GC VIP Thoughts of the Week — 1/8/20 Edition

    NOTE FROM RAY: In case you missed it, we have an additional two new email newsletters going out: Orange and Blue Musings by Will Miles (of Read and Reaction blog) for more comprehensive thoughts on football, recruiting, and more.

    The second newsletter is Around the Hoop by Eric Fawcett covering, of course, hoops and such.

    You should have received a couple of those newsletters in your email box. If you haven’t please check your spam folder.

    You don’t want to miss out on them – they’ve been a great read.

    Happy New Year!

    -Ray


    2019 Wrap-Up and 2020 Look Ahead

    By David Parker

    There is nothing like winning 11 games and notching your second-straight New Years 6 bowl victory. Not a championship year, you say? Well, let me finish that sentence: there’s nothing like it when the majority of your fan base was hanging their heads after Week Zero’s opener and claiming there is no way we can win more than 7 games. There’s nothing like it when just 2 years ago, the team won just 4 games for the second time in 5 years and had its second mid-season head coach firing in the last 4 years. There’s nothing like it when you are at least 1, maybe 2 full years ahead of schedule on the way back to the top of the nation. 

    And it feeds recruiting, again perhaps to the complaints of some that we didn’t magically vault to 31 in the nation without having to incrementally build to it, but in reality things are looking incredibly bright with our influx of new talent. Whether through high school signees or the transfer portal, the Dan Mullen era is about to log its second top-10 class in two full cycles, and it looks to be one of the most underrated classes in recent history. But a little more on the fresh blood later. First, let’s cast our gaze broader than the Gator Nation and take in the success of the conference as a whole, as it is poised to win yet another college football championship. 

    SEC! SEC! SEC!

    As the SEC has once again shredded their bowl competition this year, the question has again arisen: why should we root so strongly for these SEC rival teams that we hate so much? Why should we root for them to win big bowl games, which will only help their programs? The answer is because it benefits us. 

    And not in some vague, symbolic way. The very tangible benefit is that whoever wins the SEC, and whoever finishes second in the SEC, will always get a huge boost in playoff consideration because of the perception that the SEC is by far the superior conference in the country.

    Part of this perception comes from the SEC dominating bowl season every year. Another part is from dominating P5 OOC matchup’s every year. And lastly, a significant part is the large # of national titles the conference has won in the last 10 years, 20 years, even 30 years, and the large # of schools that have won them.

    The SEC dominating all 3 of those metrics creates the perception that becomes reality. And the respect for that reality is reflected in the polls and the playoff selection committee.

    Rooting for SEC rivals to win games that we’re not in is very logical and winning those games for the SEC have very real consequences.

    It’s the kind of reputation that makes wins over upper and mid-echelon conference teams in the SEC more important than wins over the same level teams in, say, the Big 10 and PAC 10. That’s exactly what got Florida into the 2006 national title game over Michigan, and to a lesser extent USC. It was when Gary Danielson put up the side-by-side schedules and scores of Florida and Michigan, and showed how Florida was more deserving to go to the title game to face OSU. Whom they completely obliterated. 

    That doesn’t happen without years of SEC dominance on the field, for which we should always root hard. 

    Since 2000, CFB natties (that were kept):

    Big 12: 2 (OU, Texas)

    Big East: 1 (Miami)

    Big 10: 2 (OSU-2)

    SEC: 10 (LSU-2, UF-2, Alabama-5, Auburn-1)

    ACC: 3 (FSU, Clemson-2)

    The SEC has 10 natties among 4 schools since 2000, three of which have multiple natties. The only other conference with more than 2 is the ACC, with just 3. Only the ACC and the Big 12 have more than 1 school with natties, and they each have just 2, and only one of those have multiple titles. The PAC 10 only had 1 and had to give that one back for massive cheating, which should have given Auburn a second one. 

    These things matter. A lot. Only 1 team has ever had their conference champion AND their second place team included in the playoffs: the SEC. That’s the only time any conference has ever had multiple teams selected. And the only other times it’s been close, it’s been the SEC almost getting in 2. The SEC is also the ONLY conference to have a representative in every year of the playoffs. Moreover, this is the 14th-straight year that an SEC team has been in the playoffs. That is, at least 1 SEC team has been in all 6 years of the 4-team playoffs, and at least 1 SEC team was in all of the previous 8 years of 2-team playoffs (including one year when the SEC accounted for both teams). In addition, the only time the national title game has been made up of two teams from the same conference was the SEC – and it happened twice, both since 2000. 

    This is important not only in getting teams into the playoffs, but in getting higher seeds in the playoff matchups. Take this year, for example. LSU by virtue of running the table in the SEC got the top seed. They got that top seed over Ohio State and Clemson, all three of which ran the table and blew out their opponent in their respective championship games, because 13-0 in the SEC is respected more than 13-0 in the Big 10, and a LOT more than 13-0 in the ACC. So the other two undefeated conference champions had to play each other, in a physically and emotionally draining barn-burner first round game. Meanwhile, LSU got to play a vastly flawed 1-loss Oklahoma team that barely squeaked by an okay rebuilding Baylor team in conference play and in the league title game to eke their way into the playoffs over a possibly better PAC 10 champ and 3 almost certainly better runners up in the SEC. And LSU coasted to an easy victory that didn’t force them to put out much effort or emotion. It was like an early season cupcake game. 

    When you only have two games, and one loss ends your season, and two wins crowns you champions…that’s HUGE!

    And it’s all because of the reputation of the SEC. Which derives from winning out-of-conference matchups and especially from winning bowl games against other conference teams. 

    And that’s why we almost always root for other SEC teams – even hated rivals – to win their bowl games. 

    Because in the end it benefits us.

    All-Star Games

    Quick summary of the UnderArmour all-star game:

    *The anti-Gator bias was sprinkled pretty heavily throughout the broadcast. Particularly, there were a LOT of Gator chomps on the night from the 4 Gator commits, and the booth worked hard to make sure they were not caught long by the camera. They also mentioned Florida as the destination school a lot less than others. They didn’t have much choice but to get a lot of mentions, though, because Fraziers, Dexter and Rogers were all over the place making plays all night.  

    *Gervon Dexter, defensive tackle commit, was double or even tripled teamed almost every play. He was never pushed back, even by the triple team. Despite this, he had to lead the game in QBPs, with many plays where he went sideline to sideline to pressure the QB outside the hashes. He was responsible for flushing the QB into two other sacks made by teammates. When he got his sack, be bounced up and gave a big Gator chomp, but the audience only saw the first chomp opening because the booth immediately cut to the other team’s coach, Reed, who was doing absolutely nothing to be cut to. 

    *Jaquavion Fraziers, wide receiver commit, was one of the best players in the game, no doubt. Made a LOT of catches, most of them in really tight coverage, made one really heady stretch to convert a 3rd down (without the stretch, they punt), and caught a TD on a rifle shot in tight coverage where he had to reach high and secure the ball strongly, with the DB making an immediate hit on his arms. Like with Dexter’s sack, after the touchdown, Fraziers immediately went into a big Gator chomp, at which time the booth immediately cut to a sideline shot of random people standing around doing nothing. On the replay of the score, they cut off the tape the nanosecond he was about to start the chomp. The only clearly non-anti-Gator person there, one of the announcers said he thought the best part of the play was the giant Gator chop he did. Then they cut to Fraziers on the sidelines. As soon as he saw the camera light come on, he started Gator chomping into the camera. Guess what they did then? Cut to something else. Anyway, this kid is going to be a real player. Anyone who has been wondering which untested receivers will step up in 2020 to be a strong part of the rotation – and there have been many people asking – count Fraziers as one of them. 

    *That tight coverage on the Fraziers touchdown was applied by future Gator teammate, cornerback commit Jahari Rogers. He really displayed great speed and coverage skills all night. The only times I remember seeing him beat was by Fraziers, and it was on a few tightly contested catches. Just Gator-on-Gator crime that could not be avoided one way or the other. Rogers might have led the game in PBUs – passes broken up – because he had a few of them and I don’t remember anyone else with multiples, although to be fair, I wasn’t clocking other players as closely as the Gator guys. Regardless, he was a real standout in the game to my eyes.

    *Gator safety commit Mordecai McDaniel and Gator hard target safety Avantae Williams were teammates at safety in this game, and both looked the part big time, but neither of them had a lot of action come their way. Both were in on some tackles, but most of the passes were against corners, linebackers and other safeties from what I observed. 

    *Overall, a great showing at an all-star game by future Gators and a hopeful future Gator. Reminded me of the glory days of Gators standing out in these all-star games during the Urban Meyer era, and even further back, when Florida commits would dominate year after year in the Florida-Georgia all-star game, which used to be THE high school all-star game before these nation-wide tilts took over. Of course, to this day, most years an all-star team from Florida & Georgia could hold their own or beat an all-star team made up of the best of the other 48 states.

    Quick summary of the Army All-American all-star game:

    *There was no discernible anti-Gator bias at this game like the palpable one in the UA game, but that’s to be expected when you don’t have one of the biggest Gator haters on the planet as one of the coaches and key contributors to the content, like Deion Sanders. 

    *Derek Wingo, Gator linebacker commit, was in the game a good bit, but might as well have stayed home for what actual play he saw.  The offense always ran its action away from him, maybe by design given how strong he was in the week of practice. The East DBs played terribly all day, so there was no reason to test the first level of the defense, and they didn’t. 

    *Xzavier Henderson, who committed to Florida during the game, unfortunately saw limited action. Apparently Clemson’s future QB only wanted to throw to #11, Josh Downs, who is going to North Carolina. As well as a few guys on the other team. So X-man only got one throw his way in the first half, a short pass where he showed his jets to get some yards out of nothing. That was it until the last drive of the day, when Cincinnati’s future signal caller got into the game, and the future Gator looked outstanding, as expected. They finally hung a deep one X’s way, and he easily high-pointed and hauled down a deep bomb with the DB falling into him. The way they refused to target X, you would have thought Deion Sanders was the coach. Or Mack Brown. Or #11’s dad. But he got his moment to show what he can do before it was all done. And he got his huge moment in the sun with one of the best declarations of the week. Maybe I am biased, but the family affair I thought ranked up there with EJ Smith’s declaration to Stanford. And after the announcement was made, the other Gator pledge in San Antonio (signee, actually), Wingo came flying into the group and he and X embraced in an embrace that can only be described as brotherly. The whole scene was pure joy, and a pure joy to watch. 

    *Running back hard target Jahmyr Gibbs got a good number of carries but only had one decent run. The rules of this game heavily favor the passing game, so it’s seldom a showcase for runners, but I definitely expected to see a lot more out of him. 

    *In Summary, when you look at who were the best players were on the field at the UA game, which was a close approximation of how they fared during the week of practice, the takeaway would be that Florida and LSU had the best recruiting haul this year. When you did the same at the Army game, frankly no team stood out, which is not surprising given the makeup of the teams (some real stars scattered on the teams, but a lot more second tier blue chips, compared to the more elite-saturated UA game). Although UNC had a lot of players in the game, including the only receiver the starting quarterback ever looked to throw to, so maybe they were the standout program there. 

    But when looking just at declarations, the school that opened a lot of eyes was Arizona State. They got the most commits at both games combined. Individually amongst our rivals, LSU is getting a very good DB, Alabama is getting a QB with all the tools but didn’t look overly impressive to me, and FSU’s quarterback of the future looked pretty bad. 

    The biggest impression I got for Florida’s benefit is firstly the incredible talent we are bringing in this year (far in excess of the rankings and ratings…we’ve got at least 4 players who are 4-stars who should clearly be 5-stars by any measure). But perhaps as memorable was the brotherhood and togetherness that the Gator signees and commits showed with each other during the game and the week of practice. Dan Mullen is building a family in Gainesville. A championship culture where every man will fight until he drops just for the man fighting next to him. 

    Chomps from the GC Staff & Columnists —

    ANDREW SPIVEY

    Early signing was a huge success for Florida as the Gators signed all but three of their commits early. Nine of those signees are also now on campus as early enrollees.

    The Gators received the commitment from WR Xzavier Henderson on Saturday as the Gators edged Clemson at the end. Henderson felt more at home with Florida than Clemson and add in the fact that Clemson lost its WR coach, the Gators were able to pull away.

    Heading into the last push for recruiting in 2020, the Gators will be looking for a running back, safety and possible another offensive lineman after Wardrick Wilson was unable to enroll due to his visa issues.

    NICK DE LA TORRE

    The Gators capped the 2019 season off with a New Years Six Bowl win over Virginia. That made Dan Mullen the first coach to win back-to-back New Years Six/BCS Bowl games in his first two years with a program. It also gave him 21 wins in his first two seasons, which just so happens to be  the same number of games that Willie Taggart coached at FSU.

    The Gators received good news with Marco Wilson and Trevon Grimes  deciding to return to school in 2020. I’m told that Kadarius Toney is  still undecided but that there could be grade issues to worry about as well.

    Lorenzo Lingard officially enrolled at Florida on Tuesday (1/7). The  transfer running back from Miami will file a waiver for immediate  eligibility and, without getting into too much detail, I can say that  there is a health issue with his family and coming to Florida is getting him closer to his family. He’s an absolutely huge addition to the team and the Gators feel very good about him being eligible in 2020.

    The coaching carousel continued to spin in the NFL this week. Matt Rhule signed a monster contract with the Carolina Panthers and the New York Giants reportedly will make Joe Judge their head coach. The latter was a candidate for Mississippi State’s head coaching position, which now makes Todd Grantham a big time candidate for State. Over the weekend I had a source tell me that they didn’t think Grantham would be interested, but that could obviously change. He’s never been a head coach and the source told me they believed his preference would be a NFL
    job but, things can change and maybe Grantham, if the offer is right, bets on himself and takes the job. It’s a very fluid and developing situation. If Grantham decides to leave for a new job we’ll have a coaching board up ASAP, but two names I like.

    The first would be Charlie Strong, an obvious one given his history with UF and the second would be David Reeves from UAB. He was a semifinalist for the Broyles Award in 2018 and is a very sharp defensive mind. Something to consider would be Christian Robinson. If Grantham were to leave, Robinson would likely follow, unless, maybe, he was offered the DC or Co-DC job at Florida.

    DAVID WUNDERLICH

    With the decommitment of Jovens Janvier on Tuesday, Florida had one of its 29 initial counters for the 2020 offseason come open. They now have 26 initial counters allocated: 21 to December signees, 2 to announced transfers Jordan Pouncey and Lorenzo Lingard, and 3 to verbal commits. After signing their verbals, they can take any combination of high school prospects and transfers that adds up to 3.

    I’ve seen some confusion out there about how the school can allocate initial counters, so I’ll try to clear it up.

    First, initial counters go to academic years, which begin in the fall. Anyone who enrolls for the fall term must count toward that year. That’s why UGA transfer Brenton Cox counts towards the 2019-20 batch of initial counters and not the present 2020-21 set that we’re talking about. He enrolled in time to take classes in fall 2019, so he must count toward that year.

    Second, almost anyone who enrolls after the start of an academic year can count toward either that present year or the following one. This mainly applies to early enrollees, but it also does to Pouncey, who enrolled for the January term. Which of them count toward which year is an accounting detail that doesn’t really matter to us. Florida will count four of the January enrollees toward the 2019-20 academic year, and that’s why they can go above the annual 25 limit to use 29 right now.

    Third, summer enrollees must count toward the academic year that follows. Take Penn State WR Justin Shorter, who’s announced intentions to transfer but won’t enroll in his new school until summer. If Florida signs all of its verbals and then takes three additional signees and/or transfers before summer, then Shorter cannot be a Gator. Anyone who enrolls in summer 2020 must count toward the 2020-21 academic year. There is a specific clause about this written into the NCAA rules for FBS football regarding this point.

    So, if Florida has used fewer than 29 initial counters by sundown on the February NSD, you know that they’re reserving a spot or two open for potential transfers. It might be Shorter, or it might be for someone else; we’ll have to see. Just know that if UF doesn’t max out its potential for signing high schoolers, there’s a good reason for it. By not doing so, they’ll maintain flexibility to accept a transfer down the line.

    That’s all, folks!

    All the best,
    Your friends at Gator Country
    …where it’s GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!

    Raymond Hines
    Back when I was a wee one I had to decide if I wanted to live dangerously and become a computer hacker or start a website devoted to the Gators. I chose the Gators instead of the daily thrill of knowing my next meal might be at Leavenworth. No regrets, however. The Gators have been and will continue to be my addiction. What makes this so much fun is that the more addicted I become to the Florida Gators, the more fun I have doing innovative things to help bring all the Gator news that is news (and some that isn’t) to Gator fans around the world. Andy Warhol said we all have our 15 minutes of fame. Thanks to Gator Country, I’m working on a half hour. Thanks to an understanding daughter that can’t decide if she’s going to be the female version of Einstein, Miss Universe, President of the United States or a princess, I get to spend my days doing what I’ve done since Gus Garcia and I founded Gator Country back in 1996. Has it really been over a decade and a half now?