By Will Miles
Jacob Young Makes History
Outfield Jacob Young’s hitting streak ended on Tuesday night at 30 games. It is the longest hitting streak in Florida history so obviously it’s impressive, but I think because it is college baseball, we might not be appreciative of just how hard the accomplishment is.
In baseball, hitting .333 is excellent. That means you’re getting a hit once every three plate appearances, but they are rarely distributed that way. In fact, anyone who has played baseball understands that sometimes you come to the ballpark and feel locked-in and sometimes you feel completely off. You might have heard someone describe it as “he’s seeing the ball well.”
That’s what makes Young’s streak so impressive. To come to the ballpark for 30 straight games completely locked-in requires a discipline that is really, really rare. In fact, Young hit .450 last season and is “only” hitting .367 this year. While both are good, you have to wonder whether Young had extended his streak when he wasn’t locked in and whether he’s about to really take off now that the focus won’t be on a streak but on the simple – but difficult – task of hitting the ball hard.
Regardless, congratulations to Young. He’s an integral part of what this team does offensively and he’ll always look back on 30 straight games fondly long after he’s retired.
Baseball now 10-3
After starting the season 1-2 in the opening series against Miami, the Gators are now 10-3, having won 9 of its last 10.
Expectations are such that even after that one loss to Florida Atlantic, Kevin O’Sullivan expressed unhappiness with his team, but the fact remains that this team is going to make it to the postseason pretty easily and that’s where they’re going to be judged. In a way, I suspect that there are times that they are coasting because they were so dominant last season and that season never had a completion.
Even in the five straight wins after the back-to-back losses to Miami, the pitching had really struggled. They gave up 9 runs in two games against UNF and 15 in three games against Samford. But after surrendering three runs in the loss to FAU, the Gators have given up a total of four runs in their last four games against Florida A&M and Georgia State.
That was the hallmark of the 2020 team and what has been missing this year so far. While Young and Jud Fabian and the rest of the offense have raked, the pitching staff had really struggled. The fact that they are turning it around means that this team is about to take off, and in a big way.
Softball finally loses
The softball team finally lost in a road game to Florida State on Saturday to fall to 14-1. It was just one of those things, as they had defeated FSU 5-0 the night before in Gainesville.
The Seminoles are an excellent team in their own right, ranking 16th coming into the games against the Gators and sporting an 11-4 record. Pitcher Kathryn Sandercock shut down Florida, only allowing 6 hits with 6 strikeouts over 7 innings while Gators pitcher Katie Chronister gave up 5 runs in one inning.
That sort of thing happens. Sometimes you just don’t have it on the mound. And Sandercock isn’t a slouch, putting up a 2.19 ERA in 2020 in 60.2 innings last season and basically replicating that this season.
Perhaps more impressive is that Florida was able to knock Caylan Arnold (1.98 ERA) out of the game on Friday while Elizabeth Hightower only gave up one hit in seven innings. Hightower is now 7-0 with a 0.69 ERA in 40.2 innings pitched. She’s become a true ace.
And that’s really encouraging for this team. One thing I’ve pointed out the last couple of weeks is that Hightower, Chronister, Rylee Trlicek, and Natalie Lugo have all been pitching well, but if Hightower can truly be an ace, that take the potential of this team to a whole other level.
Basketball: Missouri loss drops Florida to 13-7 (9-6 SEC)
Florida turned in a Mike White special, dropping a heartbreaker to Missouri 72-70 on a really impressive layup on a baseline drive to Dru Smith with 0.7 seconds remaining in the game.
But Florida was lucky to even be in the game at that point. The Gators were down 8 points with 2:20 left after Mitchell Smith hit a three pointer. At that point, Missouri had a 91% win probability.
The Gators then clawed their way back, starting with a Tre Mann jumper, then a wide open dunk for Colin Castleton. They then finished off the comeback with four free throws, two each by Mann and Castleton.
But then came the Smith layup.
70 really does seem to be the magic number for these Gators. Go look at their record and what you’ll see is that when opponents get over 70, they lose. When they can hold opponents below 70, they win. The microcosm of that was this game, where Florida allowed Missouri to get to 70 and then finally buckled down on the defensive end to spur the 8-point comeback.
But inconsistency shows up the most on defense. Florida has been an inconsistent team all year, and nowhere is that more apparent than on the defensive end. If you want to understand why Florida was able to rip off three straight wins, just look at its opponents’ point totals: 63, 57, 67. That last one – a four-point win over Kentucky – was right on the borderline.
So if you think this team is going to go anywhere in the SEC or NCAA tournament, it’s going to depend on it putting together a streak of defensive performances we haven’t seen all year. To get to the Final Four requires four straight wins. The longest streak Florida has of keeping its opponents under 70 points is three and they’ve only done it once.
Basketball: Tennessee loss drops Florida to 13-8 (9-7 SEC)
The Gators actually did keep Tennessee below 70 points, but the offense forgot to show up in a 65-54 loss to the Vols.
Turning the ball over 16 times while only hitting 23% of your three-point attempts is never going to turn out well. Plus, you had to believe that Tennessee was going to show up with revenge on its mind after the Gators win over the Vols earlier this year.
Add to that the fact that Tre Mann wasn’t in the lineup due to a migraine and you had a recipe for disaster.
The bench, in particular, really had a rough game. The combination of Omar Payne, Samson Ruzhentsev and Ques Glover played 41 minutes, scored 5 points and committed 6 turnovers. That’s where Mann was missed the most as there was a scorer missing who couldn’t be replaced by someone else stepping up. Instead, it was left to Tyree Appleby (19 points) and Castleton (11 points) to shoulder the load and it just wasn’t enough against the Vols.
For all of the talk about recruiting and Mike White, his signature guys have really struggled. 4-star Noah Locke scored 8 points vs. Tennessee and is only averaging 10.5 points per game this season. 5-star Scottie Lewis only scored 6 and has averaged 8.8 this season.
Mann being out was a big blow. But perhaps the bigger blow is that you recruit guys like Lewis and Locke to step up when you have an injury or illness. The fact that they have not, at least not consistently, is a big reason why Florida is an average basketball team.
Basketball Outlook (Win Margin)
Florida is now 13-8 and according to bracketologists is likely to make the tournament as a 7 or 8 seed. But that isn’t really the goal.
I get that Keyontae Johnson’s injury cast a pall on the season and made the team adjust midstream from what they’d prepared to be. Johnson’s loss was a big one but it seems like there’s always a reason – or excuse depending on your perspective – why the Gators underperform under Mike White.
White seems like a good guy. He has a record at Florida that before Billy Donovan, we all probably would have been happy with. Then again, Gators basketball didn’t start with Donovan. Lon Kruger led the program from 2000-2006, taking home SEC coach of the year awards in 1992 and 1994.
Kruger’s teams struggled, never winning more than 19 games except in 1993-1994 when he caught lightning in a bottle and went 29-8, all the way to a Final Four loss to Duke.
And perhaps that should be the expectation for White. He’s pretty clearly not going to replicate the success of Donovan, but maybe what the expectation for Florida should be is to have a coach who recruits well enough and puts together 18-20 win seasons often enough that he’ll catch lightning in a bottle once or twice in his tenure and make a deep run.
I’ve been harping on win margin all year long as an indicator of the quality of this team, with a 10-point differential being the mark of a team that can make a deep tournament run. Florida currently stands at 7.2. That’s actually better than its been in other seasons of the Mike White era, but doesn’t really portend success once they get into the dance.
Spring Practice – Early Observations
There has been lots of news coming out of spring practice.
Dan Mullen made some interesting comments about Emory Jones, particularly regarding arm strength compared to Kyle Trask. Reports are that linebackers Ty’Ron Hopper and Derek Wingo are all over the field thus far in camp. Freshman Nick Elksnis seems to be separating himself at the tight end position. And if you’ve been paying any attention, you’ve certainly seen some footage of freshman defensive tackle Desmond Watson.
As video has been released on instragram, Florida fans have been forced to take sides. If a defensive player dominates an offensive player, then that means either the defense is getting things right or the offense is garbage. And vice versa if the matchup goes the other way.
The reality is that we won’t know a whole lot until the seasons starts. It’s always that way, but is particularly true this season as there were no bowl practices and the players haven’t had a chance to do offseason strength and conditioning because spring practice is so early.
If anything, you want to see guys out there making mistakes. Spring is when you overload your players to see what they can do and how hard you can push them, both physically but also in terms of scheme install. If they’re not making mistakes, you’re not pushing hard enough.
So remember that next time you see a guy get beat or miss a tackle on Instagram. Every missed tackle now is a learning experience. Florida had a bunch of those learning experiences during the regular season in 2020. Hopefully they get them out of their system this spring.
Dan Mullen and Todd Grantham
Fans predictably were snarky on Twitter after Dan Mullen defended Todd Grantham as a “great football coach” in his news conference on Monday. After all, Grantham has received much of the ire for the 2020 season ending 8-4 instead of in a playoff appearance.
But what did fans expect Mullen to say? “Yeah, we were terrible last year, and if things don’t shape up, Todd is gone. I just didn’t have any better options so we decided to keep him but he’s on borrowed time.”
Not exactly the type of recruiting pitch that you’re going to use to bring high-level guys into your program. Plus, there isn’t any reason to do anything other than support Grantham now that Mullen has decided to retain him.
Here’s the deal. If Florida’s defense excels in 2021, Grantham will get an opportunity to be a head coach somewhere else and will be gone. If Florida’s defense underwhelms in 2021, Grantham will be allowed to leave when his contract expires. There really isn’t a situation where Grantham is back in 2022 unless something weird happens.
That means we should all be rooting hard for Grantham, because of those two options, obviously option one is better.
Josh Pate and Matt Hayes on Dan Mullen
I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the reports from 247Sports’ Josh Pate and SDS’ Matt Hayes on Dan Mullen and his relationship.
Pate asserted that Mullen essentially checked out at the end of 2020 because he was expecting NFL interest and didn’t feel like he was accountable for his behavior. Hayes took it one step further and asserted that Mullen has frayed his relationship with the administration through that behavior so significantly that there are people in the program who are asking whether the level of winning Florida is getting from Mullen is worth the headaches.
Based on what I’ve heard, I don’t think it’s quite that bad. But I also don’t think fans should ignore this smoke completely. There’s definitely some significant tension between Mullen and his higher-ups and fences that could use some mending. Perhaps the lack of NFL interest will help mend those. Perhaps the transition to Emory Jones and continued offensive fireworks will help mend those.
Normally, I’d dismiss this as offseason noise. But the reaction to the loss to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl was so out of character for anything I’ve ever heard a football coach say, it does make me wonder whether what is going on? I mean, this is the guy who wants to win if he’s thumb wrestling his kids and he just surrendered to a beating on national TV?
Normally what Pate and Hayes had to say would strike me as weird. But none of it is weirder than someone who gets paid an enormous sum of money in a profession that requires maniacal competitiveness just losing the competitiveness.
2021 Expectations?
The implication from Hayes article is that 2021 will be a big year for Mullen. I just think that’s crazy.
Perhaps it will be a big year to mend fences with the administration. But expectations for 2021 should be severely muted. First, Kyle Trask was a once a decade QB. You don’t just plug-and-play a new QB without some hiccups (unless you’re Clemson). But at Clemson, Dabo Swinney has plugged in Tajh Boyd (5-star), Deshaun Watson (very high 4-star) and Trevor Lawrence (5-star). The only time the Tigers looked mortal was when they had Kelly Bryant as their starter.
So that’s probably the question in 2021. Is Emory Jones more Deshaun Watson or more Kelly Bryant?
But what are reasonable expectations for the season? An SEC title just seems far-fetched. Alabama is on the schedule, Georgia is bringing back J.T. Daniels and LSU – if it doesn’t get the death penalty – should be much better. If Florida is able to go 2-1 in those three, they probably get the Tide again in Atlanta.
Instead, I think expectations should be that 2021 is a rebuilding year. Mullen has to find out whether Emory Jones is a championship-level QB. If the answer is no, he needs to find out whether Anthony Richardson or Carlos Del-Rio could potentially lead the Gators to a championship as well.
That may mean sacrificing a game in 2021 to get that answer. But that’s okay if it means you know exactly what you have on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball in 2022.
As I mentioned earlier, Todd Grantham probably isn’t going to be around in 2022. If Mullen can ID a QB, get young guys experience, bring in a dynamic DC in 2022 and be setup for a 2022 run – when Georgia will be breaking in another young QB – 2021 has been a success.