This edition of the Spivey Senses podcast is a good one as Andrew Spivey breaks down the Florida Gators huge win over the Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night in the Swamp.
Andrew breaks down the play of the offense and defense, plus talks about how the recruit enjoyed the game and their were a lot of recruits in attendance on Saturday night.
Andrew finishes up the podcast by giving everyone a quick look at the Florida Gators match-up against the Ole Miss Rebels on Saturday night in the Swamp this week.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, Gator Country. This is your man, Andrew Spivey, back for his Monday. You guys will be hearing it on Tuesday, breakdown of the Florida Gators win over Tennessee. You guys know I knew that was going to happen. Did not think it was going to be that close though. I knew it would be a close game. Did not think it was going to come down to a missed field goal, and definitely didn’t think it was going to come down to Florida being down by 14 points with 4 minutes and some odd seconds to go in the game. They did. They won. They conquered 11 in a row against Tennessee. Saw Tennessee’s coach laying face first down on the sidelines crying. Butch Jones thinking he won. Perfect moment for all Gators, coaches, fans, media members, everybody. Eleven in a row. Taking 12 to Knoxville next year. Might as well get a true dozen, then you go for a baker’s dozen. Might as well keep it going. No sense to losing, as McElwain says, it’s always good, and deep down inside you never want to lose to Tennessee.
It was a close football game. So let’s break it down. Starting with offense, starting with quarterback, Will Grier. Good game overall. I think you can say he played well. I think you can say he played good. Mac said he played okay. He was 23 and 42, 283 yards and 2 touchdowns and a pick. That’s not great numbers, a little over 50% passing, so that’s good, but the things that for me that were encouraging. He did look better, did look more comfortable in the pocket. I liked that a lot. Still had some moments where he was unsure of what he was going to do in the pocket and took off running, but he made some good plays. The one good play to Callaway will be highlighted forever in Gator history, but the Powell play that scored a touchdown was a good play. There was a couple plays to Jake McGee on 4th down, good play. The biggest thing for me with Will Grier is he was 5 for 5, 125 yards passing, 2 touchdowns in the 4th quarter. To me that means he is a guy that knows how to play with pressure. He’s a guy that gets it down at crunch time. He’s a guy that doesn’t feel pressured, and that’s something a winning quarterback does.
You look at the last few games. So far this year he already has 3 drives in the 2 minute drill that has either won games or put Florida ahead in the games. You have to look at that and be very impressed with what he does. Why that is that it takes until 2 minute drive for him to have great drives? Maybe he likes that 2 minute drill better. Maybe he likes that hurry up offense better. Who knows? He did good. The one thing I do need to see from Will Grier is I need to see him get more command of the huddle and get the tempo going more during the game. Very slow tempo during the games sometimes, and that’s something that is not good going forward and need to see that get better. He had a good play to CJ Worton. He checked out of a play, called a hot route for Worton on a blitz on a crossing route. Worton dropped the ball. It hit him in the helmet. Worton just wasn’t paying attention. I give that to Worton. Then Demarcus Robinson with the pick, but when they threw the pick trying to get to Demarcus Robinson that’s on Demarcus Robinson for simply giving up on his route after he thought he was held. Overall, good play by Grier. Needs to get better every week, and learning mistakes a young quarterback. Saw some good things and saw some bad things. He’ll continue to get better, I think.
Probably the most improving of the team this week was the offensive line. David Sharpe, Trip Thurman, Cameron Dillard, in my opinion played their best three ballgames of the year. Very good football by those. Riles, Halter, those guys, they still struggle on the right side. Florida’s just got to figure out a way to get better there. They did have Ivey and Fred Johnson in the game on the game winning drive, and so that’s a big plus for confidence for those guys. The zone blocking was a lot better this week. There was some holds for running for the running game to get a hold of. The outside running game wasn’t there as much as Tennessee’s bringing guys off the edge to stop that after seeing last week’s game against Kentucky. Inside was there a little bit more. Kelvin Taylor did have 102 yards rushing, and Brandon Powell had a rush for 7 yards. Total 109 yards rushing for Florida. That was good. Very good on that. I thought that overall the offensive line played better.
As I said before, I think that that’s the biggest key for Florida, get better every week in offensive line play, and it’s a successful year. That’s the key thing here. Get better every week, and you’ll be successful. If Florida is able to figure out a right guard position they’ll be fine going forward, in my opinion. I think that they have finally found though a guy to be that right tackle for the future, and that is Martez Ivey, or he can play left tackle, right tackle would be David Sharpe. Overall I thought it was good. Did not care for some of the play calling. Thought it got a little predictable, but overall when it mattered they got the game, and they won the game.
For me, Brandon Powell is the spotlight player. Had the big block in Antonio Callaway, if not for his big block we’re not even talking about this game being a victory right now possibly. Maybe Florida gets out of bounds there and they score, but who knows what happens as Callaway would have been down close to the 30 yard line. Who knows what happens there. Big props to him. Then he also had five big catches for 64 yards and touchdown in the game when he was cramping. Brandon Powell, big ups to you on that. Jake McGee as well. Jake McGee had several really good catches in the game, 5 for 57. Two on 4th down that were just huge catches on good throws that were there, just huge plays for McGee. Good to see him back there. Then Kelvin Taylor, 102 yards rushing for him. Good game for Kelvin. Very good game for Kelvin.
On the defensive side of the ball, thought Marcus Maye and Jonathan Bullard were the two guys that played really good football. Marcus Maye’s coming into his own, and Jonathan Bullard continues to play like a first round draft pick. Also though, Caleb Brantley, Brantley is showing some signs of Easley Floyd, those guys that are dominant guys that are catching the snap count, knowing when. It’s like the quarterback is just telling them when it’s coming, and he’s getting the snap count there and doing really good getting a good push. Really proud of Caleb Brantley for coming on. Chris Rumph, you’ve done an incredible job there with him.
McAllister also played really well. Joey Ivie had some good plays in the game, and overall the defensive line is just turning into such a huge plus for Chris Rumph and the defense. Morrison played okay. He had some missed tackles there. Jarrad Davis played okay, had some missed tackles. Keanu Neal, Marcus Maye, again, both had really good games. Keanu Neal led the team in tackles with 13. Had some missed tackles as well, but overall a good game there. DeAndre Porter finally got some action, played okay. Had some missed tackles, but played okay. Vernon Hargreaves had a back problem that kind of hurt him a little bit. He played okay. He had some missed tackles as well, and had the missed assignment on 4th down, but he played okay there as well. Quincy Wilson stepping in, played well.
I think that everybody had some good moments and some bad moments. Twenty-nine missed tackles in the game by our count. Need to get in the tackling drill. Tackling, in my opinion, is just disciplined football, playing disciplined football, playing fundamental football. That’s something they just to do. This is a veteran team that has to do that better. Did like that the penalties went down, only 4 this week, 4 for 25. That’s huge. Only one blocking the back penalty, and that was on Nick Washington, but overall it was just a really good, clean football game for Florida, and that’s a big reason why they won the football game.
To look at some of the injuries. Austin Hardin did play. Antonio Morrison was cramping up. We’re told Will Grier is fine. He just has normal bumps and bruises after a game. We’re told Austin Hardin has a hip flexor issue, but should be back for the game. They’re going to test it out again this week and look for him to be out there. Vernon Hargreaves has still got a little stiff back. I think he’ll end up probably not practicing as much this week. I think they’ll get him some treatment, but I think he’ll be fine there. Alex Anzalone’s lost for the game this week against Ole Miss. McElwain’s still hopeful to get him back. I think that that is kind of diminishing a little bit. I’m not sure how hopeful they are to get him back, but Mac continues to say they’re going to try to get him back in the game.
For Florida going forward to get better offensive line, in my opinion, has still got to get better from the right side, just continuing to get a better pocket. Defensively I think they got to get more production from their linebackers in there, and then also get better at tackling. Get better in tackling in the open field is something that’s going to be very key this week against Ole Miss. Then special teams, still not sold on the special teams at all. Kick return and punt return’s gotten a little better, but punt coverage and kickoff coverage has gotten bad. It’s still bad. Need to get better with that. It would help if Hardin was there kicking the ball out of the end zone there, but what worries me with punt is I’m scared Townsend’s going to get one blocked soon. He’s very slow getting the ball off, and that’s scary for coming up in these big games against Missouri, Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia. Somebody’s going to block one if they’re not careful, and that’s going to be very hurtful for this team.
Overall good. Good to see this win. I don’t think you see Florida come from behind in this game last year. This team is just fighting really well going through adversity. That’s something recruits are seeing as well, and scoring the ball offensively. They had a 17 play drive for the first score in the 4th quarter, and that was big. 392 yards of offense for the Gators in the game, that was big. 17 1st downs, 5 for 5 in 4th downs, only 3 of 15 in 3rd downs. That’s concerning. Need to get better there overall.
Let’s look a little bit at recruiting thing. A lot of really good things on recruiting wise. Nate Craig-Myers had a good visit. Says he’ll be back for the Ole Miss game. Shavar Manuel had a very good visit. He says he’ll be back in LSU for an official visit when Florida goes. Then he’ll be back for another game, probably the Florida State game, and then he says he’ll take an official visit to Florida after season. Freddie Swain still status quo on him, everything’s going well there. Let’s see. Sam Bruce did not make it in. His ride fell through, he said. Let’s see here. Dexter Lawrence, everything I’ve heard he had a really good visit. Florida made a step forward in that, but I’ll try to be talking to him soon to get in touch with what he kind of thought, if he’ll be back on campus again. I do think Florida can, if they can get him back on campus they can get in the mix there.
We had Isaac Nauda. Isaac Nauda said he had a great visit, and Florida may be able to bump one of his official visits to get one of those. That’d be huge if they were able to do that, and Florida just needs to continue recruiting him hard, as they really like his, Isaac Nauda really likes Florida’s offense and the way they’re using the tight ends. That’s good for that as well. 2017 a lot of guys had very good trips there as well. It’s just a good visit for Florida overall, because they’re able to show the great atmosphere overall, show that the coaches are there, show that the Swamp is coming back. It’s just good times for this staff in general to get the Swamp back. Janoris Robinson committed to Florida State, I think that it’s very possible that Florida could end up stealing him away. If it’s not Florida, I think it’s Bama. I’d be surprised if he ended up staying committed to Florida State in the long run. He’s a rush end kind of guy.
Looking ahead to the Ole Miss game. Should be another packed house. Isaiah Johnson’s taking an official visit to Florida for that weekend. Probably the only one that will take an official is Isaiah Johnson, but I’ll definitely be checking on that this week. To look ahead to the matchup, I think it’s going to be a closer game than many people are expecting it to be. Ole Miss doesn’t rush the ball very well, which means they’re going to throw the ball against a very good Florida secondary, and that means that Florida’s secondary is going to have to play well. Florida’s pass rush could get a lot of pressure on Ole Miss there. They’re missing Laremy Tunsil and also their right guard, Justin Bell, could be out for the game as well. That’s very big, if so. Then defensively Florida’s just got to not turn the ball over. If you look at Ole Miss’s big wins that they’ve had over the past two years, it’s been that they’ve had a short field position. Against Alabama they had five turnovers in the game. That hurt them. Florida can’t turn the ball over if they expect to win.
My biggest question for Ole Miss is this. They played Alabama, and they looked good, but that was a game they were hyped for for two years and had been talking about since they beat Alabama last year. They wanted to go two in a row. My question is can they do the same against Florida? Can they bring the same intensity they brought to Tuscaloosa to Gainesville? I think Ole Miss may come in overlooking Florida a little bit. As Coach Mac said today, he thinks Ole Miss probably thinks they can beat the heck out of Florida. Probably so, this is a big win for Florida, but this is also a big test for me for this team. I want to see how this team handles a big win. Coach Mac said he wants to see how they handle adversity and success. That’s exactly what I want to see. How do they handle this? If they handle it well, then that means this team has bought into Coach Mac and is going forward a progress of the season. If they don’t, then it’s kind of concerning. Want to see how they bounce back this week on there. You look at this. If Florida can get a little running game going, if the offensive line gets better, that’ll help Florida out a ton.
Also, Ole Miss starting safety Tony Connor is banged up a little bit. Still not sure if he’s going to play or not. If not, then Florida maybe has a chance in the middle of the field a little bit. Alabama, they took advantage of Ole Miss’s defense some and scored a lot of points. Let’s face it, Alabama’s offense isn’t exactly great. Jake Coker’s not that good of a quarterback right now. Of course they’ve got Derrick Henry and a very good offensive line, but I think Florida can take advantage a little bit of the defense and do okay. I think it’s going to be a close game, not ready to make my prediction yet. I do think it will be a close game, and I think the Swamp will be rocking once again. It should be a good recruiting weekend for Florida, and Florida’s squarely in the mix in the SEC. It’ll be a big game against Missouri and also against Georgia when they play Georgia. If you’re a Florida fan, you need to be rooting for Alabama to beat Georgia this week to get a loss for Georgia in the SEC. That’ll be big for Florida there.
Big weekend ahead. As always, stay tuned to GatorCountry.com. Nick and myself, Cassidy, we got a lot of good stuff. David Bowie has some good photo gallery. Daniel Thompson bringing his stats articles on Tuesday. Kevin Camps bringing the heat. PD bringing the heat on some articles as well. Overall, Gator Country’s doing really well. For everyone that came up and introduced themselves to Nick and I on Saturday, we greatly appreciate you guys. All of you guys, Amy from Twitter introduced herself, very nice lady. Thank you very much for introducing yourself. Gator in Tennessee, appreciate it. Several other people that I can’t even remember. I believe Dylan was his name. Dylan, if that’s not your name I’m so sorry that I messed up your name. You know who you are. Overall just very nice people, everyone is. Stay tuned to GatorCountry.com. Stay tuned to myself. I appreciate everyone. See you on Gator Country, guys. Thank you.