Thoughts of the Day: August 12, 2022

A few thoughts to jumpstart your Friday morning:

SATURDAY SCRIMMAGE WILL TELL NAPIER HOW MUCH PROGESS SINCE SPRING

The first scrimmage is always the leading indicator for just how far a football team has come since spring and just how far they have to go before foot hits football and the games begin for real in September. Billy Napier and his Florida staff have been pleased with the Gators’ progress through the first few practices, but Saturday, they’ll have a much better idea of where they stand. It’s one thing to be good when most of the practices are in shorts and shells. It’s something altogether different once the pads are on and it’s a scrimmage situation.

“At this time of year, it’s all about the right combination of what volume of install are you carrying and the level of execution, right?” Napier said Tuesday at his weekly press conference. “So I think we’ve seen kind of the ebbs and flows of that. We’ve thrown a lot of information at them and the execution level goes down and we kind of recover and it improves so that’s kind of where we’re at. I think as a staff, we’re kind of in that mode of evaluating what’s productive for this group of players and what can we execute efficiently.”

Napier probably has a pretty good idea who his best 22 players are. Other than additions such as Arizona State wide receiver transfer Ricky Pearsall, whose injured foot turns out to be a bone bruise, there probably haven’t been too many changes in the top 22 since spring. It’s the second 22 that has to be the big concern right now. In the SEC everybody has at least 22 good football players. You can win maybe four games if you have 22-30 good players. If you’ve got 33-36 good players, 4-6 wins are a real possibility. With 44, it’s possible to get to seven wins, more if you can stay injury free and catch a few breaks.

Filling in the blanks to have 44 solid players ready to go has to be one of the chief goals in the 22 days before the Utah game.

This is a projected two-deep prior to Saturday.

Offense

QB: Anthony Richardson; Jack Miller

RB: Montrell Johnson; Lorenzo Lingard

TE: Dante Zanders; Keon Zipperer

Slot: * Ricky Pearsall; Trent Whittemore

WR: Justin Shorter; Ja’Markis Weston

WR: Xzavier Henderson; Ja’Quavion Fraziars

LT: Richard Gouraige; Austin Barber

LG: Ethan White; Richie Leonard

C: Kingsley Eguakun; Richie Leonard

RG: O’Cyrus Torrence; Josh Braun

RT: Michael Tarquin; Kamryn Waites or Josh Braun

* Injured. Won't play Saturday but he is the No. 1 slot

Defense

DE: Princely Umanmielen; Tyreak Sapp

NT: Jalen Lee; Desmond Watson

DT: Gervon Dexter; Chris McClellan

OLB: Brenton Cox Jr.; Antwaun Powell-Ryland Jr.

ILB: Ventrell Miller; Derek Wingo

ILB: Scooby Williams; Amari Burney or Shemar James

NB: Tre’vez Johnson; Jadarrius Perkins

CB: Jason Marshall Jr.; Devin Moore

CB: Avery Helm; Jalen Kimber

S: Trey Dean III; Kamari Wilson

S: Rashad Torrence II; Donovan McMillon

SEC football/basketball

Alabama: Former ESPN sideline reporter now NBC NFL studio host Maria Taylor was the speaker at Alabama’s team meeting Thursday.

Arkansas: Defensive tackle Marcus Miller had his knee scoped but he could be back in time for the season opener with Cincinnati … The Razorbacks defeated Catalan Elite 99-86 in the second game of their European basketball tour.

Auburn: Currently, Texas A&M transfer Zach Calzada and TJ Finley are splitting the reps at quarterback.

Georgia: With all the talk about Georgia possibly running a lot of three and four tight end sets, offensive coordinator Todd Monken says, “If you run it too often, you get wide receivers in the portal.”

Kentucky: The back and forth between UK basketball coach John Calipari and football coach Mark Stoops is getting interesting. Speaking to Kyle Tucker of The Athletic, Cal said, “This is a basketball school. Alabama is a football school. So is Georgia. No disrespect to our football team. I hope they win 10 games and go to bowls, but this is a basketball school.” To that Stoops responded, “Basketball school? I thought we competed in the SEC.” There was a hashtag “4 straight postseason wins.” Mark Stoops is a nice guy who has done well at Kentucky, but he (a) hasn’t won the SEC, (b) hasn’t made a New Year’s Six bowl and (c) those four postseason wins are in the Citrus Bowl (twice), Belk Bowl and Gator Bowl. Cal has won a national championship, finished second once, made it to the Final Four four times and won six SEC titles. UK was, is and will always be a basketball school.

LSU: Defensive back Jordan Toles, a former 4-star recruit in 2019, entered the transfer portal. Toles was in on four tackles last year … QB Garrett Nussmeier missed Thursday’s scrimmage with an ankle injury, but he’s not expected to miss much practice time … Ohio State DB transfer Sevyn Banks has been cleared for 7-on-7 drills as he continues to rehab his injury.

Missouri: There are former starters running with the second team in Mizzou’s training camp. “Just ‘cause you’ve been here before doesn’t’ mean you just get to roll in there,” HBC Eli Drinkwitz said. “You gotta produce and you gotta perform and in the past maybe we didn’t have enough depth to get that done. We do now.”

Ole Miss: Jalen Knox, who sat out last season after transferring from Missouri, has been one of the more productive wide receivers in Ole Miss camp. In three seasons at Mizzou, Knox caught 77 passes for 1,031 yards and four touchdowns.

South Carolina: One of the stars in preseason camp has been Arkansas State transfer wide receiver Corey Rucker, who caught 59 passes for 826 yards and nine touchdowns last season.

Tennessee: Sophomore wide receiver Walker Merrill is wearing a dark visor during preseason camp because he suffers from migraine headaches. The NCAA prohibits visors during games, however.

Texas A&M: All three quarterbacks – LSU transfer Max Johnson, redshirt freshman Haynes King and freshman Connor Weigman – are getting equal repetitions in preseason camp. Jimbo Fisher won’t name a starter for at least another week or two.

Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt’s basketball team is leaving for a 10-day European trip that will see the Commodores play four exhibition games.

Our SEC orphans in the Big 12

Oklahoma: In something called the Riley Files podcast, Kegan Reneau says that concerns about facilities and resources had a lot to do with why Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for Southern Cal. Oh really?

Texas: Maalik Murphy has opened some eyes in Texas camp even though he’s listed as the No. 3 quarterback behind Quinn Ewers and Hudson Card.

ESPN too early preseason basketball rankings

1. North Carolina; 2. Gonzaga; 3. Houston; 4. Kentucky; 5. Duke; 6. Kansas; 7. Creighton; 8. Baylor; 9. Arkansas; 10. UCLA; 11. Texas; 12. Tennessee; 13. Auburn; 14. Villanova; 15. Indiana; 16. Arizona; 17. TCU; 18. Virginia; 19. Oregon; 20. Alabama; 21. UConn; 22. Dayton; 23. San Diego State; 24. Texas Tech; 25. Illinois

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: With three weeks to go before the college football season kicks off, here are my all-too-early overrated and underrated lists.

Overrated

Southern Cal: They’re going to look a lot better than they really are because they will be playing a weak schedule. The only tough teams they play are (at) Utah, UCLA and Notre Dame. They will lose at least two of those three.

Notre Dame: Fifth in the country in the coaches’ poll? Oh please. Ohio State will do a tapdance on the Irish in game one which will tell us something, then they go on cruise control until BYU sticks it to them in Vegas on October 8. Clemson will also kick them all over the ball yard.

Texas: Blondie, also known as Quinn Ewers, may end up being the greatest thing since the invention of the plastic straw, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Alabama will take no prisoners in game two. Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Baylor will also put a whompin on the Horns.

Everyone in the Big Ten except Ohio State: I keep wondering why some network would seriously overspend for this league. Even with UCLA and Southern Cal added to the mix it’s going to be boring and bad.

Kentucky: The Mildcats will have to play at Florida, at Ole Miss and at Tennessee, plus they play Mississippi State and Georgia.

Underrated

Oklahoma: Lincoln Riley and Caleb Williams left. Big deal. Brent Venables will bring real defense to Norman and the offense won’t miss a beat with Jeff Lebby calling the plays for Dillon Gabriel. The Sooners get Baylor and Oklahoma State at home. Nobody may have an easier path to the College Football Playoff than Oklahoma.

BYU: You do NOT want to play these guys this year. The only tough road game is at Oregon. The Cougars get Baylor and Arkansas at home and they get Notre Dame in Las Vegas, which will be like a home game when you consider the number of Mormons who will pack Allegiant Stadium.

North Carolina State: Remember the name Devin Leary. He’s the best QB in the ACC. There are 10 returning starters on defense. If they can find a way to beat Clemson on the road first weekend in October, they could run the table.

UCLA: Chip Kelly finally has it going. Even though the Bruins return only two starters on defense, they did well in the transfer portal. Over on offense Dorian Thompson-Robinson is a stud QB and running back Zach Charbonnet is the best runner in the Pac-12. The only tough road game is at Oregon. The Bruins get Utah and Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl.

Ole Miss: Lane Kiffin has 20 transfers including a stud QB, two stud running backs and some people who can play a lick of defense. The Rebels also have a schedule that’s conducive to a 7-0 start before they have to play at LSU and at Aggieland back-to-back. Remember the name Jonathan Mingo. He will be the best wide receiver in the SEC this year.