Sometimes you gotta play hurt!

This isn't the first time the shoulder has put me on injured reserve

Three days off from writing after discovering that (a) I am no longer in possession of float like a butterfly feet, (b) can’t headbutt a tile floor into submission and (c) my golf swing is going to need Moe Norman to rise from the grave to repair it after fracturing and dislocating my right shoulder in one swell foop, I am back at the keyboard. As the great Jim Tom Pinch, the late, great Dan Jenkins’ alter ego would say, sometimes you gotta play hurt. I have the injuries to prove it.

So, here are several observations from this completely unexpected time on injured reserve.

One last hug by a pair of Gator greats after the season ended in OKC

1. I’m going to miss Skylar Wallace and Katie Kistler: Maybe not for the reasons you might expect. Yes, Skylar Wallace is one of the greatest softball players not only in University of Florida history, but in the history of the SEC and the nation. How many times during her career did Katie Kistler come up with a key hit or sensational defensive play? Oh, those things are worth remembering, but what I will miss them for is I can’t ever recall either one of them making an excuse. Ask a question, you got a straight from the heart answer. No ducking. No dodging. I’ve been around the sports writing business long enough to have dealt with some of our modern sports heroes, many of whom always had a Connie Hawkins-sized index finger pointed at someone else and others who made it a practice to slither away from tough questions that might involve admitting they choked. The years have taught me to appreciate honesty, especially when it comes to two who always put team above self.

2. Tim Walton makes me fondly remember Leon Brogden and Spike Corbin: Leon Brogden and Spike Corbin were high school coaching legends in Wilmington, North Carolina who won state championships in football, basketball and baseball. Leon Brogden, the great coach and gentleman at New Hanover High School, won 55 state championships in the three sports. His most famous products were Sonny Jurgenson and Roman Gabriel. Spike Corbin won nearly that many at Williston, the black school that was a block away from New Hanover, and finished his coaching career by taking an all-white John T. Hoggard team to the state baseball championship in 1972 led by future San Francisco Giant Ron Musselman. Spike’s most famous protégé was George Lemon, who became known as Meadowlark when he was with the Harlem Globetrotters. Name the sport, Leon Brogden and Spike Corbin could not only coach it, but they won, and they won with a kids first philosophy. They believed if you built up the kid and made the kid believe in himself, the kid would strive to be the best he could be on the playing field. Obviously, it worked.  I see that same quality in Tim Walton, whose philosophy is to build up the woman first and then she will do all she can to be the best she can be. Tim Walton is truly elite. I believe he would be every bit as good as he is a softball coach in any sport he chose to coach.

3. Just when everybody was ready to write off Kevin O’Sullivan: You have no idea how many times I was bombarded with text messages during the baseball season. The one I remember so well – and more than one person sent it – was, “I hope Kevin O’Sullivan takes another job somewhere else. It’s obvious he doesn’t have it anymore.” For a guy that doesn’t have it anymore, these last four weeks have been a keen reminder that Sully hasn’t forgotten how to coach and that it simply took longer for his young talent to develop this year. Look what has happened since winning two out of three against Georgia in Athens to ensure a winning record that gave the Gators a chance to make the field of 64. Since the Gators heard their name called, they have endured the inevitable do they even belong in the tournament questions. Some people still think the Gators swiped a spot from some low-to-mid-major with a great record against inferior competition. What happened in Stillwater should tell you the Gators definitely belong. They go to Clemson this weekend, underdogs for sure since Clemson is the No. 6 seed in the tournament and playing at home, but you would be foolish to bet against the Gators winning two-out-of-three to make a return to Omaha. The Gators actually are in better shape to win a short series like this than they were to win a double elimination regional at Stillwater. In a 3-game series, Kevin O’Sullivan can be far more creative with his pitching staff and if the Gators swing the bats the way they did to win the regional, Omaha could be beckoning. Prediction: Florida in two.

Nobody hits it harder or farther than Jac Caglianone (UAA Photo)

4. For my money, Jac Caglianone is the best college baseball player in the country: I doubt he wins the Golden Spikes Award. Either Georgia’s Charlie Condon or Tennessee’s Christian Moore seem destined to win it, I believe, not because they’re better players but because they played for teams that had much better records than Florida. Also both Condon and Moore had hitters in front and behind them that didn’t strike out as much. Give Cags the protection he had last year with guys like Wyatt Langford hitting in front and Josh Rivera hitting behind him and I can only imagine how monstrous his season would have been. Cags has been Florida’s best pitcher over the course of the season, a gold glove fielder at first base and at the plate he’s hitting .410 with 31 homers and 63 RBI. I do believe that Caglianone should be the easy choice as the Jon Olerud Award winner as the nation’s best two-way player. I think he could seal that award if he hits well and gets a win on the mound in the Clemson Regional. Of course, will Clemson even give him a chance to hit unless there is no open base for him? During Barry Bonds’ steroid-induced run, teams sometimes walked him with the bases full. Would Clemson be tempted to try that with Jac Caglianone? It’s not a preposterous notion.  

5. Some folks just don’t get it: I keep reading all this innuendo about Billy Napier being on the hot seat at Florida, one writer even posting Wednesday what if Billy Napier gets fired? Well, here’s the short answer for that. It’s not going to happen short of Napier having some sort of personal meltdown or getting caught up in something scandalous. Other than those two scenarios, he’s good through the 2025 season. If he doesn’t have the Gators on a strong path by then he will be gone, but otherwise, Billy Napier has two years go get his program implemented and for it to bring positive results. Two things are working very strongly in Billy Napier’s favor: (1) The people at the top understand that the revolving door of coaches has to stop. Napier is the sixth coach not named Steven Orr Spurrier in this century and that has to change if Florida is to regain its status as one of the truly elite football programs in the country. (2) DJ Lagway. Florida earned a lot of recruiting momentum when DJ Lagway signed with UF, momentum that is surely going to grow in December when every recruit out there knows and understands that Lagway will be the QB in 2025, ready to be a star from day one after apprenticing a year under Graham Mertz. If Billy Napier were fired during or after the 2024 season, bet the farm DJ Lagway wouldn’t be around for 2025 and the higher ups at UF won’t risk that.

6. Farewell to the Pac-12: When the clock strikes midnight Sunday, we may be able to officially stick a fork in the Pac-12. UCLA and Stanford are done in the Women’s College World Series. Oregon (at Texas A&M) and Oregon State (at Kentucky) are the last two teams standing in baseball. Track and field will crown a men’s champion Friday night and a women’s champ Saturday. After one day at the NCAA championships in Eugene, Oregon, Southern Cal leads the men’s standings with the women set to begin competing today but even so it’s doubtful a Pac-12 team will win the championship given the strength of the SEC. So, the “conference of champions” will likely go down without a champion in the final month of competition. This is a sad day for college sports that a league with this much tradition and so many national championships is going down in flames. I think college sports is weaker without a strong conference on the left coast. From a recruiting standpoint, I don’t think Southern California, UCLA, Oregon and Washington are going to get any kind of boost moving to the Big Ten. I’m still trying to see how the ACC is going to benefit Stanford and California other than non-revenue sports. Maybe Arizona and Arizona State will be relevant in a Big 12 minus Texas and Oklahoma.

7. Texas and Oklahoma will be full-fledged SEC members on July 1: The SEC didn’t go seeking Texas and Oklahoma, but Greg Sankey wasn’t about to say no to them when they came calling. This is where Texas and Oklahoma want to be. Certainly, the move is football driven but their entire sports programs will benefit and they will make the SEC even more dominant. Texas has won four national championships in football and 57 in NCAA sanctioned sports. Oklahoma has won seven national championships in football and 36 in NCAA sanctioned sports. Now, the road to national championships would be easier for Texas and Oklahoma in the Big 12, but they were willing to lose some football games – and they will – to play against the best competition and in bigger stadiums. Texas has a 100,000-seat stadium and Oklahoma’s seats 84,000. In the Big 12, only recently joined BYU has a stadium that seats more than 60,000. In the new Big 12, all 12 of the stadiums seat 55,000 or fewer people. Of the 16 teams in the SEC, only Missouri, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt are smaller than the largest stadium in the Big 12. Playing before bigger crowds both in the stands and in terms of television viewership will expand the Texas and Oklahoma brands far more than playing the likes of Cincinnati, West Virginia and Colorado in the Big 12.

8. Florida is going to be one of the nation’s surprise football teams this fall: That is my opinion, but it is the opinion of a lot of people who are shaking their heads at Lindy’s ranking the Gators as the No. 12 team in the SEC. The schedule is brutal, that’s for certain, but this Florida team is going to be much better than the previous two seasons under Billy Napier and it starts with Graham Mertz. This is a quarterback driven game and there isn’t a more experienced starting quarterback anywhere in the SEC. With 43 career starts in Division I, only Dillon Gabriel, now with his third team at Oregon has more (51). Experience matters, particularly when the QB will be playing behind an upgraded offensive line and will have more weapons with speed than he’s ever had before. The ceiling for the Gators this year is probably in the 8-9 win range but this is a funny game. Even though it’s the nation’s toughest schedule and the final 6-game gauntlet has a brutal look to it, you never know what’s going to happen once we get to the midway point when injuries, quarterback controversies and coaching problems manifest. As long as Florida is healthy and the off-the-field issues are at an absolute minimum, this will be one team NOBODY wants to play in the second half of the season.