Thoughts of the Day: August 19, 2022

A few thoughts to jump start your Friday morning:

“Oh, it’s a long, long while from May to December; But the days grow short, when you reach September” – From “September Song” by Willie Nelson

The days indeed are growing short for a Florida football team that opens its season with Utah in The Swamp on September 3. Billy Napier will conduct the Gators’ final scrimmage of the preseason Saturday afternoon and after that there will be only five real practices remaining because game week preparation begins starting Sunday evening, August 28.

Depending on the injury situation at quarterback, Napier may be looking for a backup quarterback to Anthony Richardson at Saturday’s scrimmage. Jack Miller III has been unable to practice the last few days after hitting his hand on a helmet as he let a pass fly. Third teamer Jalen Kitna hasn’t practiced in a couple of weeks while recuperating from an undisclosed injury. That leaves walk-on Kyle Engel and true freshman Max Brown as the potential backups for Richardson.

Along the offensive line, assistants Rob Sale and Darnell Stapleton will be looking for the ninth and tenth game-ready linemen. At his Monday press conference, Napier said he had eight but needed to find two more. Seven we know – Richard Gouraige, Ethan White, Kingsley Eguakun, O’Cyrus Torrence, Michael Tarquin, Josh Braun and Richie Leonard IV. Most folks agree Austin Barber is No. 8. The other two probably come from this threesome – Kamryn Waites, Jordan Herman and Jake Slaughter.

What to do about nose tackle is another issue. Jalen Lee played in eight games last year and got a start against UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl, but he’s a bit on the light side (300 pounds) for what is considered ideal for the position and he doesn’t have a lot of experience. Desmond Watson is 415 pounds. While he can move amazingly well for someone his size, he’s still not ready to be in the game for several plays at a time. Beyond those two, the options are limited.

Who’s going to be the placekicker? There is a serious battle going on between true freshman Trey Smack and Adam Mihalek, the walk-on who hit field goals of 52 and 47 yards in the Orange and Blue Game back in the spring.

After Saturday’s scrimmage, coaches will be cleaning up the mistakes and fine-tuning the depth chart in the five practices next week. So, consider Saturday the single most important date of the preseason.

O’Cyrus Torrence makes The Athletic’s first team preseason All-America team

In naming Torrence to its first team preseason All-America squad, The Athletic staff wrote: “Torrence followed Billy Napier to Florida from Louisiana, where he was a stalwart who started 35 games in three seasons in which the Ragin’ Cajuns went 34-5. At 6-5, 347 pounds Torrence is a powerful mauler in the run game, and, according to TruMedia, he allowed zero sacks and just four pressures in 377 pass-block snaps last season.”

Gator sports stuff

The Florida soccer team dropped its season opener to UCF, 3-0, Thursday evening in Orlando. Next up for the Gators is a Sunday match with Stetson in DeLand.

Florida men’s swimming, winners of the last nine Southeastern Conference championships, landed Canadian Olympian Joshua Liendo, who has four seasons of collegiate eligibility. Liendo holds Canadian national records in the 50m free, 50m butterfly and 100m butterfly. Liendo won the gold medal in the 50m butterfly at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England this summer and bronzes in the 100m free and 100m butterfly at the FINA World Championships.

Little birdies chirping

The chirping continues in South Florida. Linebacker Bobby Washington and his brother, wide receiver Robby, are denying they will be taking official visits to Louisville in the fall. There is all sorts of chatter that 4-star linebacker Malik Bryant and 5-star offensive lineman Francis Mauioga have cold feet about their commitments to The Ewe and are shopping for a potential landing spot. Is Miami’s class starting to unravel a bit?

SEC football/baseball

Alabama: LSU transfer corner Eli Ricks hasn’t been practicing the last few days because of what Nick Saban calls “a little back problem” … Former 5-star recruit Eyabi Amoma, who has previously transferred twice, has moved again, this time as a grad transfer to Michigan. Anoma left Alabama for Houston, then last year surfaced at UT-Martin where he recorded six sacks.

Arkansas: Safety Myles Slusher has been moved to nickel. Defensive coordinator Barry Odom said, “Our best opportunity for us to be good on defense is for him to play nickel.”

Auburn: Jeremiah Wright (6-5, 335), who was a nose guard in the spring, has made the move to the other side of the ball. Wright was working at left guard Thursday.

Georgia: Broderick Jones (6-4, 315), who got four starts in 15 games last year, is the man to beat at left tackle.

Kentucky: Former Gator and now SEC Network analyst Chris Doering is predicting the Wildcats to go 11-1 this season and making it to the SEC Championship Game. Doering has the Wildcats losing only to Tennessee during the regular season.

LSU: Malik Nabers, who caught 28 passes for 417 yards and four TDs last year as a freshman, has been moved inside to the slot. The two outside receivers will likely be Kayshon Boutte (38-508, 9 TDs) and Jaray Jenkins (34-502, 6 TDs)

Mississippi State: Defensive back Collin Duncan says, “This is the most complete team I’ve been around at Mississippi State.”

Missouri: New defensive coordinator Blake Baker has installed a 4-2-5 scheme. One of his two starting linebackers is Florida transfer Ty’ron Hopper.

Ole Miss: A year ago the starters on the Ole Miss defense were on the field an average of 53 plays per game. Better depth should make the defense much better in 2023 says corner Miles Battle. “Our depth is a strong suit for us this year,” Battle said. We did bring some people in from the transfer portal and being able to build that depth in all the rooms is essential.”

South Carolina: Assistant baseball coach Chad Caillet, who was the team’s recruiting coordinator, is retiring for family reasons. He will be replaced by Monte Lee, a former Gamecock assistant who has been the head coach at College of Charleston and Clemson.

Tennessee: How well does QB Hendon Hooker know the playbook? “He’s even correcting some of the coaches on some play calls,” says running back Jabari Small.

Texas A&M: Jimbo Fisher has yet to name a starting QB and he may not after Saturday’s scrimmage. “I’m not putting a timetable on it,” Fisher said Thursday. “I’ll know when I know.” It’s a three-way battle for the job between LSU transfer Max Johnson, Haynes King and freshman Connor Wiegman.

Vanderbilt: The three candidates to replace injured edge rusher Miles Capers are Michael Owusu, Darren Agu or BJ Diakite.

Our SEC orphans in the Big 12

Oklahoma: The Sooners are breaking in a new quarterback (Dillon Gabriel) and a new offensive coordinator (Jeff Lebby), but the offense looks very explosive. HBC Brent Venables says, “I love our wide outs, tight ends and backs.”

Texas: The Anointed One may not win the starting QB job. Apparently Hudson Card, who passed for 590 yards and five TDs in backup duty, is outplaying Quinn Ewers in camp.

Football is also played elsewhere beside the SEC

Arizona State: Former Florida quarterback Emory Jones has won the starting job at Arizona State, beating out Alabama transfer Paul Tyson for the job. Jones threw for 2,734 yards and 19 touchdowns (13 completions to the bad guys) and ran for 759 yards and four TDs for the Gators last year.

Florida State: FSU’s official offer letter to 4-star edge rusher Lamont Green Jr. is making the rounds on Twitter. The genius in charge misspelled the word official at the top of the letter. On the letter it’s spelled “Offcial.”

North Carolina: For the life of me I’m wondering how this happened – Carolina will play back-to-back road games AT Appalachian State and AT Georgia State. I believe it’s not a bad thing to be nice to brethren in the Group of Five, but back-to-back and playing in stadiums that seat fewer than 30,000? Someone in Chapel Hill must have been doing some heavy drinking or smoking something when the contracts were signed for these games.

Utah: Safety Zemiah Vaughn says Utah’s corners (Clark Phillips III, JaTravis Broughton, Faybian Banks and Malone Mataele) are the best in the Pac-12. “We work harder, we do more,” Vaughn said. A year ago Utah gave up 22 touchdown passes and 222.3 passing yards per game, which ranked sixth out of 12 teams in the league.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: There was a meeting on Zoom earlier in the week in which the 11 college presidents and chancellors who make up the College Football Playoff Board of Managers discussed college football being moved outside the jurisdiction of the NCAA and presumably under the umbrella of the College Football Playoff. Pete Thamel of ESPN writes that this is “the first known discussion among a group that would seemingly have the power to put such a plan in action.”

There needs to be some sort of plan in action to divorce Division I football from the clutches of the NCAA. Whether it is the people who run the College Football Playoff or someone else who ultimately makes the decision, the future of college football not only requires a divorce but a complete new organization built from the ground up.

The NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, does a dandy job running the basketball tournament and championships in all the non-revenue sports. It is clueless when it comes to college football, at least at the Division I level, largely because it never has come to grips with the fact that the more it tries to legislate equality the more problems it creates. The NCAA’s one size fits all approach might work perfectly well for other sports, but Division I college football is a totally different animal with a unique set of issues that can’t be legislated by academics. College football at the Division I level is a multi-billion dollar sport that pays the freight for all the non-revenue sports under the NCAA umbrella, therefore requiring an autonomous organization run by business people and not academics.

The practical solution is an organization with a rather uncomplicated set of rules and a commissioner with Pete Rozelle-like authority to enforce them. There can’t be sacred cows (see how North Carolina escaped penalties with the most serious academic fraud case in NCAA history) and there can’t be schools waiting five-plus years for their day in NCAA court for absolutely blatant recruiting transgressions (see LSU, Kansas, Arizona and a slew of others).

There has to be an all-powerful El Guapo to make it all work. We can’t try getting things done by consensus (see “The Alliance” shooting down CFP expansion last year) ever again. Choose a maximum, supreme leader who commands respect and give him the authority to rule with an iron hand. Yes, that sounds like a dictator, but that’s what it’s going to take. Do you trust any committee whose members include Kevin Warren, Little Jimmy Phillips or George Kliavkoff? I don’t. You shouldn’t either.

This is just the first step. Hopefully, it won’t be long before serious discussions are taking place and a time frame is set to extricate Division I college football from the NCAA. I believe it is imperative that conference realignment and expansion be halted until a new organization can be formed, rules and enforcement procedures established and a commissioner with real leadership skills chosen. There are far too many problems facing college football to trust the future to the NCAA.