game, and 9 carries, 96 yards with the majority of that coming on that long 60 yard run. Overall he still had a really good game in the game. This is something that Florida needs him to do is to get better as they look for the rest of this year and next year, especially in this Vanderbilt game when Jordan Cronkrite’s suspended for the 1st half. They’re going to need him and Kelvin Taylor to play ball.
That kind of leads me to Kelvin Taylor. You can’t say enough about the job Tim Skipper’s done with Kelvin Taylor. He’s got his mind refocused. He’s playing good football, but he’s mentally understands what’s going on in the game now, and that’s huge for him. He’s hitting the holes well. He’s blocking well. Just seems like a very good football player altogether, a better football player. He was hitting the holes on Saturday with authority. He was hitting them at the right time with authority. He’s always had good vision, but he was actually hitting the holes on time this week, and it showed off. 25 carries, 121 yards, 2 touchdowns and 23 yard touchdown run. Overall I just thought he played really good, and finally he’s becoming the player we all thought he would become in the game.
Then you can’t talk about offense if you don’t talk about Antonio Callaway. What a huge pickup for the Gators it was in Antonio Callaway, just a guy that continues to impress. He’s just a gamer, just a very good football player in general. A guy that does every little thing right and does well blocking, does well in the return game. Does well on special teams when he’s called upon. Just overall a very good football player. That offense goes to McElwain, Nussmeyer, Skipper, Kerry Dixon, Nord, and Mike Summers. All those together are just putting together a game plan right now that is really good, a game plan that is going against the weakness of the other team. You say, that’s simple, but it wasn’t. It’s something that the last staff was not doing. This team isn’t full of playmakers, absolutely not. Do they have a weak offensive line? Absolutely. Do they have a weakness at receiver? Absolutely. They’re having to go to their strengths, and that is running the ball outside of the tackle, rollout passes right now. All of that they’re doing really well at that point of going in with a game plan to execute their strengths against the weaknesses of Georgia or other teams. That’s huge.
One thing is going forward against Vanderbilt this weekend on Saturday at noon in Gainesville is they’re going to be without Martez Ivey and going to be without David Sharpe likely. Ivey has swelling in his knee, the knee that he got repaired in the off season, during fall camp, and then David Sharpe has a sprained ankle. Overall I’m a little nervous about it, because you’re probably going to look at an offensive line of Mason Halter, Antonio Riles, Cam Dilliard, Trip Thurman, and Fred Johnson. Thurman could go back to left guard, and Fred Johnson could easily go to left tackle, or vice versa with him going to right and Thurman going right and Halter and Riles going to left. It just depends. Maybe you see a guy like Trevaris Dorsey get in there, or maybe you see one of those freshmen like a Nick Buchanan get in there and play. You’d hate to burn their redshirt like with Buchanan, but who knows? Maybe they get in there and get some action, or maybe a guy like Tyler Jordan gets more playing time. Never know.
Good thing is this is Vanderbilt, and you should be able to win this game with your defense. Their defense is really good though, so they’re going to have to find a way to put some points on the board. Once again, I like the way this scheme of the coaching staff does to go against in a game plan. Good things all around. 7-1. Got a chance to go to Atlanta with beating Vanderbilt, so offense is doing well.
Defensively, again, this is one of, if not the best, defenses in the country. That’s led by Antonio Morrison and guys like Jonathan Bullard, guys like Keanu Neal, Marcus Maye, Joey Ivie, McAllister. They’re just not getting the love they should get, and then Geoff Collins as a defensive coordinator just isn’t getting that. This defense has a game plan, and they are doing it to a T, very good defensive performance overall by this team in general. Even a guy like Daniel McMillian got in there and made some plays in the game against Georgia. Overall this defensive staff, this defensive unit as a whole is playing really good football, and that’s carried Florida in this game.
Go to the kicker position. Something’s got to be done. It’s just not working out with Austin Hardin right now. You either got to try the walk-on kicker or figure out what’s going on with Hardin, which I don’t know, and go forward. The extra point wasn’t exactly Hardin. It was a guy leaped over the snapper on the goal line on the extra point and blocked the kick, so that’s not on Hardin, but you have the missed field goal there, and you just had problems all year. He’s great on kickoff, and that’s there. Coach Mac even talked about today with Brandon Powell and the return game. Brandon Powell’s got to watch his blocks, learn his blocking scheme and hit the holes at the right time. Then the blocking scheme has got to set up that wall or that hole for Powell there. Still a work in progress there, but everything is getting better it seems like. Again, the Gators are 7-0 as they take on Vanderbilt this weekend.
That kind of brings me to my next point. First home game since October 3rd when the Gators took on Ole Miss. That means recruiting’s going to be there. So far Alabama commit Eddie Panora, receivers Trey Nixon and Auburn receiver commit Eli Stove. Let’s see here. Who else has all told me they’re coming in? Frankie Hammond is taking his official visit this weekend. I’m trying to think of who else has told me they’re coming in this weekend. I think that’s all the big name guys that are coming in this weekend, Stove, Nixon, Panora, and Josh Hammond. They’ll have a lot of 2017 guys in, probably some 2018 guys in. They’ll have some more 2016 guys, of course. They’ll have some commits in. Brett Heggie, Stone Forsythe, those guys will come in for this.
It’s just big to be back on campus again, have a home game for recruiting. They go to South Carolina next weekend, and they follow that up with two more homes games, FAU and Florida State, which they’ll both have tons of visitors. Florida State will be absolutely loaded there. Then FAU will have some as well. It’s good to be back at home, get some recruiting going, even if it’s not big visitors’ weekend. Every time you get a prospect on campus is great, especially getting a guy like Stove, Nixon, Panora, and Josh Hammond, who hasn’t been on campus this season yet. It’s big to get him on campus there. That’s there.
Since the last time we talked Florida picked up Antonneous Clayton. That was a big defensive end commit that they picked up. He’s a guy that’s going to play like McAllister. He has that body build kind of like a Dante Fowler in that he’s going to get bigger and be that rush end kind of guy, but he can also drop into coverage. Very good player. Still learning. Still young kid, but he is fired up to be a Gator. His parents and his uncle both got him tickets to go to Jacksonville and watch Florida vs. Georgia. They were able to watch that, his uncle and he was. They met Fowler there. Fowler gave some advice on being a good defensive end as they were leaving the stadium. That was good for that.
So far recruiting is doing really well. You’ll probably have another guy commit, or two commit, before the end of the season. I think overall they’re just setting it up for a big finish right now. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a guy commit before the end of the season, or at least in December, especially maybe a Juco offensive lineman as they go after him. They’re still looking for a quarterback as well.
Think of that, to give a couple of updates on commits. Chauncey Gardner, he’s going to visit Alabama this weekend for his official visit with Bruce Judson. In my opinion, nothing to really worry about. I think Chauncey is pretty solid to Florida, very close with McElwain. Very close with Kurt Callahan. I don’t see that being an issue. I think it’s about going to have a good game. One quick note, Alabama did visit Lamichel Perine for his game last weekend. No offer yet. The offer is there, but he has to have Saban confirm the offer. That should probably happen here in the next couple days or so. Lamichel did break his nose in the game, but should be good to go this weekend. I’m trying to think of any other big ones. Rick Wells had a big game as well. Clinched the district championship for him. That was big for him. Chauncey Gardner was the Gator Country player of the week. He had a kick return for a touchdown, a rushing touchdown, and a receiving touchdown, so that was big for him as well.
Things are going well for the recruiting on that end. Going to Atlanta could be huge for this team, because that’s just another opportunity to kind of get the brand out there and get everything out there. That’s kind of where I wanted to go next a little bit. Everybody asks me, how did Florida get here so quick? It’s tough to say it’s just one person, because it’s not. McElwain’s vision of the program, of getting the guys around his, his quality control staff, his recruiting staff, his football operations staff, everything together just works to a T. The quality control staff and the recruiting staff is able to do a lot of recruiting. That takes a lot of the pressure off of the assistant coaches during the week. They’re still involved in recruiting, but they don’t have to do everything. It also helps the quality control staff is able to help out with the game planning some. That helps.
Everything that Mac has done has a vision, is down to a T. He’s looking at the big picture in general, looking at everything. He talks about the rivalry games, that kind of stuff. Everything is just there that he’s planning it out, but he’s surrounded himself with a group of guys in Randy Shannon, Kurt Callahan, Skipper, Nuss, those guys, they’re just all young guys, Chris Rumph, all young guys, and some older guys like a Nord, a Shannon, a Summers, that are older guys, but they still get it. They still get that passion about it. Some crazy guy at the press conference on Saturday asked, “Coach Mac, did you expect to be in Atlanta?” What did you expect him to say? No? Every football coach wants to get to Atlanta and expects his team to be in Atlanta, and he’s never going to say different.
Mac continues to say he doesn’t play for participation ribbons, but nobody does. Mac’s just confident enough in himself to say that out loud, whereas others kind of hide that stuff. That’s what I like about Mac. He’s just a confident guy. He really believes in the program and his vision, and he’s going to continue going forward with it. That’s kind of my answer to the question is Mac just understanding the whole thing in general and working that whole process in general of building it from startup to where it’s at now, and it will only continue to get better. This is something that Mac is going to build over time. Recruiting and other things, getting the fan base, the alumni, excited, getting donors excited, that kind of stuff. It only gets better as Mac looks to build a program, a powerhouse, not exactly just a football team, as some coaches do. Overall just really good by this staff, really good by this team. The Gators are 7-1 as they play Vanderbilt.
That’s kind of all I really had on this one today. I didn’t really have too much. Just wanted to give a quick recap on that game, give a couple of shout outs on the game, give a couple of recruiting updates. As always, guys, follow us on GatorCountry.com. Myself @AndrewSpiveyGC on Twitter. We’ll have a lot of coverage this week on the game, homecoming as well. Coach Mac will be meeting with the media on Wednesday again. We’ll have chat as always, have a lot more things to do. Have basketball Tuesday and then they have a preseason game on Thursday. Make sure to check us out as always. We really appreciate everything you guys do and for being a member of GatorCountry.com. Guys, hit us up on Gator Country and on Twitter. I’ll talk to you guys soon. As always, go Braves.