GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we continue to preview the Florida Gators vs Kentucky game on Saturday night in the Swamp.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre are joined by Jen Smith of the Lexington Herald-Leader as we ask her to give her thoughts on the game and tells us more about Kentucky.

Andrew and Nick also continue to talk about the game and recap what Dan Mullen had to say Monday at his press conference in Gainesville.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, we’re back. We got our Wednesday guest coming up, as we preview the Kentucky wildcats coming to the Swamp this Saturday night at 7:30 again.

Nick:                         Jen Smith will join us. She covers Kentucky for the Lexington Herald Leader, and she does a great job there. She was with Mark Stoops yesterday as he was talking about Florida, and she’ll give us a preview of what the Cats are looking like, what Benny Snell, who told us that he’s the best running back in the SEC, had a great Week 1, what he’s looking like, and if they can prove Chauncey Gardner wrong and stop that streak at 31 and not let it get to 32.

Andrew:                 After we talk to her, I’m going to praise Chauncey Gardner. That hasn’t happened very often. It’s another good week. Listen, I just don’t think that this the Kentucky team of the last few years. I think it’s a good Kentucky team, but I don’t think it’s as good of a Kentucky team. I know this is a better Florida football team than it was last year and the year before last. I know it’s a much more disciplined team as well. Going to talk about that.

Then, Nick, we’re going to talk about that FSU debacle. We’re going to talk about Willie Taggert falling on his face on the dance floor.

Nick:                         Well, let’s get to Jen, and then we can get to that.

Andrew:                 Let’s get to her real quick. We’ll get her thoughts on Kentucky, and then we’ll move on to more important business.

Nick:                         We’re joined now by Jen Smith of the Lexington Herald Leader. Jen, thank you so much. I think our listeners are looking forward to hearing from you.

Jen:                           Thanks. I appreciate you having me on.

Nick:                         I see on Twitter you just found, I guess, Florida’s interesting section of the media guide talking about the streak. I guess we’ll get our streak talk over with quickly.

Jen:                           We can do that. It’s interesting that both coaches yesterday sort of decided to say the streak has nothing to do with this current team and this current year. I guess, Florida’s, what is he, a nickel back, decided to immediately say, it’s going to be 32 wins. I think that will probably be a little bit of a motivating factor for Kentucky, but it’ll be interesting to see if any of us are still alive when the streak ends.

Nick:                         Yeah. That’s Chauncey Gardner. Andrew and I call him the Mouth of the South. It was not surprising to anyone who follows Gator sports that it would be Chauncey Gardner guaranteeing a victory.

Andrew:                 If you talk to anyone, just tell them don’t take him serious. Whatever he says just laugh at him and move on. First of all, he won’t back up his talk.

Jen:                           It’s interesting, because Benny Snell, Kentucky’s running back, has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about just about everything, and last week the running back for Central Michigan said that he’d never heard of Benny Snell, and then Benny Snell, despite having a 102-degree temperature, decided to have a pretty decent game. Then the defense was sort of upset that he’d never heard of Benny Snell, so they tried to target him. Not target as in like bad stuff, but they really tried to make sure that he was held under his average.

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we recap the Florida Gators win over Charleston Southern on Saturday night to open the 2018 season.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down how the offense looked and what they liked about Feleipe Franks’ night against Charleston Southern.

Andrew and Nick also talk about the defense and which guys stood out to them on the defensive side of the ball, plus what they thought about the special teams play.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, Game 1 in the books, and it is what it is. It was expected. The Gators put up 50. I told you, Mullen. I told you about them expectations. The Gators did what they were supposed to do, and I think there was a lot of good moments in the game. I think there were a few moments that stood that need to be improved, but overall it was a good debut for Dan Mullen.

Nick:                         Yeah. FSU fans were paying as close attention on social media to the Gator games as Gator fans were, and they made a good point. I think you do need to temper some expectations, because of who the opponent was, but I think Dan Thompson, our boy DK, said it well. I put it into my story, stolen from Dan. Florida won a game against an opponent in the manner in which they were supposed to win it. It wasn’t sweating it out versus UAB, sweating it out versus Louisiana-Lafayette. This game was pretty much over whenever the contract was signed. That’s how it should be.

We talked about it all the time when we talked about Will Grier, and he played some terrible talent in high school, but he dominated. When Florida plays teams like Charleston Southern, that’s the kind of performance you need. You need to give up 3 passing yards. You need to put up 400 yards of offense and 50 points and get turnovers and block punts.

Florida did, to me, what they needed. Listen go ahead and be excited about the game. Other than getting to Atlanta to be Alabama’s sacrifice to the football gods in the SEC Championship game, there hasn’t been much to cheer about. I’m totally fine with fans enjoying and reveling in this win. Just know that that’s the worst team that Florida will play this year.

Andrew:                 Again, I’m with you. You have to temper expectations. Again, I said this on Friday, and I said there was nothing in this game that Franks or anyone could show me that would say Franks is going to be an All-SEC quarterback. There was nothing in this game that showed me that Todd Grantham’s defense is going to be the best defense in the country or anything like that. Simply because of who it was. You have to show this on a consistent basis and show this against inferior talent. You have to show this against Kentucky, and then move that into Colorado State, which is terrible. They might be as bad as Charleston Southern. Then you move that into Tennessee and down the road.

I think the biggest thing for me was not only did you do what you were expected to do, but the energy level, Nick. A lot of times in the past seven years Florida would play down to teams they were supposed to beat. They would come out looking like a team that were going through the motions. This was a team that came out looking like they were coming out to play a cupcake game, and they were all trying to pad their stats. Nick, we all played NCAA. If we played NCAA against Charleston Southern, we were trying to get our quarterback to throw 700 yards and boost him up on the Heisman. That’s what these guys looked like they were going out there to do.

CJ Henderson, on the field goal block, looked like a man trying to get his first ever block. Awesome. Zack Carter made the block. To me, Nick, that stands out as the moment that said, this is a different football team. When Zack Carter blocks the field goal to keep a shutout alive,

GatorCountry brings you our Friday prediction podcast for the Florida Gators season opener against Charleston Southern on Saturday night in the Swamp.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down Charleston Southern and what you need to look for when they’re on offense and on defense.

Andrew and Nick also give you three guys to watch for the Gators on Saturday, plus we predict several games around the country, plus the Gators game.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, Friday prediction podcast. It’s back, my friend.

Nick:                         It’s back. The season’s back. Prediction podcast is back. It’s all ready. I’m ready. Dan’s talking about 12 opportunities, but we stopped talking about the weather. Prediction is back.

Andrew:                 You already see that Florida fans are mad.

Nick:                         First off, Florida fans, people, I tweeted yesterday, it rained all day. I wanted to go out and do some stuff, so it rained all day. I tweeted a picture of how bad the weather was. People are like already starting to bitch and complain about Saturday. I’m like, this isn’t Saturday. This is right now. It’s Wednesday. It’s the middle of the day Wednesday. Relax. I’m just complaining about the weather I have today. It has nothing to do with football. It has nothing to do with the season.

Andrew:                 People are already asking about a retractable roof. I saw you tweeting about it.

Nick:                         Oh my goodness. That stuff, talking about can you play a game in the indoor practice facility? What?

Andrew:                 I don’t know.

Nick:                         No, you can have a game in the indoor practice facility.

Andrew:                 First of all, the rain’s not going to be that bad. Second of all, no, you can’t. TV dictates everything. TV is not taking their production truck inside the indoor practice facility. Sorry.

Nick:                         There is literally no way ever a game would be played in the indoor practice facility.

Andrew:                 Yeah. Just not happening. I mean, maybe an intramural championship.

Nick:                         My goodness.

Andrew:                 Nick, let’s go, my friend. We got a lot to talk about. As always on our Friday prediction podcast, if you’re new to the show, which maybe a few of you are, hopefully so. If not, tell your friends and get us some new followers. We’ll do some over-under here. Two of them will be about the season in general. Two of them will be about this game. Like always, Nick and I will do our three players to watch in the game, and we’ll pick a few games, including predicting the Florida game. As the season goes on, the prediction of the Florida game is a lot more interesting, but yeah. There you go.

Nick, I thought we should start off by talking a little bit about Charleston Southern. We haven’t talked a lot about them, because they are Charleston Southern. You and I were talking about this before we came on the air. Run the triple option out of the shotgun. That’s something that is a little bit different. For me, Nick, I think if you’re playing this game you’re wanting it Game 1, for the simple reason that you’re able to prepare for it as the off season. You’re able to talk a little bit about it in the spring, that kind of stuff. There’s pros and cons to Florida being the first game. The pro is you get to do that. The con is guys are going to be a little bit more undisciplined in Game 1 than they are maybe in Game 12.

Nick:                         Right. When you talk about defending a triple option, it’s all about discipline. It’s all about …

Andrew:                 Assignments.

Nick:                         Assignments. Stay in your lane. Stuff is going to open.

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we breakdown Dan Mullen naming Felipe Franks as the Florida Gators starting quarterback on Monday.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre also break down the rest of the depth chart that was released ahead of the Gators season opener on Saturday night in the Swamp.

Andrew and Nick also give you the latest injury news and what they’re looking forward to seeing on Saturday night.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, you have a starting quarterback. The University of Florida has a starting quarterback. Dan Mullen spoke on Monday. We’re taping this on Monday. Named Feleipe Franks the starter. Well, actually named it beforehand when the depth chart came out. Had some interesting comments on why Mr. Franks was named the starter, and I’m happy to say that I think I may have to call BS on Mullen, and we’re 30 seconds in on the podcast.

Nick:                         You know why? I know why you’re saying that. You’re saying that because it’s the same reason that was given last year. He can extend plays and this and that. We saw 11 gaves and 8 starts with that.

Andrew:                 There was two comments that really stood out to me that even made me say BS more than that. He said he’s getting better at taking the short plays and understanding the reads. First of all, those two comments and Feleipe Franks don’t go together. Then his second comment was the experience of him playing last year didn’t play into this. I call major BS with that, because everyone we talked to says that if you watch practice Kyle was better than Feleipe, but I think you take in the experience. That’s what you and I have said in the past. You have to take that into consideration. Listen, it’s no surprise to me. It’s no surprise to you either. We both said Feleipe Franks was going to be the starter, but the reasons given for that are BS.

Nick:                         So, what do you think the reasons are?

Andrew:                 Exactly what we just said, that he said wasn’t the reason, his experience last year.

Nick:                         You’re calling an audible on what Mullen said and running the exact opposite play.

Andrew:                 100%. That is 100% that. I will say this too. I say that he is a guy that the guys on the team are more rallied around for the most part, I would say, because of what he went through last year as the starter and the ups and the downs, mainly downs, and Nussmeier being his OC. I think guys rallied around him.

Listen, I’m not sitting her today telling you guys on August 27th, this is Monday we’re taping this, that Feleipe Franks isn’t going to be better. I think he will be improved somewhat, because Dan Mullen is a much better quarterback coach than Doug Nussmeier is. But I’m sitting here saying also, listen, what you got last year was no joke either. As bad as Doug Nussmeier was as offensive coordinator, the guy couldn’t make a throw. The guy still locked onto one receiver.

Something else Dan Mullen said, he said a lot of times he can look at the quarterback and say, you know where you’re going with the ball right now, and the quarterbacks would look at him and say, how do you know that? If you’re expecting Feleipe Franks to know that, you got problems.

Nick:                         That comes with being a veteran, because what Mullen was saying is I know my play. As I break the huddle, or even not a huddle, as I look and scan the defense before I even say hut, I can see what they’re in. So, I know I don’t need to look at my one guy or my two guy. I’m throwing this quick slant, because I can tell what the coverage is. He’s saying, basically said, right now they’re not at that point yet. That could be because of inexperience, because of youth, but they’re not at that point yet. That comes with experience.

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we discuss the latest with the quarterback battle after Dan Mullen spoke to the media on Thursday.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down what Mullen had to say about quarterbacks, plus the rest of the team on Thursday.

Andrew and Nick also breakdown the latest Florida Gators commitment as linebacker Mohamoud Diabate committed to the Gators on Wednesday to give Florida one of the best linebacker classes in the country.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, about a week and two days now. We’re taping this on Thursday, so a week and two days and there will be football in the Swamp. You guys are listening to this on Friday, and there will be football under the Friday Night Lights.

Nick:                         I think all around the country too. Jamborees are done, and spring football is done. St. Thomas will not be playing Friday. They got a big game on Saturday night. ESPN2, make sure to tune in and root for the Raiders there.

Andrew:                 Who are they playing?

Nick:                         DeMatha, I think it is.

Andrew:                 Okay. I couldn’t remember.

Nick:                         I think they’re from Maryland.

Andrew:                 Yes. That was Jaylen Tabor’s rival high school, I believe.

Nick:                         Friendship High School. That name always got me. Friendship High School.

Andrew:                 That’s a competitive league up there in Maryland, when you talk about those schools and some of the other big-time ones.

Nick:                         That’s all well and good, Andrew, but St. Thomas plays big boy football at the highest level down in South Florida, so I expect a Raider victory. Good luck to Coach Harriet and the boys down there in Fort Lauderdale.

Andrew:                 Whatever. Recruiting news was hot. For the naysayers of the world, who thought the world was burning, and it was time to jump off the highest mountain in the world, Wednesday night another bit of good news in Mohamoud Diabate from Auburn, Alabama. Committed to Florida. The outside linebacker, rush end. Nick, I’m going to ask you this after I say this.

Nick:                         First off, I just asked you how to say his name, and you just said it completely differently than how, what we came to.

Andrew:                 How would you say it?

Nick:                         Mohamoud Diabate.

Andrew:                 Okay. Whatever.

Nick:                         The people know I got to check you on your pronunciations.

Andrew:                 Listen, your boy over here has never been the best with pronunciations. Anyway, back to my point, Nick, you got to see him as well as I did at Friday Night Lights. That’s a very, very good-looking athlete to be an outside linebacker/defensive end. Got a body that can add some weight to it. Very athletic. Long, lanky arms. Built like a very, very good outside linebacker and very connected with Sal Sunseri, Grantham, Christian Robinson, all those guys.

He told us that really he knew Florida was the school he wanted to go to since he visited back in March, but went through the process. Auburn kind of slow played him a little bit, and then decided to turn the heat up too late. Alabama recruited him hard, but he said he didn’t really fit in as good there. Florida won out.

In my opinion, Diwun Black is a very good linebacker and is probably the top recruit in the class so far, but Mohamoud might be second, right behind Diwun.

Nick:                         I think obviously all that on the field stuff is great, but I think he, and I was talking to somebody about this, he’s the kind of person that you want in your locker room. A great student, I think he’s said to people that he wants to be a doctor when...

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we recap week one of fall camp for the Florida Gators.

Andrew and Nick de la Torre go position by position to break down who is doing well for the Gators and what the position battles to watch.

Andrew and Nick talk about the quarterback battle and who they think is leading the charge right now.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, about a week now into fall camp, give or take a day here. You had the first open practice on Saturday. Gators will scrimmage on Monday night. We’re taping this on Sunday, so when you guys are listening to it, tonight they’ll be scrimmaging. A lot of people, a lot of coaches, will say the first scrimmage is one of the biggest scrimmages of camp, because they want to kind of see how guys have developed from the spring game, how they’ve taken everything in. Just really how they’re going to handle that pressure cooker situation in Scrimmage 1. We’ll get onto that when that happens.

Nick, just what were your first impressions of practice on Saturday?

Nick:                         Well, we were the envy of all the other sports writers, because we got the entire practice open. I mean, our boy Trey, up in Knoxville, was like, what? You got the whole thing? Unfortunately, for us, I think it’s going to be one of the last open practices we have for the rest of the fall, with about three weeks left till the first game. It was nice to be out there for the whole thing. You get to see eleven-on-eleven. You get to see seven-on-seven. We got to see actual football stuff. Normally we get stretching and individual drills. I do love the Gator drill and seeing some intensity to start practice to begin. That’s better than basketball any day.

It was nice to be out there for the whole thing. We’ll have a bunch to talk about. I guess, we can break it down position by position, or however you want to break it down, because there’s a lot to talk about, being out there for three hours.

Andrew:                 I think that the open practice is good from the standpoint of Mullen, whether he or anyone else wants to admit it, is still trying to get the fan optimism back.

Nick:                         Absolutely.

Andrew:                 The excitement back. Listen, the excitement is there for the most part.

Nick:                         I feel like it hasn’t been a rollercoaster. It was just like one dip, because when you start everything is so positive. Mullen could have walked up to your house and thrown a brick through your window, and you’d be like, that was good form. Nothing he did was bad. He couldn’t do anything wrong. Then recruiting kind of took a little slow period. Georgia was getting whoever they wanted, and there was all this other stuff going. I think that’s when people started to doubt them a little bit, but then after Friday Night Lights it kind of got better.

Andrew:                 Right. I think that’s the thing, recruiting definitely hurts the on-field momentum, and then on-field momentum hurts the off the field in recruiting. It all goes hand in hand, for sure. Again, I think that the recruiting is going to fix itself. I don’t see that being an issue later in the period, as you get to December and January. I’m with you.

Listen, at the end of the day, Mullen’s press conference, and, Nick, you’re going to have to jot my mind here a little bit, was it Wednesday or Monday when he said the quarterback play wasn’t up to par with him? Whatever day it was last week, when that comment came out, I instantly saw Gator fans throwing things, saying, here we go again. Again, it’s one of those things. I’m going to use this analogy a little bit, and maybe I shouldn’t, but it’s like in a relationship where everyone says they build up brownie points for when something bad happens. In a way,

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we talk about the start of fall camp for the Florida Gators football team.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down what Dan Mullen and the players had to say last week heading into fall camp, plus talk about the first two practices so far.

Andrew and Nick also talk about recruiting and break down the last three commits for the Gators football program.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, you’re back from your cruise. You’re on the mainland. Guess what welcomed you back? Football season, my friend.

Nick:                         Football is back. Podcast will be getting back into the swing, into our normal football schedule of three times a week, here pretty soon.

Andrew:                 I don’t know if it’s just me. Maybe it was just me, but I’m going to ask you this. Did the off season not seem shorter?

Nick:                         It did. To me at least.

Andrew:                 It seemed really short to me. It seemed like just not too long ago Mullen was getting hired. I was up in Atlanta, where Emory was committing. It just seemed like the off season was by us.

Nick:                         We made it so long without having any off season drama, and that helped too probably.

Andrew:                 Your boy, Edgar Thompson, has to go up to Atlanta. Edgar, if you’re listening to this, thanks buddy. We didn’t need to write about the negativity. We were trying to be positive people in the world.

Nick:                         Edgar made just an offhand comment that no one had been arrested, it had been a really quiet off season for us, and then all of a sudden, it wasn’t.

Andrew:                 As soon as he made that comment, we all turned our notifications on to the jail.

Nick:                         Yeah. That stuff, obviously, we’ll touch on it quickly. Lot to do about nothing. Obviously, it’s bad decisions. It’s bad press, and it’s immaturity. Talking about the bb guns and stuff like that. It goes back, kind of against a little bit, what we were talking about players being good with the fans and turning over that leaf. I don’t even know if this guy’s a fan or what this whole situation is. Obviously, he was provoking players, but you’ve got to know that when you’re a football player at the University of Florida you’re held to a different standard. You’re in the public eye. You just have to understand. It’s kind of like football coaches will tell you, if somebody hits you after a play, don’t hit him back, because the second person that swings is the one that always gets caught. They were retaliating, and they got caught.

Andrew:                 Let me say something real quick, and I’m saying this tongue in cheek, I guess, because I’m sure somebody’s going to have a comment to say. I guess I’m preparing myself for that comment. I’ve heard some people and have read the things about Kadarius Toney. Personally know the guy, personally been able to be around the guy through a couple years in his high school. Known him through his college time now. Kadarius Toney is not a bad kid. People are saying Kadarius Toney is a bad kid, staying in trouble. He hasn’t been charged for anything. He hasn’t been arrested for anything. He’s just brought negative light to himself, mad some bad decisions with the gun, whatever it may be. I don’t think any of us will ever know the full story. I don’t think Florida wants anybody to know the full story. I don’t think the other guy wants anybody to know the full story.

Point being, Kadarius Toney hasn’t been charged for anything. He just needs to find better people to hang out with, and he needs to get his name out of the public eye for a bad reason and get back to focused on football.

Nick:                         The Constitution gives him the right to have a gun.

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we preview Friday Night Lights for the Florida Gators on Friday.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down the visitors list and what to expect from Friday Night Lights.

Andrew and Nick also talk about the arrest of Gators freshman Justin Watkins who was arrested on Tuesday.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, Media Days are behind us. Friday Night Lights is tomorrow. You guys are listening to this on Thursday, so things are getting to a close. Next week is the start of camp for the Gators. Things are moving rapidly as football season approaches.

Nick:                         Moving rapidly. It won’t be start of camp for one player, and we’ll start with that. We’ll get that out of the way before we get into the Friday Night Lights preview.

Andrew:                 Yeah. Justin Watkins, the rap sheet that is coming from that police report is not good. Let me say this. There’s three sides to every story. There’s Justin’s side, the victim’s side, or the accuser’s side, and then there’s the truth. What the accuser/victim is saying does not look good for Justin Watkins. I’ll say this, and I’m going to throw this out there before I throw it to you. If charges are true, Justin Watkins shouldn’t be around.

Nick:                         Yeah. Obviously, in the United States you’re innocent until proven guilty. That’s the burden of proof that is set up by the legal system. That’s not necessarily the burden of proof that is set up to play Division I or II, III, or JUCO college football. I think playing at this level is a privilege, obviously, something that you earn through hard work. But the burden of proof to be exonerated of charges is not the same that is held in a football program.

Watkins was arrested just about three months ago back home, and at that time he was accused of breaking an accuser’s cellphone and kicking her car. Then this new one that just came out, according to the arrest report, and obviously the arrest report is one account. It’s not his side of the story. He doesn’t have any representation right now, any official attorney, so I haven’t been able to get his side of the story. This is just the arrest report, which is what she is telling police. According to that, on July 20th Watkins intentionally struck a woman, both with an open and close fist, on both sides of her head, while he held her down on a bed. The report goes on to say that Watkins choked the woman multiple times while continuing to pin her down on the bed.

Police say Watkins then confined the woman to his dorm room by standing in the doorway and blocking the exit. The report says the woman was physically restrained by Watkins until she sprayed him with mace out of self-defense. Police then say Watkins chased the woman out, threw multiple items at her, including a brush and a container of hair grease, causing bleeding and swelling. He’s still currently, as we tape this on Wednesday, in jail on a $40,000 bond.

Andrew:                 I mean, there’s a lot of questions that I personally want to know, and you and I talked about this earlier. Is it the same woman, female, that this happened to? Not that it matters. I’m not trying to say it matters as far as right or wrong. This is in no way right whatsoever. Is it the same woman? Then, has she changed her story at all? Does she change her story at all? Kind of need to know all those details. Right now it doesn’t look good.

Nick, I’m going to throw this out there, and that is this is Dan Mullen’s first big time decision to make here. He’s went around his speaking tours, done media days in the spring, talking about players living up to the Gators standard. Talked last week about how guys are going to make mistakes, it’s learning from the mistakes, that kind of thing. First of all, this isn’t just a mistake.

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we recap SEC Media Days for the Florida Gators that took place on Tuesday in Atlanta.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre recap what Dan Mullen had to say during Media Days, plus what the players had to say.

Andrew and Nick also talk about the uniform reveal that took place on Tuesday in Atlanta when the Gators revealed the new Jumpman uniforms.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, the unofficial start to football season took place on Tuesday, and we’re just a few short weeks away from the start of fall camp, and then I believe six weeks from Saturday is the start of the season.

Nick:                         Yeah. It kind of sneaks up on you. Once the season ends, there’s almost like two periods. You’re waiting for spring, and that, of course, is the whole recruiting time, where you’re losing sleep. Then once spring is over, it’s kind of get to SEC Media Days, which is the unofficial kickoff to everything. That’s still going on all this week. After this, I think Florida will get ramped up right in the beginning of August.

Andrew:                 I mean, you think about it, it’s the start of that, Media Days, and then it’s Friday Night Lights. Then right after Friday Night Lights is the start of fall camp. While fall camp is long, and it’s the month period of really just press conferences, getting to see a few practices, that kind of thing, it’s definitely the start of football season. It’s definitely the start of where you start to turn your attention and get back refocused. Yeah. I won’t lie, it definitely seems like this off season was a lot shorter, but we did have a coaching change, recruiting, and more spring access.

Nick:                         The coaching change, we’ve been through two here. Have you been through three?

Andrew:                 No. Let’s see. I was with the Muschamp one. Yeah. Three. Muschamp, when Muschamp got hired, and then when McElwain got hired, and now with Mullen.

Nick:                         This is my second one, and this one was much quicker than finding and hiring McElwain. This one was much quicker.

Andrew:                 We didn’t have no stalking of the outside, and then hiring and firing and hiring assistant coaches in the media before they were even hired.

Nick:                         I’m glad you brought this up, because there’s something that was on my mind a little bit yesterday, while we were at Media Days. Somebody from another beat, another beat reporter, said to me, “Florida didn’t get their first choice.” You can debate that point till you’re blue in the face. Was it Scott Frost? Was it Chip Kelly? I said to him, and he agreed, “I don’t think Dan Mullen was their first choice, but I think he’s the right choice.” I think it’s because of the things that you saw from him on his spring speaking tour, the things that you saw from him yesterday at Media Days.

Dan Mullen was asked by somebody about how many times did you hear, can you fix the offense? He says, “I heard it when we were up 20-3 walking into half-time when I was here as the offensive coordinator.” He gets those expectations, and he understands. I know that these are all Gator fans listening to us, but he gets that your expectations aren’t always based in reality. That’s part of being a fan, but he gets that. I don’t know if the other coaches would have gotten that or would have embraced it the way that he has.

Was he the first? I don’t know. I think he was the right guy for the job at this time, especially when you consider the offensive wasteland that Florida’s been for the past eight years, nine years.

Andrew:                 That’s what I was saying to someone yesterday on the message board. We were talking about recruiting. We’ve talked about recruiting, and we talked about recruiting,

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we recap the Florida Gators baseball season as it came to end in Omaha on Friday.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down the season for the Gators, plus look ahead to next year’s roster.

Andrew and Nick also talk about the latest recruiting news around the program, plus the latest football news.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, had a long break between the last podcast, a lot of things going on. We apologize for that. Should be getting back on track now with our weekly podcast. Nick, we’re just three weeks away from SEC Media Days, and this time it’s in the great city of Atlanta.

Nick:                         Atlanta is not a great city. Atlanta traffic is some of the worst in the country. They have the most annoying baseball fans, outside of New York, yourself included. I’m reminded every day by those fans that the Braves are still in first place.

Andrew:                 That’s right. Shout out to my boy, Barrett Sallee. He and I have a pact that we will be having a good time in the middle of the Battery when our Bravos reach the pinnacle of baseball. It’s coming soon.

Nick:                         I’m sorry, how many do they have? How many World Series do the Braves have?

Andrew:                 We just have one.

Nick:                         How many years have they been playing baseball in Atlanta?

Andrew:                 50-some years, I think.

Nick:                         Oh, God.

Andrew:                 It’s all right.

Nick:                         Even the Marlins have two.

Andrew:                 Yeah, but how many times have you guys finished in the well of the cellar?

Nick:                         When the Marlins make the playoffs, they win a World Series. They win a championship.

Andrew:                 So, they’ve only made the playoffs twice.

Nick:                         That’s it. Two for two.

Andrew:                 There you go. Newsflash, the Atlanta Braves are tied for the best record in the National League. That’s all that matters.

Nick:                         What’s today’s date? It’s July? That’s cool.

Andrew:                 It’s almost July. We’ll get into talking some football, some recruiting, here in a few minutes. Nick, we got to talk about the baseball team. Go out to Omaha, and finish a game short, or two games short, of making it to the College World Series finals again. Nick, I’ll say this. The beginning of the year the team was really, really good, but when JJ went down it just kind of seemed like someone stuck a needle in them and inflated the air. They just really never regained that momentum. I think what a lot of people don’t talk about is the target that’s on your back when you’re the Florida Gators, the defending National Champions. It just kind of caught up to them. Listen, Arkansas is a damn good baseball team. It just caught up to them.

Nick:                         Yeah. Listen, Arkansas can hit. Those boys can hit whoever. I think Florida, you hit the nail on the head. It’s really when JJ went down the lineup changes drastically, especially the way JJ was hitting. He was hitting .450, .435 in the 10 games before he got hurt. The thing with Florida this year was you really never had a string of everybody hitting cold at one point. So, when JJ wasn’t hitting well, India goes on a 20-game hitting streak, and Will Dalton’s hitting. When Jonathan India started to slow down, Deacon Liput, Austin Langworthy, and JJ Schwarz are hitting.

Once JJ went down it was kind of a gut punch to the team, and India wasn’t hitting .300, and Liput went down a little bit. It really was only Austin Langworthy that was hitting the ball really well during that time when JJ was down. Then, obviously,