Podcast: Recapping the NFL Draft for the Florida Gators

GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we recap the NFL Draft for the Florida Gators as eight guys were drafted.

Andrew Spivey, Bailiegh Carlton, and Ethan Hughes give you their thoughts on the eight guys that were drafted, plus we give our thoughts on the guys who signed free-agent contracts.

Andrew, Baileigh, and Ethan also recap the diamond sports as both softball and baseball took their weekend series against Missouri and Vanderbilt.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, back with Ethan and Baileigh. Guys, we’re post NFL Draft, so that means we’re a little bit closer to football season. Ethan, you were right. The Gators did take a series against Vandy, and it was a wild series. Baileigh, go up and have Missouri come to town and take two out of three, and now just sit a game back of Arkansas still. Rough series pitching wise at times for the Lady Gators. Overall, good weekend for the Gators. Eight guys drafted. Some surprises there, and we’ll get into that. First of all, Ethan, we got to know the story about the water park. The man goes to the water park, hurts his arm. He’s MIA for the Vandy series. I mean, did you just want to miss the Vandy series? You thought it was going to be that bad?

Ethan:                     To be honest, missing the Vandy series was actually one of the first things that went through my mind after it happened. Just couldn’t happen any other time of the year? What happened, basically went to a water park, got on a waterslide, and couldn’t figure out how to get off the tube when we got to the pool. It was like a two-person tube, but for whatever reason they only had one person in a tube at a time, so I had a hard time trying to figure out how to get out of it without flipping the thing over on top of me. I ended up rolling over onto the concrete steps and dislocated my shoulder. Was not very fun that day.

Andrew:                 So, you’re on the 10-day IL, or we going to put you on the 60-day IL?

Ethan:                     60-day is not necessary. Probably 10-day, and then need maybe a couple Minor League rehab assignments before I get back.

Andrew:                 There you go. Let’s recap that series real quick. Gators put it on Rocker and win Game 1. Then they lose. No. Sorry. They lose Game 1 to Rocker. Put it on Leiter, and then turn around and win Game 3. First of all, how Vandy with as great of pitching they are do not have a #3 starter is wild to me. Whatever it may be, the Gators take advantage of it. For all the talk about what’s going on with this team, I say it all the time. It doesn’t matter how you start. It’s how you finish. I think this team is starting to finish how we thought this team could be. Obviously, a little bit different. The pitching isn’t as good, but Jud Fabian’s starting to hit a little bit more. You’re seeing Nathan Hickey still hit really good. Chris Armstrong started to come around. Is this team hitting the strides at the right time, Ethan?

Ethan:                     It definitely seems like they are. That Vanderbilt team was a team that I still think as of now would be the favorite to win the National Championship, with those two starters that they’ve got. It was just an incredible offensive series. They scored 23 runs in three games against the best pitching staff in the SEC, I think by a pretty decent margin. They got three homeruns and five runs off of Jack Leiter, who a couple weeks ago people were saying that he was basically the equivalent of having a Major League starter stuck in a college uniform.

Then pitching wise, they didn’t get a good start from Franco Aleman in Game 1, and that ended up costing them. Tommy Mace, same thing. Didn’t get off to a great start, but he’s able to battle through it and give them eight innings, and that ended up being a huge factor in Game 3, because then they were able to have Jack Leftwich, Christian Scott,