By Will Miles
NBA Combine starts
The NBA combine started this week, consisting of physical and athletic testing, then a set of scrimmages.
Not surprisingly, Scottie Lewis tested really well, finishing at or near the top in lane agility, shuttle, three quarter court sprint and vertical leap. He also measured in at 6’5.25” with a 7’ wing span. That was quite a contrast to former teammate Tre Mann who measured in at 6’4.25” with a wingspan of 6’4”.
This isn’t a surprise to anybody who’s watched Florida basketball. It’s part of what made Lewis so frustrating for Gators fans, as he just couldn’t convert the physical gifts that he had into production on the court. Conversely, Mann made use of his shooting ability and shiftiness to maximize his physical gifts and become the scorer that the Gators needed.
We all remember Mike Mamula’s performance at the NFL combine in 1995 or the staged workout of Yi Jianlian with a chair prior to the 2007 NBA Draft. These staged workouts tell us who is athletically gifted, but they don’t tell us who the best players actually are.
I think of this often when I think of quarterbacks. A combine workout will tell you how strong a QB’s arm is, but it won’t tell you anything about his ability to read coverages.
Scottie Lewis in combine scrimmages
And that’s what we pretty much saw once Lewis participated in the scrimmages at the combine.
He played 45 total minutes in two games, went 8-18 (44%) from the field, 0-5 from three and totaled 9 fouls and 17 points. As gifted as Lewis is, scoring 17 points on 18 shots is about as inefficient as you can be. And when you combine that with 9 fouls (7 in the first game), the athleticism that he showed in the first part of the combine isn’t being translated into on-court performance.
At the same time, 2nd round picks aren’t exactly converting to major contributors on NBA franchises at high rates. Nikola Jokic was drafted 41st overall in 2014. Nick Johnson out of Arizona went one pick later and has played 28 total NBA games.
Go read any draft preview of any 2nd round pick and they’ll tell you why the player is going to struggle. Everybody drafted there has weaknesses. But you’ll also see 5-10 players every year who became consistent NBA contributors, many of them with the words “athletic but needs to put it together” in their draft bio.
By all accounts, Scottie Lewis is a great person. I’m rooting for him. This isn’t a case where history doesn’t show players with his pedigree who have become successful, so hopefully he’ll get a chance.
California banning state funds for travel to Florida
California announced this week that it is banning the use of state funds to travel to the state of Florida (and a few others in the south) because of various laws in place in those regions.
This might seem to have nothing to do with football, but I think it means that schools like UCLA and Cal won’t be able to spend money on recruiting in these states. Now, there aren’t a whole lot of players from Florida who end up in California anyway, so again, it might not be a big deal. But with the introduction of NIL and the lure of Hollywood, I was curious whether California schools would be able to take advantage.
This ostensibly puts private schools like USC and Stanford at a distinct advantage. I also wonder whether states like Florida, Texas and South Carolina are going to introduce similar restrictions for states like California.
I don’t think this is a particularly productive set of policies, but as with everything that involves state funds, there are normally unintended consequences. Some of those may end up touching college football.
Elam 2nd team preseason All American
The preseason All-American teams were announced this past week, and the only Florida Gator to make the team was cornerback Kaiir Elam.
That makes sense given that the players who made any All-American teams (Trask, Pitts and Toney) are all off to the NFL. It also makes sense given Elam’s progression. In 2019, he was named to the Freshman All-SEC team and then last season to the All-SEC team (2nd team). The natural progression for a player of his caliber is to take the next step to the All-American level.
With the expectation that a full offseason will enhance the play around Elam on the defensive side of the ball, it make perfect sense he’d be able to take that step. And if Jason Marshall turns out as good as some people think he could be, Elam may even get the ball thrown his way more often than last season.
Who else can make it?
The other player who made the All-SEC team from Florida who is still around is defensive end/Buck Brenton Cox.
Cox played well in spurts last season with 42 total tackles, 10 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks. We all saw the potential, but we also saw that Cox was asked to play out of position at times and struggled against the run as well.
Well, in 2021, Cox should be back to spending the bulk of his time at Buck as Daquan Newkirk, Antonio Shelton and Gervon Dexter man the middle. That should free him up to do what he does best – pin his ears back and come after the QB.
We’ve seen what happens when Florida gets competent DT play with Todd Grantham in charge. In 2018, Jachai Polite led the team with 11 sacks. In 2019, Jon Greenard led the team with 10. Last season, Zachary Carter led the team with 5, a significant step back considering the first two seasons.
I might not think Cox would be able to step into that void without the transfers at DT. I might also think twice had Carter not decided to come back to man the other side of the line. But Cox’s potential combined with those other players makes me think he may be the guy we identify as the best defender on this defense by season’s end.
All-SEC Gators?
My colleague Bill Sikes put together an excellent series of articles looking at All-SEC players and how that level of play correlates to winning the SEC.
Bill found that at a minimum, you needed 6 All-SEC players (and on average, over 8) to win the SEC. So where are those players going to come from on the 2021 Gators?
Well, if you think Elam and Cox are All-Americans, there are your first two. Zachary Carter, Ventrell Miller and Mohamoud Diabate have a shot. Perhaps Demarkcus Bowman, Emory Jones and Jacob Copeland as well.
But there are two players that I think have been overlooked, partly because of their history and partly because they’re not perceived as Dan Mullen guys. Those two are Malik Davis and Trey Dean.
Davis was fantastic in his freshman season in 2017 when everything else was falling down around him. And Dean stepped up his true freshman season at corner to help out when Marco Wilson went down with a knee injury. In the case of Davis, his health has really derailed his ability to be a star while with Dean it really has been that he is playing out of position.
When Dean moved back to safety last season, he really brought some good things to the table. And Davis really brought some explosiveness out of the backfield, particularly in the passing game. But I’m not sure we should be surprised. Both Davis and Dean made the Freshman All-SEC team for their play early on. And if you look at last year’s All-SEC team, a vast majority of those players made the Freshman All-SEC team before progressing to the full All-SEC team.
That bodes well for Florida, as they’re going to need a couple of surprise guys to step up if the Gators are going to truly compete for the SEC Championship. I think history suggests that two of those guys are going to be Malik Davis and Trey Dean.
Freshman All-SEC
That leads to the next logical question: who on this roster has the potential to be Freshman All-SEC in 2021?
Because of all of the transfers that Dan Mullen has brought in, the reliance on freshmen and new recruits is less than I would have initially thought. For example, Daquan Newkirk, Antonio Shelton and Brenton Cox are all transfer defensive linemen, which takes away potential playing time from Desmond Watson or Lamar Goods.
But if we look at the players from the 2020 class who redshirted as well as the 2021 class, some freshman All-SEC candidates emerge.
Perhaps the most obvious one is the one who people would get least excited about: punter Jeremy Crawshaw. Crawshaw is a native of Australia, but is going to be replacing Jacob Finn and did have two punts last season that averaged 49 yards. While it’s not the sexy pick, flipping the field is going to be important in 2021 if the offense struggles, and Crawshaw can help with that.
The obvious candidate is 5-star cornerback Jason Marshall. The arrival of transfer Jadarrius Perkins maybe clouds that a little bit, but if you remember, Kaiir Elam didn’t start right away two years ago yet still made the freshman All-SEC team after earning his way into the starting lineup. Marshall has a chance to start right away, but even if he doesn’t, this is an attainable goal for someone of his skill level.
The other guys who jump out are Donovan McMillon and Nick Elksnis. McMillon jumps out to me because of all of the good things we heard about him in camp and that he’s competing at safety. Florida seems to have the cornerback position figured out, but the Gators figure to rotate quite a bit at safety to find the right rotation. McMillion is likely going to be asked to put his nose in against the running game, which is something that the Gators safeties weren’t all that good at last year, so there is the potential for the generation of turnovers on plays other than interceptions.
As for Elksnis, this one is just because of who the Gators are trying to replace at the position. The offense the last two seasons has been tailored to get the ball to Kyle Pitts, and rightly so. You don’t unlearn those reps, and so you suspect that Emory Jones has a certain comfort level with where his tight end is going to be in the offense when things break down. Keon Zipperer and Kemore Gamble are likely going to get the first shot, but Dan Mullen showed last year that he isn’t afraid to rotate units in-and-out, even in big games. I suspect Elksnis is going to get left alone on linebackers to start and we’ll see if the Gators can take advantage.
Trey Smack commitment
Kicker Trey Smack committed to the Gators this week.
Aside from having an awesome football name, not just for a kicker, this doesn’t move the recruiting needle much. No kicker does. But those of us who had to sweat through Austin Hardin’s 43-yard field goal to beat Vanderbilt 9-7 just 6 years ago understand how important that position is.
I’m not going to go to the bar and have a couple of shots to celebrate the commitment of a kicker, but the reality is that if Dan Mullen is going to rely on his coaching acumen to win games while holding his national recruiting somewhere around 9-12 consistently, he’s going to end up in some close games.
Evan McPherson was a really good kicker for the Gators, but the narrative around last season changes significantly if he’s able to make that last-second kick against LSU. That miss cost the Gators more than a shot at a championship. Imagine that he makes the kick, Florida goes on to win, and then plays Alabama close.
Do the Gators get a shot in the playoff? Is the game tying drive – which covered 42 yards in 3 plays and 15 seconds – give Kyle Trask his Heisman moment?
Ryan Succop was a really good kicker in college and the pros. He made 16/20 field goals and 37/39 extra points in 2006. Three of those misses came in the 17-16 Gators win against the Gamecocks.
That’s why you get excited about the commitment of a guy like Smack. Kickers are a huge part of the game, even if they don’t move the recruiting needle.
2022 overall (and a Florida State mirage)
Your friends who became school teachers after attending college in Tallahassee are probably giving you the business right now as the Seminoles are currently ranked 3rd in the 247Sports recruiting rankings.
There’s some good news and some bad news there for the Gators. First the good news. The average player ranking for FSU (90.29, 14 commits) is essentially the same as Florida’s (90.05, 10 commits). That means that for all intents and purposes, the two teams are tied.
The bad news is that Florida State has commitments from two 5-star recruits and three top-100 recruits overall. Conversely, the Gators don’t have any top-100 recruits thus far and remember, top-100 guys pan out much more often than any other recruit.
The optimist in me says that Florida’s stars are still to come and that the Gators recruiting is going to take off after the summer. But the pessimist in me says that the Gators have recruited at almost this exact same level every year under Dan Mullen and why should I expect anything different.
The reality is probably somewhere in between. I suspect Florida will narrowly edge ahead of FSU as the recruiting season moves forward, but I also suspect it’s going to be way closer than it should be considering what the programs have done on the field the past three seasons.
It turns out in college football, the ability to sell matters.
Koppelman and Tebow
I love the movie Rounders. The story of Mike McD deciding to forgo law school to give his dream of being a professional poker player likely resounds with all of us working 9-to-5’s who would like to give something else a try.
That movie was directed by Brian Koppelman, so I follow him on Twitter. This week, however, Koppelman waded into University of Florida waters by suggesting that he wouldn’t like Tim Tebow (presumably because of his politics/faith) but that he thought Tebow got a raw deal in the NFL.
I disagree with him on both counts.
Tebow wasn’t utilized correctly in the NFL. Perhaps had he gone to a place like New Orleans where he could have played the Taysom Hill roll, he would have been somewhat successful. But Hill has a career 70.1% completion percentage, compared to Tebow’s of 47.9%. The reality is that Tebow had some opportunities, showed that when left to make plays he could move an offense at a fairly league-average level, and teams (I think correctly) decided they weren’t going to spend time developing a player who’s ceiling wasn’t that high.
It’s the other thing there though where I really take issue with Koppelman. He doesn’t think he’d like Tebow, but who have you ever met who doesn’t just love Tebow? Yes, as someone who was not aborted after doctors told his mother she needed to, Tim has a strong opinion on that subject. But I’m not aware of any circumstance where he’s advocated for the government to get involved. And yes, he is an extraordinarily vocal Christian, but he’s used his platform and his faith to make the world better for special needs kids and kids in orphanages in the Philippines.
I’ve often wondered about why people seem to dislike Tebow in the abstract but seem to love him if they know him. Perhaps it’s a little bit because of the outsized attention he got compared to some of his teammates at Florida. Perhaps it was because of the wall-to-wall attention he was given from ESPN creating a circus atmosphere. Perhaps it’s because he’s gotten some opportunities (Mets, Jaguars) that other people in his position wouldn’t get.
But I think one big reason is because he lives his life in a way that reflects his values in a way that many of us wish we could, but aren’t actually brave enough to carry out. Instead, it’s a lot easier to sling arrows from the couch.