It has been awhile since it felt this good to be a Gator in December

(Gator Bait Photo by Chris Spears)

It is Monday morning, December 16, 2024. Does today feel any different to you today than say a year ago?

It does to me.

In recent years I haven’t felt this good about being a Gator until January when gymnastics, swimming and the Mouse Holloway Invitational, better known as the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, are in full swing. Then we have February and baseball, softball,  lacrosse, tennis and golf are about to kick off, plus we have Anthony Nesty’s relentless pursuit of national championships in men’s and women’s swimming, plus the Mouse Holloway Spring Invitational, also known as the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Well, this year is different. A whole lot different. Football and men’s basketball have given me a case of the warm and fuzzies. It’s been awhile since both football and basketball had it going at the same time.

Take football, for instance. The Gators are 7-5 with their first end of the year 3-game winning streak since 2019, Dan Mullen’s second year on the job. The Gators finished out the season with wins over Vanderbilt, Missouri and Florida State by a combined 119-23 to finish the regular season 10-2. The Gators got a New Year’s Six bowl game. Had there been a 12-team playoff you can bet the farm Florida would have been in, something that could have completely reshaped the Mullen era at UF. Kyle Trask was the UF quarterback and the Gators had one of the best defenses in the country. Yes, Third and Grantham had a couple of good years before things went south on him. The Gators would go on to beat Virginia 36-28 in the Orange Bowl, finishing the season 11-2 and the No. 6 national ranking.

The Gators are also assured of a winning season, their first since the 2020 season, no matter what happens in the Gasparilla Bowl against Tulane. By winning those last three games, the Gators averted a fourth straight non-winning season, something that hasn’t been done since the 1940s when the coach was Raymond Wolf, nickname Bear. Yeah, I know, we got the wrong Bear. Bear Wolf was a great coach at North Carolina, which was 38-17-3 during his six years at the helm. He coached the Georgia Pre-Flight team for the Navy in 1942. Everything about Bear Wolf said that he was going to lead Florida to the Promised Land. We’ve had those expectations about coaches before, haven’t we? He coached the Gators to consecutive losing seasons before going 5-5 in 1948. He went 4-6-1 in 1949 although he did beat Georgia. He was canned and Bob Neyland protege Bob Woodruff was hired from Baylor. Woodruff once coined the oft-repeated phrase, “Remember, the team that makes the fewest mistakes makes the fewest mistakes.”

And here we were thinking ...

If the Gators beat Tulane Friday, they will finish with a 4-game win streak and eight wins. The Gators finished 2019 with a 4-game win streak. The last Florida team to win eight games was the 2020 edition, which was 8-1 when it went in the tank, losing to LSU in the “Shoegate” game, to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, and to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. So many what ifs from the end of that season. What if Marco Wilson doesn’t heave the shoe in the fourth quarter? What if the Gators don’t set an SEC Championship Game record for self-inflicted wounds and beat Alabama? What if so many key players don’t opt out of the bowl game? A lot of what ifs that tell us Dan Mullen is probably still Florida’s football coach, that’s what if.

If the Gators beat Tulane to finish 8-5, it’s almost a given they will be ranked top 10 or 15 to start the 2025 season. Expectations will be higher than they’ve been in a long time. Billy Napier will be viewed as a coach whose plan to win is succeeding and DJ Lagway will be on everybody’s Heisman Trophy short list.

And that’s just football.

Sometime around midday, Todd Golden’s Florida basketball team will be ranked somewhere around sixth or seventh in the Associated Press poll. The Gators are 10-0 and playing like a team that has everything necessary to do some serious dancing in March.

At 10-0, the Gators are off to the second best start in Florida basketball history. If they beat North Carolina tomorrow night in the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte, the Gators can lay claim to a win over one of college basketball’s bluest of blue blood programs. The coach isn’t Frank Maguire, Dean Smith or Roy Williams, but it doesn’t matter. It’s Carolina, winner of six NCAA championships and 21 times in the Final Four. It’s Michael Jordan’s school. Sure, the Tar Heels are off to an horrendous (for them) 6-4 start which has the faithful in the early stages of apoplexy, but once their heartbeat slows back to normal, they will tell you Carolina doesn’t rebuild, it simply reloads. So this is a reload year, but even so it is Carolina. Beat the Tar Heels and even if they’re having a bad year, you have a signature win.

A year ago the Gators were a good team that went on to surprise us by making it to the championship game of the SEC Tournament. A year ago, we like to think that if Micah Handlogten hadn’t suffered a broken leg against Auburn in the SEC title game that the Gators might have at least made the Sweet Sixteen or maybe even the Elite Eight. One year later, the Gators are visibly better than the team of a year ago. They have more offensive options but then again, any Todd Golden team is going to score a lot of points. This one has what Todd calls “spurtability,” which is to say they go on these mind boggling, sub-sonic runs in which they leave teams gasping for air and suddenly trailing by 20 points.

This Florida team plays defense. They were allergic to defense a year ago. This one has held seven of 10 opponents to 69 or fewer points. They smother opponents. Kill them on the boards. Keep the pressure on by keeping fresh legs in the game. Hands in the passing lanes. Rejections at the rim. Transition from defense to offense in a blur that results in points at the other end.

Walter Clayton Jr. scores with such ease that you get the impression one of these games he’s going to really heat up and drop 40 on someone. Fifty? Yeah, when he goes into a shooter’s coma that’s possible.

Alijah Martin looks like he should be playing strong safety in the NFL. He is the glue guy that came in from the portal. He plays lock down defense, fearlessly drives the lane, knocks down threes, rebounds like a small forward even though he’s 6-2 and he’s almost too unselfish.  

Speaking of a shooter’s coma, Will Richard has those games but he can also take your breath away with one of his thunder dunks on a breakaway. He has figured out he doesn’t have to have a big game scoring to impact winning.

The other five guys in the regular rotation -- Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu, Tommy Haugh, Sam Alexis and Denzel Aberdeen -- fully understand that some nights they’ll carry the load, other nights they’ll simply be contributors.

The Gators are good. Very good. Maybe even Final Four good. Talk to the NBA scouts who are flocking to Florida games and they’ll tell you it’s possible. Talk to some of the better zebras who will give you an honest opinion as long as it’s off the record and they’ll tell you Florida is a team capable of beating anyone on the schedule and once into March, capable of beating anyone in the country. Beat the Tar Heels tomorrow and then finish 2024 with cupcakes North Florida and Stetson. A 13-0 start? Mick Hubert would say “oh my” to that.

Good football that could finish 8-5. A good future with a potential Heisman Trophy winner. A foundation being built with a football culture that doesn’t require regulars in a police lineup to succeed.

Basketball played the way the Gators played when we called it Billy Ball. The Gators score, play defense, rebound and share the basketball. They win and so far every game has been decided by at least 13 points.

It’s not even January and optimism is contagiously taking over the Gator Nation. There is reason to smile and be hopeful and the sports in which the Gators always contend for national championships haven’t even begun.

It’s been a long time since it felt this good to be a Gator in December.