Thoughts of the Day: January 25, 2021

A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning:

THE SIGNS SAY THE GATORS ARE MOVING ON UP The Associated Press and Coaches rankings will come out today and you can put the Florida Gators on the highly doubtful list. As in, highly doubtful they’ll get close enough to sniff either one of the two polls, but other than Gonzaga, Baylor and Villanova, the polls aren’t exactly a leading indicator of team strength when the Covid-19 virus is taken into account.

Following an impressive offensive showing Saturday in which the final 92-84 score is nowhere close to how badly the Gators beat Georgia, Florida is 8-4 with a 5-3 SEC mark that is good for a third-place tie with LSU. In taking down Georgia, the Gators shot 56.9% from the field as five players scored in double figures. The Gators got 54 points out of the starting backcourt of Tre Mann (24), Noah Locke (16) and Tyree Appleby (14) and 36 points, 23 rebounds and four blocked shots from the front court rotation of Colin Castleton (14 points, three rebounds, one block), Omar Payne (10 points, nine rebounds, two blocks), Anthony Duruji (six points, six rebounds, one block) and Osayi Osifo (six points, five rebounds). The front court guys hit 18-23 from the field.

This was Florida’s third win in the last four games and it moved them up in both the NCAA Net Rankings and the Ken Pom, good indicators of where the NCAA Tournament would see the Gators if Selection Sunday were today. The Gators moved up two spots in the NCAA Net Rankings to No. 26. The SEC teams ahead of the Gators are Alabama No. 9, Tennessee No. 12 and Missouri No. 24. In the KenPom ratings, the Gators are No. 23. Ahead of the Gators from the SEC are No. 10 Alabama and No. 19 Tennessee.

There are 11 games remaining on the regular season schedule – 10 in the SEC and one non-conference game next Saturday at West Virginia in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. Based on schedules that are altered regularly because of the virus, the Gators should be in good shape with 15 regular season wins.

Bracketology: In Joe Lunardi’s brackets on ESPN, the Gators are a No. 9 seed in Region Four with a first round date with No. 8 Louisville. Win and the Gators would face the winner of No. 1 Villanova and No. 16 Montana State. Also making the tournament from the SEC in Lunardi’s brackets are a pair of No. 3s (Alabama in Region Two; Tennessee in Region Three), Missouri as a No. 5 in Region Two, LSU a No. 8 in Region Two and Arkansas No. 11 in Region One.

At CBS, Jerry Palm has the Gators a No. 8 facing No. 9 Oklahoma in the Bankers Life One Region. Win and the Gators would face the winner between No. 1 Villanova and No. 16 UC-Irvine. Also from the SEC, Palm has Tennessee No. 3 in the Hinkle One Region with Missouri No. 3 in Bankers Life Two, Alabama No. 4 in Bankers Life One, LSU No. 8 in Hinkle One and Arkansas playing Utah State in a No. 11 play-in game with the winner advancing to the Bankers Life One Region.

SEC Tuesday Night Game Mississippi State (9-7, 4-4 SEC) at #6 Tennessee (10-3, 4-3 SEC)

Kentucky (5-9, 4-3 SEC) at #18 Alabama (13-3, 8-0 SEC)

#19 Missouri (10-2, 4-2 SEC) at Auburn (9-7, 3-5 SEC) LSU (10-4, 5-3 SEC) at Texas A&M (7-6, 2-5 SEC) SEC Wednesday Night Games Vanderbilt (4-9, 0-5 SEC) at FLORIDA (8-4, 5-3 SEC) Georgia (9-5, 2-5 SEC) at South Carolina (3-5, 1-3 SEC) Ole Miss (8-6, 3-4 SEC) at Arkansas (12-4, 4-4 SEC)

GREG MATTISON HANGS UP HIS WHISTLE I have two favorite memories of Greg Mattison, who is retiring from coaching after a career in which he’s served on the staffs of Notre Dame, Florida, Michigan and Ohio State in the college game and the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL. When he was the co-defensive coordinator and D-line coach for the Gators in years 1-3 of the Urban Meyer era at UF, Mattison was loved by players and media alike. Players loved him because he made personal relationships a requirement if you wanted to play for him. Media loved him because he was always approachable, usually rather charming and often quite witty. Of all the assistant coaches at UF that I’ve known over the years, Greg Mattison is definitely on my short list of favorites.

Story No. 1: Mattison was the lead recruiter for Tim Tebow. A few days before Tebow committed to the Gators, Mattison, Meyer and at least one other UF assistant were recruiting in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It was bitter cold when the plane stopped to pick up Meyer. Mattison was already on the plane. The third coach was driving to the airport so Mattison and Meyer were sitting on the plane together waiting. It was quiet because Meyer was very cold.

“Ten years,” Mattison said.

Meyer asked what?

Mattison replied, “If we don’t get him it will set us back ten years.”

“Him?” Meyer asked.

“Tebow,” Mattison said. “Ten years!”

And when Meyer tried to ignore Mattison, he repeated, “Ten years!”

A few days later, with ESPN live at Nease High School outside St. Augustine, Tebow announced for the Gators. Tebow’s cell phone battery had died and since there was no call prior to the announcement, Meyer thought the Gators had lost Tebow to Alabama. Rather than watch on TV, Meyer paced outside his Haile Plantation home. It wasn’t until Shelley and the kids erupted from inside the house that he knew the Gators had landed what proved to be a generational talent at QB.

Story No. 2: In Scottsdale, Arizona in the days leading up to the Gators national championship game with Ohio State, Mattison wasn’t his usual friendly self. He wasn’t unpleasant, but there was an edge to him and he really didn’t want to stop to talk. That was highly unusual for Mattison, one of the most accessible of the UF assistants back when there were no post-practice restrictions.

After Florida’s last full practice before the game, Mattison whispered in my ear on the way to the team bus, “You watch Monday night. You just watch.”

I actually wasn’t surprised. I had watched a replay of every single Ohio State game and had been writing the previous ten days that the Buckeyes offensive line was no match for the Gators front four. I thought Ohio State’s tackles couldn’t handle Jarvis Moss or Derrick Harvey coming off the edge and I felt certain that Steve Harris was going to destroy Ohio State’s All-American center.

By the time the second quarter had arrived, Ohio State was holding its running back and fullback to help the tackles. Late in the second quarter when Ohio State gambled inside its own 30 on fourth-and-one, Harris knocked the center back so far that Troy Smith almost tripped handing the ball off to Beanie Wells. Wells never got to the line of scrimmage before Ray McDonald was joined by Brandon Siler and Brandon Spikes in the stop that was the 9-inch stiletto to the Buckeyes heart.

In the second half, Ohio State was reduced to running two-man routes because they had to hold the tight end in along with the fullback and running back to protect Smith and they still couldn’t do it. Florida might have run four blitzes the entire game, mostly for show to confuse Smith. Florida ran a five-man D-line rotation of Moss, Harvey, Harris, McDonald and Joe Cohen. Smith, the Heisman Trophy winner, was 4-14 passing for 35 yards and the Buckeyes managed 47 on the ground.

In the pre-game buildup, many national pundits – particularly those from ESPN and from Big Ten country – predicted the game would go ugly early and that Ohio State would embarrass the Gators, which wasn’t lost on Mattison.

When he hugged me with the confetti pouring down from the roof after Florida dominated Ohio State 41-14, Mattison roared, “Did these guys even see my guys play? My guys were so much better than they were! My guys killed them.”

OVER, UNDER, AROUND AND THROUGH THE SEC ALABAMA: Nick Saban hired former Gator Robert Gillespie from the North Carolina staff to coach running backs. Gillespie replaces Charles Huff, the new head coach at Marshall.

AUBURN: Newly hired D-line coach Tracy Rocker may not be with Auburn very long. He’s expected to leave for the Philadelphia Eagles.

LSU: Minnesota Vikings defensive backs coach Daronte Jones will interview for the defensive coordinator job.

MISSISSIPPI STATE: Former 5-star corner Jalen Green is leaving Texas for Mississippi State where he will be reunited with Jason Washington, who was his recruiter to Texas back in 2018. Green has two years of eligibility remaining.

MISSOURI: Jethro Franklin, most recently with the Seattle Seahawks, is the new D-line coach.

TENNESSEE: The search firm helping the Vols with their head coaching search has already vetted Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott, Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck and SMU head coach Sonny Dykes.

VANDERBILT: The new offensive coordinator is David Raih, the recently fired wide receivers coach of the Arizona Cardinals. Former Colorado State offensive coordinator Joey Lynch has been hired to coach the quarterbacks.

BRADY SOLIDIFIES CLAIM TO GREATEST OF ALL TIME

For the first time in a greatest of all-time career, Tom Brady is going to a Super Bowl without Bill Belichick. Brady and Belichick went to nine Super Bowls and won six. Now Brady is going with the Tampa Bay Bucs, who are in the Super Bowl for the first time since they won it in 2002.

In getting the Bucs to the Super Bowl, Brady didn’t exactly have a vintage Tom Brady performance to beat the Green Bay Packers – he did, after all, complete three passes to the Packers – but he was good enough, especially early on when he took the Bucs to a 28-10 lead that stood up. Late in the game when the Packers needed a stop to get the ball back to try to win the game, Brady gave it his best been there, done that. One reason he’s the greatest of all time is he knows what it takes to win games and it’s rare when the moment has been too big for him.

Tampa Bay’s 31-26 win over Green Bay sets up a Super Bowl quarterback matchup between the greatest of all time and Patrick Mahomes, who might surpass Brady as the best ever by the time his career is over. In leading the Kansas City Chiefs past the Buffalo Bills 38-24, Mahomes threw for 325 yards and three touchdowns. If he wins the Super Bowl, Mahomes will have two rings and he’s only 25 years old.

I know this is piling on a bit, but when the Bucs walked off the field with a 31-26 win, I thought about Jameis Winston, the QB the Bucs drafted with the number one overall pick in 2015. Winston spent five years with the Bucs, throwing 88 interceptions and fumbling 50 times before he was given walking papers. I mention this because Tom Brady came into the NFL as the 199th overall pick in the 2000 NFL Draft.

One final thought when it comes to Jameis Winston. The seven quarterbacks taken in the 2015 NFL Draft were: Winston, Marcus Mariota (Oregon, No. 2 first round); Garrett Grayson (Colorado State, third round); Sean Mannion (Oregon State, third round); Bryce Petty (Baylor, fourth round); Brett Hundley (UCLA, fifth round); and Trevor Siemian (Northwestern, seventh round).

ONE LAST PITHY THOUGHT: New Tennessee athletic director Danny White says the Tennessee “brand needs to be polished a little bit.” Polished a little bit? When you’re on you’re the fifth athletic director at a school since 2010, the coach you’re going to hire will be the fifth new hire since 2009, the previous athletic director is a snake in the grass, you had a student revolt against what would have been an outstanding football coach hire in 2017 and your school is about to wear the pink jump suits and rubber sole shoes of a lengthy stay in the NCAA jail house, you don’t need an image polished up, you need two things: (1) a fumigator because your brand stinks and (2) an exorcist to deal with the distorted illusions of greatness within the fan base.