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,