Thoughts of the Day: May 27, 2022

A few thoughts to jump start your Friday morning:

BILLY NAPIER ON TODAY’S STATE OF THE UF FOOTBALL PROGRAM

Prior to a speaking engagement with the local Gator Club in the Touchdown Terrace at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium Thursday, Billy Napier spent 20 minutes answering questions from the media. Here are a couple of interesting answers:

On the summer program that has just begun

“I think summer is phase five, we just finished up with the discretionary, reload period where they have some time off. They were off for 35 days. We had exit meetings. We have lots of work to do relative to developing a plan. Regimen is essentially a 9-week training block. It’s a four week, 28 day workload, one week off, four weeks, 28 days. We have some time between that and training camp. We have a weekly routine Monday to Friday. What that entails is we get eight hours a week with the players. Strength and conditioning, skill development, simulated training. Film review. It’s by the minute. There’s also lots of opportunities here for ownership at the player level and for leadership at the player level as we go into this. It’s essentially our nine-week — I’m not going to give you all of our stuff — but it’s essentially, to me, it’s where the team starts to develop. You’ve got a set of rookies who just showed up. Then you have a set of veterans that are in a position to lead. Summer creates leadership opportunities. There’s less time. The staff only has you eight hours, what are you doing with all that other time? We started yesterday and we’re off and running.”

On adding some more players

“I think most of the players you could acquire at this point in time would be graduate transfers, right? They would be players that were already in the portal, you know? And, you know, I would say this, I think that there's junior college players that become available and that's another way that you can acquire a player at this point in time. So, we're gonna operate [on a] case by case basis. You know, if we find a player that we think can make our team better, we'll pursue that player."

TODD GOLDEN ON THE UF ROSTER REBUILD

“I think we’re in good shape. I would more say we’ve added on to more of what we were able to keep. As a lot of you are aware, when we got here – specifically me and my staff – it was really important to me to make a run at Colin (Castleton) to see if we could get him to use his fifth year. We had a lot of success last year at San Francisco with Jomaria Bouvea, a different position but the same idea of keeping a really talented, mature player that had experienced a lot of success in the program to build around and obviously it helped for us. I thought that Colin could be that piece for us if he was willing to buy into what we are doing and had a great attitude about coming back, which he did. And that really got us off to a really good start.

“We’ve talked a lot about the five other guys besides Colin that we on the team last year that we were able retain – Kowacie (Reeves), Niels (Lane), Myreon (Jones), Jason (Jitoboh) and CJ (Felder). I think all those guys have potential to be impactful players for us this year and then on top of that, adding the guys we did, we feel really good about our roster and the depth we have now. We’re still a little thin inside. I would say we have really good players in the front court but we’re susceptible to an injury or two of being really a big issue for us going into next year with the roster being the way it is. So, we’ll try to add one more big to give us some depth in the front court.”

On adding Riley Kugel (6-5, 185, Orlando, FL Dr. Phillips) to the class:

“We obviously wanted to add Riley to the program because he’s a really good kid and a really good talent, but it’s important to us that they want to be here. That was something Riley exhibited from the first moment I reached out to him, that he was passionate about coming to Florida if it worked out for him. Making sure he did what he had to do in the classroom and then checked some boxes and made sure we did our due diligence to make sure he was the right piece to add, I think we did enough and both sides are really glad it worked out.”

AGGIES RUN-RULE GATORS AT SEC TOURNAMENT; DO OR DIE VS. ARKANSAS TODAY

The Gators (36-21) must have left their bats at the hotel Thursday afternoon. After enduring a rain delay for the third straight day, the Gators managed only one hit off the Texas A&M (36-17) duo of Micah Dallas (5-3) and Joseph Menefee, who combined to strike out 11 as the Aggies won a 7-inning, 10-0, run-rule win in the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Hoover, Alabama.

With the loss, the Gators face do-or-die this morning against Arkansas (38-17) at 10:30 a.m. (SEC Network). Win and the Gators keep on playing, lose and they go home and wait to find out where they’ll be going for the NCAA Tournament.

Florida got its only hit in the top of the second inning when Jac Caglianone singled on an 0-2 pitch. The Gators managed only two more baserunners, Sterlin Thompson in the third when he was hit by a pitch and Ty Evans in the fourth, who managed the only walk of the day off Dallas.

The Aggies touched UF starter Brandon Neely (3-2) for a 2-run homer in the third by Trevor Werner and added one in the fifth. All hell broke loose in the sixth when Ryan Targac hit a solo homer of Fisher Jameson, Jordan Thompson hit a 2-run homer off Phil Abner and Austin Bost hit a 3-run homer off Tyler Nesbitt as part of a 7-run inning increased the lead to 10-0.

Florida will throw Nick Pogue (3-3, 4.91 ERA) against Arkansas today while the Razorbacks will counter with their ace, Connor Noland.

UF SOFTBALL: GATORS TAKE ON VATECH AT 2 P.M.

Will the ninth time be a charm for the Gators (46-16)? When the Gators take on No. 2 seed Virginia Tech (45-8) today (2 p.m., ESPN2) in the Blacksburg, it will be the ninth straight time they have played in an NCAA super regional. It’s best two of three to win the super regional to advance to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. The Gators haven’t advanced to Okie City since 2019.

The Gators are 3-0 in NCAA Tournament play after outscoring Canisius, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin 28-2 last weekend to advance to Blacksburg. The Gators are hitting .461 and have a team ERA of 0.82 in tournament play so far.

Virginia Tech had its share of problems with Kentucky last weekend. The Wildcats scored a 5-4 win over the Hokies on Saturday, but dropped two games on Sunday, 9-2 and 5-4. Kentucky connected for four homers against the Hokies in the three games but the pitching gave way in the two Sunday games.

Florida is 21-10 all time in super regional play and 94-47 in the NCAA Tournament. The Gators are 6-0 all time against Virginia Tech including a 2-0 win over the Hokies in the 2008 Women’s College World Series.

Elsewhere in the SEC: SEC champ and No. 4 seed Arkansas (48-9) opened super regional play with a 7-1 win over Texas. Chenise Delce (19-2) pitched a 6-hitter with six strikeouts to pace the Razorbacks.

Mississippi State (37-25) plays host to Arizona in the other NCAA super regional involving SEC teams.

UF MEN’S TENNIS: SHELTON, RIFFICE MAKE FINAL FOUR

Ben Shelton and Sam Riffice both made it to the final four of the NCAA Tournament Thursday. Shelton, ranked No. 2 nationally but seeded No. 1 for the tournament, took out 15th-ranked Arthur Fery of Stanford, 6-3, 6-4, for his fourth consecutive straight set win. Riffice, the 28th-ranked player in the country, beat 39th-ranked Inaki Montes de le Torre of Virginia, 6-3, 7-6.

Shelton and Riffice lost their quarter-finals doubles match to Cleeve Harper and Richard Ciamarra of Texas, 5-7, 2-6.

SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL

Georgia: Sanford Stadium will undergo $68.5 million in renovations which will include new luxury suites and a renovated press box … Offensive coordinator Todd Monken has received a $600,000 raise to $2 million per year. Co-defensive coordinators Will Muschamp and Glenn Schumann will each be paid $800,000.

Kentucky: Former Alabama wide receiver Javon Baker will not be transferring to Kentucky after all. At Alabama, Baker caught nine passes for 116 yards and a touchdown in two years.

Missouri: Mabor Majak (7-2, 230) is transferring from Cleveland State to Mizzou. He’s the fourth former Cleveland State player to follow head coach Dennis Gates to Missouri.

Tennessee: The Vols landed a basketball commitment from 2023 4-star forward Cade Phillips (6-8, 200, Gadsden, AL Jacksonville HS), the son of former Alabama QB John David Phillips and nephew of former Alabama QB Brodie Croyle.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: There was Billy Napier, looking sharp in his blue jacket and blue-striped shirt with an open collar. He wore socks and didn’t talk about his hound, unlike a former Florida football coach who always wanted us to believe he was just a grown up version of the cool kid who drove a convertible back in high school. He also didn’t give us the kind of answers like another former coach who left us scratching our heads while wondering if it’s necessary to prove to everyone within earshot that he’s the smartest guy in the room.

What we got was Billy Napier, head coach and CEO of the University of Florida football program. He looked like a CEO, sounded a lot like a CEO and gave us the kind of measured, thoughtful responses to questions that make you wonder if this isn’t the single most organized human being, if not on the planet, at least in Alachua County, Florida.

Steve Spurrier or Lane Kiffin he isn’t. There is no shoot from the hip and beware of ricochet with Billy Napier. He’s not going to win any one-liner contest, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a personality. He’s got one, it just comes across like someone who not only anticipates the question but has an answer that will say plenty without really saying a lot.

Napier praises good people like Trey Dean, who used some of his NIL money to buy a jeep for his mama on Mother’s Day. He likes to talk about the need to develop leaders and how good it is that 28 freshmen (17 scholarship, 11 walk-ons) are already enrolled. Given a chance to express his support of the current 8-game SEC schedule or a move to nine once Texas and Oklahoma join the league, he defers to the older, veteran coaches in the SEC and says he is too consumed at this point with the Florida Gators to offer his two cents. Asked what he thinks about Nick vs. Jimbo, he says he isn’t about to get in the middle of that spat.

It's the summer, a time when no news is good news. If the players are doing their work both in the classroom and training to get ready for August camp, and staying off the police blotter, then Billy Napier will get exactly what he wants. Maybe there will be time in the future for the world to see a fun side of his personality, but right now he is too busy as the CEO getting the Florida football program well enough organized that it can go toe-to-toe with Southeastern Conference opponents in the fall.

For now, that will have to do.