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.