BuddyBlog: Gators Need Kentucky Win For Their ‘Two-Step Verification.’ Yeah, That!

Billy put the ball in Richardson's hands and said 'go win it!' (Chris Spears Photo)

The voters in the Associated Press Poll say the Gators are the 12th best team in America. Many of the Nervous Nellie & Norman fans are certain this lofty ranking will curse their team. (Enjoy it, Gator Nation!)

By BUDDY MARTIN

GatorBaitMedia.com

You’re battling your ass off to stay in stride with the demands of today’s technology. After four hours of chasing codes, repeating your name, rank, serial number and nickname of your first-born, somebody in the universe of engineering and algorithms writes back: “OK, fine, now we need your mother’s maiden name, your grandfather’s last known address and your oldest kid’s ACT score.”

Well, not really, but you get the point. It’s no longer enough to say who you are — you’ve also got to prove it. Which is where the Florida Gators find themselves on the eve of playing Kentucky at a sold-out Swamp for what is going to be a monster game.

Who do they say they are? Who do WE stay they are? Depends on who you ask.

The voters in the Associated Press Poll say the Gators are the 12th best team in America. Many of the Nervous Nellie & Norman fans are certain this lofty ranking will curse their team. (Enjoy it, Gator Nation!)

Some Gator fans think it’s a jinx. Their team being exposed as a really good – good, not great – football team with an upward trajectory

I mean, they just got rid of that Humpty Dumpty stench left by the previous coach. Why do they want to go and mess a perfectly good hiding-under-the-radar plan? Will this unranked team reluctantly be pushed onto a brightly lit stage of arrogance and NIL indulgence?

Probably not, if you take note of how their coach is handling sudden success.

To continue the answering of the Two-Step Verification process -- who do WE say they are? -- I went to Mount Rushmore and asked the Godfather of Gator Nation. He referenced his start at Florida in 1990 when nobody really even knew if he could coach at such a high level.

There’s a parallel between the debut of Steve Spurrier and Billy Napier. Both started out unranked and exploded on the scene. Spurrier’s team blew out Oklahoma State 50-7, crashed into the rankings and stayed there for 12 years.

One guy who's happy about No. 12 ranking is Spurrier, who sees a similarity, (Chris Spears Photo)

“I told Billy he has a chance to do the same thing,” Spurrier said.

Spurrier admits he was “shocked” at this 2022 Gator team’s high ranking coming so fast but thinks it’s a positive. “You gotta remember, we were 38th (in the poll last week),” he said. “It’s not like we were 29th, or 27th. I thought we would jump to about 20 and that would be 10 spots right there. But to jump all the way to twelve? That means the voters watched the game. And they felt like we were that good and can continue being there.”

How good? Good enough to take off the “Don’t Fall in Love On The First Date” sign now we’ve been flashing like a hurricane warning. Go ahead and fall in love with Billy Napier. In fact, the engagement party is now underway, and the wedding is in the works.

Just from what we saw, plan to be at the wedding and the celebration of many anniversaries together. What we suspected but were afraid to say: Billy Napier is the Real Deal. Scott Stricklin got the right guy. How do I know? I know because I know.

Relax, it’s a good thing. If you paid attention to the videos of Billy talking to his team after the 26-23 defeat of No. 7 Utah, he admonished them to “stay humble,” but followed that comment with the assurances “you ALL know how to play football! You’ve been doing it all your life.” The trick, he said, is how to play as a team, to stand back-to-back and fight. And that’s exactly what they did in the Utah win. Can they do it again?

Simple as it sounds, that’s one of the most brilliant coach’s post-game comments I’ve ever heard. And that beauty of that simplicity undergirds the key to Napier’s success: He knows how to communicate to his team.

I wish those were the things we would hear in press conferences – maybe we don’t ask the right questions? -- but Napier’s dial-it-down demeanor to the media and fans is also part of what you get with his obsession for quality control and messaging. And I like it.

Key comment by the HBC was the pollsters “felt like we were that good and can continue being there.”

Two reasons for Gator's 'staying power' -- Richardson and Miller. (Chris Spears Photo)

If you’re into analytics and can help quantify the following observations in some sort of algorithm, then you can help with the second portion of the “Two-Step Verification.”

1. Anthony Richardson is exactly who I’ve felt he was going to be all along. It’s easy for the bandwagon jumpers to forget now, but some of these so-called preseason ratings of quarterbacks in which he was snubbed as not even worthy of making the SEC’s top eight QBs are not only laughable, but disgraceful. I said it then and I say it now: How can these so-called “experts” pretend to know these things by watching a few clips? I also said, and I repeat: He is the most promising Florida QB at this stage I’ve ever seen – and that includes Cam Newton. Oddly enough, his so-called “Heisman Moment” might have come on the two-point conversion pass where he did what HBC calls the “Whirly Bird” to avoid tacklers and rifle the ball to Ja’Quavian Fraziars.

2. The most surprising unit was the offensive line. Not only was O’Cyrus Torrence a bona fide road-grader, but the manner in which all eight blocked, stayed disciplined and protected their quarterback was beyond impressive. Not a single sack, of course aided by their QB’s scoots. So kudos to OL coaches Rob Sale and Darnell Stapleton.

3. Yes, the Gators CAN run the football – and not just Richardson. Who knew Trevor Etienne was so quick and powerful? His good-fortune bounce of the football after fumbling and his technique for recovering it was a game-saver. It impressed the HBC. “You could tell he knew what to do because he reached out and retrieved the ball with his hands,” said Spurrier. You loved the way Napier came back to Montrell Johnson on the scoring drive after his fumble, and then the Louisiana transfer gobbled up A.R.’s pass on fourth down for the 14-yard gain to the 2, where Richardson scored the tying TD. Nay’Quan Wright remains solid as the starter. Now this week, they’ve got Lorenzo Lingard back as the fourth RB.

4. The front seven was undermanned and underwhelming at times and couldn’t seem to corral Cameron Rising or get much pressure on him with limited blitz packages of Patrick Toney. The defense yielded a whopping 446 yards (Florida gained more at 451). But I like the way the ‘D’ arose to the occasion.

5. Takeaways have been a priority and the one they got to win the game will be forever remembered: Amari Burney’s diving interception of Rising’s pass in the end zone will be immortalized as one of The Swamp’s memorable moments. The veteran leaderships showed up in the tackle stats: Trey Dean led with 12, Brenton Cox had a career high 10 and Ventrell Miller 9. At times the secondary was brilliant, led by Jason Marshall.

Actually, one of the best answers to “Who Are They?” was provided by the new coach in the first quarter.

His very first litmus tests for his “Scared Money Don’t Make Money” came on fourth-and-two at Utah’s 16 with 1:09 to play in the first quarter. Down 7-0 and still not establishing themselves as an offensive threat, I thought Napier would opt for the field goal. Instead, he called Johnson’s number and Richardson hit him in stride with a pass to the two. Florida scored to tie it 7-all. So much for Scared Money. Then at the end, Napier put the ball in the trusted hands of Richardson and said, "Go win it!" Which his QB did.

No "Scared Money" in this guy's wallet. (Chris Spears Photo)

Napier says there's plenty of room for improvement. There's a wish list (mine): More push up front. Linemen stop playing a yard off the ball. More "shots" or downfield passes (why didn't Trent Whittemore have any targets?) A few too many penalties. But watch for those fixes and corrections.

So that should give us both confidence and sufficient data for the verification part 2. The rest of it will be determined by the results of Saturday night’s outcome in another sold-out setting for two ranked teams, in which Florida is favored by about a touchdown or slightly less.

I’ve seen enough to complete the “Two-Step Verification. I like Florida to beat Kentucky, 38-31, just like it has 33 of the last 35 times and 20 of the last 21 times at The Swamp. And maybe boost that upward trajectory to the Top Ten. Then Scott Stricklin might want Napier to repeat his vows, even before the wedding. They’re getting there and the journey looks promising. Can they do enough to stay there?

Richard Gouraige with the guy he protected. Kyle Trask was on sideline. (Chris Spears Photo)