As if there ever should have been a doubt in anyone’s mind, Florida’s gymnastics team let the whole world know Sunday evening that they’re back. Not that they really ever went anywhere, but when they didn’t score big at the SEC meet in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, there were doubters. Lots of them. Silly people. The Gators won the Southeastern Conference championship during the regular season and that’s the only SEC title that counts. Finishing fourth in New Orleans didn’t change a thing except for perceptions, just as Sunday evening at the O-Dome should have changed every wrong perception or misconception imaginable about Jenny Rowland and her Gators. Case in point, Florida 198.325. Second place Utah, 197.575. The football equivalent is winning by four touchdowns but even if it’s gymnastics, it’s a no-doubter of a blowout. In winning the Gainesville Regional of the NCAA Gymnastics Championships, the Gators posted their highest score of the year and the second highest score in all four the NCAA regionals. Only Oklahoma, which has finished fractionally ahead of Florida to capture the previous two national championships, posted a higher regional score and wouldn’t you know it, it was fractionally better – 198.400-198.325. Florida had a better score than LSU did in winning the Fayetteville Regional and it took a pair of 10s by Haleigh Bryant to get that 198.250. Florida didn’t have a single 10 Sunday evening although Gators in the crowd of 5,966 at the O-Dome demanded a 10 on at least five different occasions. A Gator didn’t even have the highest score of the evening. That was Michigan State’s Sage Kellerman with a 9.975 vault. But really, who needs a perfect 10 when it’s not until the final rotation when the low score that counts is less than 9.90? The only way the Gators could have stuck more landings Sunday night would have been to coat their feet with Gorilla Glue. Florida was so locked in and focused that Utah, Missouri (197.325) and Michigan State (196.625) must have been wondering if anyone got the license plate of the truck that just ran them over and left them in a heap in the middle of the road. “It was a statement,” is how Florida’s ultra-successful head coach Jenny Rowland described the beatdown. “It was a statement that the Gators are, you know, still around. Many doubters this year because we have a younger team.” Yes, the Florida Gators are still around. With Trinity Thomas out of eligibility, Kayla DiCello taking the year off to prep for the Olympics and prize recruit Skye Blakely delaying enrollment at UF so she can also prep for the Olympics, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Until he retired back in January, everyone used to say that Alabama under Nick Saban never rebuilt but simply reloaded. That pretty much applies to Florida gymnastics. The Gators have won 21 NCAA regionals in their history. Under Rowland, they’ve won six consecutive Southeastern Conference regular season championships, the only ones that matter. Maybe this gymnastics season has been more of a grind than in past years. It isn’t easy replacing maybe the greatest collegiate gymnast of all time in Trinity Thomas. It isn’t easy adjusting to the injury loss of Riley McCusker or having All-American senior Payton Richards out with an injury since March 3. It also isn’t easy figuring out a rotation that works while factoring in freshmen like Anya Pilgrim, Skylar Draser and Danie Ferris. It takes time to make everything work. A lot of adversity and uncertainty to overcome for sure, but sometimes the grind brings out the best and the best was on full display Sunday at the O-Dome. When things cranked up the Gators were on the balance beam to start. There was a time in Florida gymnastics history that potential championships went to die on the beam, but that is no longer the case. The Gators rank third nationally on beam this season. As if to show the other three teams competing just how confident the Gators were, she handed the leadoff assignment to Skylar Draser. It takes confidence to lead off with a freshman, especially on the beam, all of 48 inches off the ground, 16.5 feet long and four inches wide. A case of nerves can spell disaster, but if Draser was suffering from even a mild case of the jitters it didn’t show. When it came time for her dismount, Draser set the Florida standard for the entire meet by sticking the landing. She immediately sprinted to Rowland and leapt into her coach’s arms. The judges gave her a 9.9. They obviously saw a flaw or two but few in the crowd saw it that way. Just the same, a 9.9 from a freshman leading off on the toughest of all rotations in an NCAA regional resonates. Rowland had been seeing it in her own team throughout the week of preparation. “Really, after routine No. 1 there was no doubt in my mind that this team was prepared and truly, it was something that I shared with them earlier this week, that I actually see them in training believing in themselves, believing in what the coaches knew this team was capable of doing,” Rowland said. After Draser, the scores that counted (six gymnasts, low score gets thrown out) were 9.925 from Sloane Blakely, 9.90 from Anya Pilgrim, 9.925 from Victoria Nguyen and 9.95 from Ellie Lazzari. Leanne Wong had a rather uncharacteristic wobble and an even more uncharacteristic 9.80. How often does a Leanne Wong score get tossed as the low score? Five scores of 9.90 or better on an opening beam rotation and Leanne Wong isn’t one of them? That is what you call an obvious sign that you’re about to have a good day. Florida’s 49.600 was a sure sign to Utah, Missouri and Michigan State that they would be playing chase all night long. “Kudos to our beam team for setting a great standard of what tonight was going to look like,” Rowland said. “It allowed everyone to settle in and just do gymnastics. It really felt like an intrasquad for us. Nothing more, nothing less.” From beam to floor, the Gators turned in a 49.650. Blakely (9.90), Pilgrim (9.95), Nguyen (9.925), Wong (9.95), Lazzari (9.90) and Ferris (9.925) were so good that one of the 9.90s had to be tossed. It was halfway and already the other three not named Florida were in a steel cage match to finish second. The Gators scored a 49.575 on vault, matching their Friday night score. Draser (9.925), Nguyen (9.90), Wong (9.925), Lazzari (9.925) and Ferris (9.90) had their scores count. Pikgrim’s 9.875 got tossed, a vault score that would have counted for Utah, Missouri and Michigan State. The Gators were so far ahead that by the final bars rotation, they had to count a pair of 9.875s and they still won the meet in a runaway. Wong and Pilgrim scored 9.925s and Draser had a 9.90 as the Gators closed out with a 49.500. Perhaps because the season was such a grind and there always seemed to be a question mark hanging over their heads that Florida’s dominant win Sunday was particularly sweet for Rowland. She knows winning the regional may have neutralized some of the doubts but more will pop up by the time the Gators reach Fort Worth in 10 days, paired in a bracket with No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 5 Utah and No. 8 Alabama. Oklahoma has won five national championships since 2016 including the last two. During the regular season, Florida’s only loss was to Alabama. Because the Gators are in such a strong bracket, Rowland likes to think that the Gators will be hunters and not the hunted for a change. She relishes the opportunity. “I like being the hunter,” Rowland said. “When somebody tells me I can’t do it or they’re skeptical I love to prove then wrong and I know this team has that grit and fight in them as well. In the end, we’re going to do what we can, work to the best of our ability and continue to try to get that one percent better. That’s something we keep working on, mentally, physically, in the gym, out of the gym and really just controlling our controllables. That’s the only thing we can do.” Gainesville Regional notes: This was Florida’s 21st NCAA regional championship … Lazzari and Pilgrim shared the all-around title with 39.650. Wong and Nguyen came in at 39.600 as the Gators had the top four all-around finishes … The Gators had the winning score on all four rotations … In qualifying for Fort Worth, Utah became the only team that has made it to the finals every year of the NCAA Gymnastics Championships. Qualifiers for NCAA Championships in Fort Worth Gainesville: FLORIDA 198.325; Utah 197.575. Ann Arbor: Oklahoma 198.400; Alabama 197.450 Fayetteville: LSU 198.250; Arkansas 197.825 Berkeley: California 197.800; Stanford 197.600

After a strong opening round score of 197.925 Friday night, the 4th-ranked Gators (24-4) will try to punch their ticket to the NCAA Championships this afternoon (5 p.m., ESPN+) in the Gainesville Regional final against No. 5 Utah, Missouri and Michigan State. Florida had a brilliant opening rotation of 49.575 on the vault, then after an uncharacteristic 49.3 on the bars, finished strong with a 49.575 on beam and a 49.475 on floor to close out a first place finish. Victoria Nguyen scored a 9.950 to tie Maryland’s Emma Silberman for the top score on vault. Freshman Anya Pilgrim won the bars title outright with a 9.975. Leanne Wong had Florida’s top all-around score of 39.650 with 9.9s on both the vault and bars and 9.925s on beam and floor. “This is typically a competition where nobody's gonna have a perfect meet,” Florida coach Jenny Rowland said. “It's all about who's going to be able to react, control your emotions and be able to keep moving on with the least amount of mistakes as possible. So extremely proud of the Gators and everybody stepping up." The Gators, who have six consecutive SEC championships under Rowland, have finished second to national champion Oklahoma the last two years. Today’s schedule: GAINESVILLE REGIONAL: 1. FLORIDA; 2. Utah; 3. Missouri; 4. Michigan State Berkeley regional: 1. California; 2. Stanford; 3. Denver; 4. Arizona State Punched their tickets Ann Arbor regional: Oklahoma 198.400; Alabama 197.575 Fayetteville regional: LSU 198.250; Arkansas 197.825 UF SOFTBALL: Walsh’s 3-run homer lifts Gators past LSU, 4-2 Reagan Walsh’s 3-run homer in the bottom of the sixth inning lifted 10th-ranked Florida (33-5, 8-2 SEC) to a 4-2 win over 5th-ranked LSU (30-5, 8-5 SEC). Responding to LSU taking a 1-0 lead in the top half of the inning, the Gators got consecutive singles from Kendra Falby and Skylar Wallace before Korbe Otis singled to left to score Falby, tying the game at 1-1. Two outs later, Walsh powered a 1-2 pitch over the left field fence for a 4-1 lead. LSU pushed across a run off Keagan Rothrock in the seventh, but the freshman pitched her way out of a jam with a called third strike to end the game. Rothrock (17-3, 1.41 ERA) went the distance, allowing four hits and walking four. Her only strikeout of the game was the one that ended it. Ava Brown is the likely pitcher today when the Gators face LSU in game two of the series at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium (1 p.m., ESPN2). Saturday’s SEC scores: No. 10 FLORIDA (33-5, 8-2 SEC) 4, No. 5 LSU (30-5, 8-5 SEC) 3; No. 3 Georgia (31-7, 7-4 SEC) 3, No. 4 Tennessee (27-6, 9-2 SEC) 2; No. 11 Missouri (30-9, 5-6 SEC) 12, No. 19 Arkansas (27-10. 6-5 SEC) 3; No. 14 Texas A&M (31-7, 10-4 SEC) 10, Kentucky (23-14, 2-9 SEC) 9; No. 15 Alabama (28-8, 5-6 SEC) 5, Ole Miss (21-17, 3-11 SEC) 1; No. 16 Mississippi State (28-9, 8-6 SEC) 4, No. 25 South Carolina (27-12, 3-8 SEC) 0; Auburn (20-11) 5, Louisiana Tech (24-11) 0; Georgia Tech 25-16) 10, Auburn (20-12) 9 UF BASEBALL: Missouri takes out Gators, 4-3 For the second straight game, Florida’s bats were largely silent as the 6th-ranked Gators (17-13, 6-5 SEC) lost their second straight game to Missouri, 4-3, Saturday afternoon. After falling behind 2-0 in the first, the Gators pushed across a run in the fifth and two in the sixth on a 2-run homer by Jac Caglianone, but the Tigers scored twice in the bottom half of the inning, plating the game-winner on a wild pitch. Liam Peterson (1-4) went the first six innings, giving up only four hits and striking out nine, but two of his four wild pitches were converted into Missouri runs. Blake Purnell went the final two innings for the Gators, holding Mizzou hitless while striking out three. Florida scored in the sixth when Brody Donay was hit by a pitch, moved to second on a balk and third on a ground out before scoring on an infield hit by Jaylen Guy. In the sixth, Cade Kurland led off with a single to right field and Caglianone followed by taking a 1-0 pitch out of the yard to right field for his 15th homer of the season. The Gators had a chance to tie the game at 4-4 in the top of the seventh when Landon Russell hit a 1-out triple to right and Guy was hit by a pitch. Kurland Kurland struck out and after Caglianone was intentionally walked, Ty Evans took a called third strike. The Gators had another scoring opportunity in the eighth when Tyler Shelnut hit a 2-out single and moved to third on an error on a Donay grounder. Russell hit a line drive to left that was hauled in for the third and final out. The Gators will try to salvage at least one win for the weekend today when Jac Caglianone (3-0, 2.18 SEC) goes to the mound for the 2 p.m. game (SEC Network+). Saturday SEC scores: Missouri (13-18, 3-8 SEC) 4, No. 6 FLORIDA (17-13, 6-5 SEC) 3; No. 1 Arkansas (27-3, 11-1 SEC) 7, Ole Miss (18-16, 3-9 SEC) 4; No. 3 Texas A&M 28-3, 8-3 SEC) 6, No. 22 South Carolina (21-10, 5-6 SEC) 3; No. 4 Tennessee (25-6, 6-5 SEC) 12, Auburn (18-12, 2-9 SEC) 2; No. 7 Vanderbilt (25-7, 8-4) 13, No. 18 LSU (21-12, 3-9 SEC) 3; No. 17 Kentucky (26-4, 10-1 SEC) 7, No. 13 Alabama (22-9, 4-7 SEC) 0; Georgia (25-7, 5-6 SEC) 3, Mississippi State (20-12, 5-6 SEC) 2 UF LACROSSE: Gators smash East Carolina, 19-7 Maggi Hall scored five goals and added an assist to lead the Gators (12-2, 3-0 AAC) to their 12th straight win, 19-7, over East Carolina (3-10, 0-4 SEC) in Greenville Saturday afternoon. Emily Heller had four goals and two assists while Sarah Falk scored four goals. It was Florida’s sixth consecutive win by 10 or more goals. The 10th-ranked Gators will be home next Saturday for a critical American Athletic Conference matchup with James Madison.

It is April and as any Southeastern Conference football fan who’s been around the block a few times knows, hope springs eternally this time of the year. It’s easy to be an optimist when it is your team going against your team every practice until the annual dog and pony show for the alumni that signals check back in sometime around late August. Everything we’re hearing from the Florida camp is improvement, whether it’s on the offensive side of the ball that has infused more speed on the outside with more size and strength on the line to the defense, which gutted last season’s coaching staff, brought in talent at all three levels from the portal and has more experience than either of the past two seasons. If you go strictly by the opticals, this has the look of a Southeastern Conference roster. Finally. The first 22 certainly look the part and so do the next 22 and much of the 22 beyond that. Sure, some of those younger guys need a year on campus for their bodies to either fill out or exchange a bit of baby fat for lean muscle, but the overall look is that the Gators will resemble grown men on the field. When he speaks about what he is seeing this spring, Billy Napier sounds confident. Not cocky, mind you. Confident. Some of the confidence has to do with no significant injuries, always a concern this time of year. Some of it has to do with having more experienced players than in either of the previous two seasons. He has a second-year starter at quarterback in Graham Mertz, a pair of transfer tackles (Devon Manuel and Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson) who have size, length and experience and enough speed at wide receiver to go vertical every single play. On the other side of the ball, which had an impressive Saturday scrimmage, there is a combination of three new coaches, experienced transfers at all three levels of the defense and more depth. It is enough to make Napier believe the Gators have a chance to make a significant defensive jump in the fall. “That and just experience, and we don't have issues with this team,” Napier answered Saturday afternoon when asked if the changes are turning him into a believer. “They do what they're supposed to do. We’re able to focus on what's important. They provide the effort, the energy, the work ethic, the accountability. Ultimately, we've got incredible leadership, and you pair that with some new faces, new voices, new leadership, a little bit different philosophy here and there, this group encourages each other. “This group will confront things that are out of place. They hold each other accountable and they get along with each other. They can be cutthroat competitive out there and then practice is over and we’re a team and let's go let's continue to work hard to improve and get better. I think ultimately it's what the game's about and I think we're finally in that place.” Now, if they can only make tackles. If there is a recurring theme with the defensive units the past two seasons it is missed tackles. They don’t make it an official stat, but if they did Florida might have led the nation both in 2022 and 2023. Tackling has been an emphasis this spring, particularly on the back end of the secondary where the Gators brought in DJ Douglas from Tulane, Asa Turner from Washington and Trikweze Bridges from Oregon to shore up that area. “The best we've tackled since we've been here, and I think in particular in the secondary,” Napier said. “Look, that goes back to the fundamentals are cleaner, the ball declares, the DB’s in a position to make the tackle. The fundamentals are better. Experience is better. The defense's depth [is better]. If we can tackle like we did today, if we can create takeaways like we did today, we can play with that type of energy, I think we’ve got a chance to have a good group over there.” On both sides of the ball, the transfers are having an impact. Offensively, wide receiver Chimere Dike (from Wisconsin) has settled in as a starter and a potential go-to guy for Mertz. Transfer tackles Devon Manuel (from Arkansas) and Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson (from San Diego State) have solidified the offensive line. On defense, coaches have spoken very highly of Joey Slackman, the Defensive Player of the Year from Ivy League Penn. Grayson (Pup) Howard, who came in from South Carolina has the kind of size and physicality it takes at inside linebackers. Tulane insiders believe Douglas (54 tackles, 3 interceptions in 2023) was a huge loss to their defense. The early analysis on Douglas in the Florida secondary is he is a significant upgrade. “I think DJ is again, he kind of fits what we were just talking about,” Napier said. “He’s a very productive player, he’s got traits, there was a connection there, and certainly he’s done a nice job. I think what I appreciate about DJ is the consistency. We know what we’re going to get every day. He’s got great practice habits, he’s an effort player, he’s done a really good job of picking up the system. We’re just halfway through the cycle here, and I think that’s the thing to kind of remind ourselves here is look, we’ve got our reload period and then we got our summer offseason and then training camp. He’s off to a good start and certainly I think he will prove that he was a good take.” The Gators tried to recruit Howard out of Andrew Jackson in Jacksonville, but he signed with South Carolina. As a true freshman at South Carolina, he worked his way into the rotation where he was in on 19 tackles, but after one year in Columbia he was ready to transfer back to his home state. Familiarity had everything with getting him to the University of Florida. “Ultimately we were just a new staff, we were behind in the relationship part upon arrival. I think that he’s the type of kid where I think that’s important to him. There’s a loyalty component there. I think ultimately he’s a Florida kid … there was a special space. He liked the University of Florida. I think it just ultimately came down to the relationship piece. And I think sometimes things don’t go the way you think they’re going to go, right? When he did enter the portal we certainly had a great respect for him. We evaluated him as a player. He’s back, right? I think that ultimately it’s a good thing. I think he’s had a good experience and we’re excited about him for sure.” At 6-4, 241, Howard looks the grown man part and so far during the spring he’s played like a grown man. Injuries have allowed him extra reps, which will definitely pay off when the Gators reconvene in August to begin preparations for the season opener with Miami. “He's extremely bright, he's got character, he's smart, he can communicate, he's really done a nice job of picking up the system,” Napier said. At that position, you got to communicate and you got to do that with confidence and I think you got to be decisive. I think he's done a good job doing that. Now, he's got height, length, he certainly looks the part. He's still a somewhat inexperienced player but I do think he's a mature young man, good family and he's taken advantage of the reps. I think with Shemar and Wingo out and then that room's been banged up at times, so yeah, he's done a good job. I think the other players around him benefit from his communication. Last week he had some production in the scrimmage. It's been a good spring, good offseason for him." For the Gators to have success in the fall, transfers will have to play a very large role. What two years of working the portal have taught Napier is the portal can fill several gaps if the right decisions are made. “I think what I’ve learned and I think our personnel department as a whole, the philosophy here is we’re looking for traits, we’re looking for production, but I think this cycle we put a premium on what’s the extra dimension that they’re bringing to our team,” Napier said. “What leadership, what character, and their ability to get along, I think that’s a component that’s really important. You work hard to sign two really good high school groups and then I think you can disrupt that if you make a mistake. It’s a short period of time to make a decision. I think we’ve done a nice job of finding players that not only bring production and experience but also I think there’s a character piece that’s worked. This group’s fun to be around as a whole.”

by Buddy Martin - GatorBaitMedia.com I listen intently and watch closely for a little indicators of evidence, my profession mainly given to making mountains out of molehills, and trying to read tea leaves out of an empty cup. After nearly 70 years as a seeking pathfinder, documenting the twists and turns, the ups and downs, and occasionally sensing the ecstasy of the championship gold, I honestly don’t know where to turn next for insight and information. I think I still understand the purpose of this journey, but I keep waiting to discover who is singing in this choir, the body language of the maestro, as well as his (or her) passion, what page they are singing on and if the beautiful harmony of music is even possible to attain anymore. And are they singing out of the same hymnal, let alone on the same page? And let's be completely transparent: "They" means "We." I listen intently and watch closely for a little indicators of evidence, my profession mainly given to making mountains out of molehills, and trying to read tea leaves out of an empty cup. Sometimes I wonder why I even care anymore when it’s so difficult to discern the next step of a long journey, let alone envision an ultimate destination (and, by the way, without a map, a lantern, or a compass), and yet I feel duty-bound. Why do I keep doing this year after year? Because it is what I do. I am a paid observer. Here I sit again in April, after filtering through literally thousands of words, dozens of interviews, and on a nightly basis, holding discussions of the subject with my colleagues and guests on a podcast, as if some sort of epiphany will arise from all this just a week away from the Orange of Blue football game, traditionally a harbinger of things to come. I can’t figure out if this program is going north or south, east or west. Yet I remain hopeful. And by the way, the apprehension and uncertainty surrounding the program are not just Billy Napier‘s fault and scared money has nothing to do with it. They’re just not playing Texas Hold ‘Em them the way they used to. The rules of the game, the opponents and the way the players are curated have changed. It’s more like, "Texas And Oklahoma Don’t  Necessarily Hold ‘Em.” So where do we go from here in college football, since the paradigm for the purity of rah-rah sports has  been swiped from us and placed in the hands of football mercenaries? There are certainly some good free-agent mercenaries for hire and Florida got one in Graham Mertz, who also wants to get paid but is not driven only by cold hard cash. So while he plays the game for money, he also plays it for pride and the glory of he and his teammates — and just maybe a tch for the University of Florida, its alumni, the fans and students. Or does that matter anymore? Yes it does and what we have seen in recent weeks of Caitlin Clark and women’s basketball is a evidence that we can and will support excellence and the purity of competition when it’s done the right way by the right people. Our problem is, "the right way." So after all that rambling, you’re still going to ask me, “Six or seven wins?“ And I have to plead ignorance. But let’s play along … Oh, balderdash! We all still want to know about the skills of the new players, the impact of the new assistant coaches, whether issues like jumping off sides, missing the snap count and lining up with the proper number of players will be fixed. And if so, then how will the 2024 Florida Gators survive the onslaught of superior opponents on at least a third of the schedule help build or destroy this teetering Florida football program? I shudder to think. And yet, upon reading the report of my colleague Franz Beard from Thursday’s press conferences and practice, perhaps it is all still granular in nature, and you just have to know where to keep digging in the dirt for the secrets. As Franz’s work ethic proves time and again, there is a reward for hard work, persistence and dogged reporting. I don’t know about you, but nothing encourages me as much as hearing players bragging on other players in a genuine fashion, as did Mertz this week about his offensive line. “It isn’t just the tackles who are getting the job done. The entire offensive line has been re-tooled,” Mertz said. “The three inside guys are returning starting center Jake Slaughter (6-5, 297) and guards Knijeah Harris (6-3, 323) and Damieon George Jr. (6-6, 362), who has been bumped inside after starting at right tackle last season.“And I mean, when you have an offense and you have those five and the quarterback and you guys can communicate at a high level and understand what everybody's thinking all the time, that's when that group really, really sets the tone for the game,” Mertz said. “Whether it's run game, pass game or anything." That confirms the suspicion of what I had sensed as an uptick in conversations around the ballyard these past two weeks. Yes, I know Hope Springs Eternal every spring and none of it matters until they put the ball down this fall to see if these theories have proven to be accurate. I’ll put it this way: It’s looking and sounding better these days. And for now I’ll take that rather than to fly the white flag. Put me down as candidate for believing in rejuvenation. The Buddy Martin Show

Florida bounced back from lackluster SEC tournament showing, scoring a 197.925 to advance to Sunday's regional finals, hosting the NCAA regionals for the first time since 2017. Utah and Michigan State advanced in the early session Friday while hosts Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Iowa State competed in the evening session, hoping for the last two spots.

A few thoughts to jump start your Friday morning: Sometimes first impression can be a bit deceiving. The first time Cam Jackson talked to his new defensive line coach, Gerald Chatman, made him think laid back. The first time Gerald Chatman started letting his D-line troops have it on the practice field, Jackson thought all hell had broken loose. “So the first time I was in Dallas training when Coach Chatman called me and he was quiet,” Jackson recalled Thursday evening after the Gators completed the 10th practice of the spring. “I’m like okay, I’ve got one of the quiet, cool coaches. He’s still cool, but I thought he was quiet! And then we got on the field. First day of spring practice we got out on the field and he got loud all of a sudden. He had me fooled!” Gerald Chatman has two personalities. There is the one that his wife and children see at home. That Gerald Chatman is a quiet, attentive dad who dotes over his four kids, especially his three daughters. That’s something similar to the coach Cam Jackson met on the phone that first time. “God blessed me with three daughters,” Chatman said. “I have four kids, but God blessed me with three daughters and then we had a son on fourth down. I say that we finally got off the field. But maybe God knew I was intense and whatever the case may be, so boom one daughter after the other. So I’m definitely not as intense with them as I am on the field but that’s a good balance there.” On the field, all bets are off. The quiet, thoughtful tone of Chatman’s voice ratchets up about a hundred or so decibels as the persona switches to football mode. It’s sort of a cross between a tent revival preacher and a pro wrestler calling out the guy he intends to maim in the square circle. The magic word is intense. “You can hear Coach Chatman from a mile away,” Jackson said, adding that Chatman tells his troops “basically just go out there, whup blocks and be aggressive. I feel like the whole D-line has improved a lot.” Florida’s defensive line has to improve. The Gators have finished 12th among the Southeastern Conference’s 14 teams against the run the last two seasons. The Gators had 23 sacks in 2022, 22 last season. Contrast that to 2019 when the Gators dropped opposing quarterbacks 49 times. Chatman was brought in as part of a defensive staff overhaul in the offseason. His 2023 D-line at Tulane dominated up front. The Green Wave allowed only 112.71 yards per game (the Gators gave up 155 and 21 touchdowns). The D-line was so effective rushing the passer that Tulane rarely had to blitz linebackers. Of Tulane’s 35 sacks, 28 came from D-linemen. Of Florida’s 23 sacks, only 4.5 came from D-linemen. In a very calm, ever so rational voice, Chatman verbalized what the goals will be for Florida’s defensive line in the fall. “We want to have one of the best units in the country and I’m not afraid to say that and that’s a huge challenge,” Chatman said. “And that takes a lot of work, that takes discipline, that takes leadership …” UF SOFTBALL: Gators run-rule Stetson, 8-0 Skylar Wallace, Korbe Otis and Ariel Kowalewski hit home runs to back a combined 3-hitter by Keagan Rothrock and Olivia Miller as 10th-ranked Florida clocked Stetson, 8-0, in DeLand. The win was Florida’s 17thshutout of the season and 25th win by run-rule. Wallace hit a 2-run homer in the third, her ninth of the season. Otis hit her fifth homer in the fourth, also a 2-run job, and Kowalewski made the run-rule possible with a 2-run homer in the top of the fifth, also her fifth home run of the season. Rothrock, 16-3, went the first four innings and then Miller finished things up with a shutout fifth. Next up for the Gators (32-5, 7-2 SEC) is 7th-ranked LSU (30-4, 8-4 SEC), a 3-game weekend series beginning Saturday at Katie Seashole Presley Stadium (6 p.m., ESPN). UF BASEBALL: Gators on the road at Missouri It’s an opportunity for the Gators (17-11, 6-3 SEC) to get a sweep this weekend when they travel to Columbia to face Missouri (12-18, 1-8 SEC) tonight (X p.m., SEC Network+). The 6th-ranked Gators have taken two out of three in their three previous SEC weekend series, all against ranked opponents. Missouri ranks dead last in the league in hitting (.248) and 11th in pitching (5.43 ERA). Florida will continue with its revamped weekend rotation with former closer Brandon Neely (1-0, 6.05 ERA) getting the Friday night start. Freshman Liam Peterson (1.3, 8.31 ERA) will go Saturday with Jac Caglianone (3-0, 2.18) going on Sunday. Caglianone leads the Gators at the plate in average (.397), hits (46), home runs (14) and RBI (30). UF BASKETBALL: Three transfer visits set This weekend the Gators will be hosting Furman’s All-Southern Conference point guard JJ Pegues (6-1, 165, JR), who averaged 18.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game for the Paladins last season. Pegues has scored 1,080 points in his Furman career. Per the Auburn Live website, the Gators are going head-to-head with Auburn and South Carolina for Pegues, who is a Nashville native. Next weekend Sam Alexis (6-9, 230, SO) from Chattanooga will be on campus according to Joe Tipton of On3. An Apopka native, who has put on 40 pounds of muscles since his high school days, Alexis averaged 10.8 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.1 blocked shots per game. The Gators are considered the team to beat for Alexis, who is being heavily courted by Mississippi State and Georgia among others. The third visitor is Drexel’s Amari Williams (6-10, 227, JR), who will be at Florida April 21-22. Williams averaged 12.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.8 blocked shots per game. He is a fifth year guy who will be taking advantage of his COVID season. Williams has scored 1,081 points in his career. Williams’ official visit list includes St. John’s, Indiana and Creighton. SEC BASKETBALL: Musselman leaves Arkansas in bad shape For weeks there was speculation that Eric Musselman would bolt Arkansas first good chance he got. His name was out there for a couple of jobs. Was he sticking his toe in the water to see if it was warm? When Andy Enfield left Southern California earlier in the week to take the job at SMU, it didn’t take long for Musselman to say his sayonaras in Fayette-Nam for the land of 13.3 percent state income tax and the Big Ten. Musselman built the Arkansas program on transfers and it worked well enough to get the Hogs to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament three times, but never to the Final Four. Arkansas was good enough to beat Duke in December but crashed and burned the rest of the way in large part because the transfer-heavy roster never found any real on the court chemistry. A combination of 11 players from the past season have either used up their eligibility or they are in the transfer portal, which might have a lot to do with why Musselman was so eager to bolt. There is good news and bad news for Arkansas. The bad news first. Barring a miracle of Daniel in the lion’s den proportions, Arkansas is going to be very, very bad next year. The good news is that other than Texas and the Aggies, Arkansas has more gozillionaires than anyone in the SEC so the money to hire a really good coach won’t be an issue. Smart money should be on Will Wade, the former LSU coach who got McNeese to the NCAA Tournament this year. What Wade did that got him fired at LSU is all legal now. The boy can coach and he can recruit. And, since it’s legal to cheat now, if Arkansas hires him he will have a ton of money to play with. Will Bama slay Goliath Saturday? After all these years, Alabama is in the Final Four. There’s a first time for everything. Now that Nate Oats has the Crimson Tide sniffing the rarified air near the summit of college basketball, he only has to beat UConn Saturday to make it to the championship game on Monday. UConn has an enormous advantage that goes beyond the massive presence of 7-2 Donovan Clingan in the middle. Danny Hurley has constructed a team that isn’t confined to lobbing the ball into the paint to the big guy. Play it slow and UConn can beat you. Speed it up, they’re even better. Zone the Huskies and they’ll shoot you out of it. No matter the style, UConn can beat you. Although the announcers will rave about Alabama point guard Mark Sears, the best guard on the floor will be UConn’s Tristen Newman. Sears deserves all the accolades he’s been given, but Newman is 19 points shy of 2,000 for his collegiate career with averages of 15 points, 6.7 rebounds and 6.1 assists this season. Alabama has only one way to win this game. The Crimson Tide has to go into a collective shooter’s coma and beat UConn at the 3-point line. Sears will have to play the game of his life and he’ll have to have a lot of help. If Bama hits fewer than 12 3-pointers, it will be next to impossible to win. SEC in the transfer portal Alabama Incoming (1): PG Houston Mallette (6-5, 180, JR) from Pepperdine Arkansas Outgoing: PG Keon Menifield (6-1, 150, SO); F Denijay Harris (6-7, 200, SR); WG Joseph Pinion (6-6, 195, SO) to Arkansas State; C Baye Fall (6-10, 200, FR); PG Layden Blocker (6-3, 175, FR); SG Davonte Davis  (6-3, 180, SR) Auburn Outgoing: CG KD Johnson (6-0, 190, SR); PG Tre Donaldson (6-2, 190, SO) FLORIDA Outgoing: SG Riley Kugel (6-5, 206, SO) to Kansas Kentucky Outgoing: SG Adou Thiero (6-6, 200, SO) LSU Outgoing: SF Mwani Wilkerson (6-5, 205, SO) Incoming: PG Cam Carter (6-3, 195, JR) from Kansas State Mississippi State Outgoing: PG Andrew Taylor (6-3, 190, SR); SG Trey Fort III (6-4, 195, JR); PF Jaquan Scott (6-8, 230, JR); SG Shakeel Moore (6-1, 180, SR) Incoming: PG Kanye Clary (5-11, 192, SO) from Penn State Missouri Outgoing: SG Curt Lewis (6-5, 215, JR); PF Jesus Carralero (6-8, 210, SR) Incoming: PF Jacob Crews (6-8, 210, JR), from UT-Martin Oklahoma Outgoing: CG Otega Oweh (6-5, 210, SO); PF John Hugley (6-9, 240, JR); PG Javian McCollum (6-1, 170, JR); PG Milos Uzan (6-4, 183, SO) Ole Miss Outgoing: PF Rashaud Marshall (6-9, 220, FR) to Arkansas State; C Malique Ewin (6-10, 240); Jacob Gazzo (6-8, 215, FR); PF Cameron Barnes (6-9, 195, FR) South Carolina Outgoing: PG Meechie Johnson (6-2, 184, JR) to Ohio State; CG Ebrima Dibba (6-5, 214, SR) Tennessee Outgoing: SG Freddie Dilione (6-5, 185, FR) Texas Outgoing: SF Alex Anamekwe (6-6, 200, SO); PG Chris Johnson (6-5, 180, FR) Vanderbilt Outgoing: PG Paul Lewis (6-2, 170, SO); C Lee Dort (6-10, 245, SO); SG Tyrin Lawrence (6-4, 200, SR); PF Colin Smith (6-8, 220); SG Jason Rivera-Torres (6-6, 180, FR) Incoming: PF Jaylen Carey (6-8, 245, FR) from James Madison ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Officially, it will be Iowa vs. UConn in the second of the two NCAA women’s semifinals tonight but who are we fooling? It’s Caitlyn Clark against Paige Bueckers, arguably the two best players in the country. Clark is the drawing card here, a record-setting scorer (32 a game) who threatens a triple-double (7.3 rebounds, 9.0 assists) every time she steps on the floor. Shooting range? From the moment she steps off the bus. Bueckers’ stats aren’t nearly as gaudy (22 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists) but UConn has a chance to win its 12th national championship and 11th since 2000 because she knows how to take a game over. Now, the best team in the tournament is South Carolina, which plays North Carolina State in the other semifinal and is everybody’s favorite to cut down the nets on Sunday. The Gamecocks are 36-0 and only four of their games have been decided by fewer than 10 points. That’s domination but is anybody really paying attention to South Carolina? Surely, South Carolina deserves better as far as media attention, but Caitlyn Clark is a the Taylor Swift of women’s basketball. Iowa drew 55,000 to its football stadium to watch Clark and the Hawkeyes demolish DePaul a few months ago. In beating LSU back on Sunday, 12.3 million Americans tuned in to ESPN, which made it the highest rated basketball game (college men, NBA or women) since 2018. More people watched than any game of the World Series. We can only imagine how many will be watching Sunday afternoon if Iowa makes the championship game.

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning: After a season in which he spent far too much time on his back because the O-line just never could get it together with any consistency, Graham Mertz really appreciates what he’s seeing from Devon Manuel (6-7, 319, from Arkansas) and Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson (6-7, 315, from San Diego State). It has only taken nine spring practices for Florida’s quarterback to become a believer that the two transfer tackles can be difference-makers in the fall. "Oh, they're awesome,” Mertz said Tuesday after practice. “They're awesome. I mean, that was practice nine of spring? I think just overall, communication across that group we have right now is fantastic. I think they're doing a great job of seeing things. When you're a quarterback and your left tackle's like, 'Hey, look, that corner's coming.' I'm like,  'Oh okay. This guy's dialed in.' So for me, we're doing a good job of communicating, talking through different looks.” It isn’t just the tackles who are getting the job done. The entire offensive line has been re-tooled. The three inside guys are returning starting center Jake Slaughter (6-5, 297) and guards Knijeah Harris (6-3, 323) and Damieon George Jr. (6-6, 362), who has been bumped inside after starting at right tackle last season. “And I mean, when you have an offense and you have those five and the quarterback and you guys can communicate at a high level and understand what everybody's thinking all the time, that's when that group really, really sets the tone for the game,” Mertz said. “Whether it's run game, pass game or anything." Slaughter has pretty much taken charge of the O-line room. He had a forgetful first start of his collegiate career last year at Utah, but progressed every week to the point that he finished as Florida’s highest-grading O-lineman. Mertz says it is “kind of a security blanket” built-in to be on the same page with a very cerebral center. An improved offensive line that can get the job done whether in pass protection or for the running game is a first step toward turning a good but not great offense into one that has explosive capabilities. Having those extra split seconds to look the field over and make decisions should make Mertz Year Two better than last year, his transfer year after four years at Wisconsin. A year ago, Mertz threw for 2,903 yards (8.1 per attempt) with 20 touchdown passes and only three interceptions. He completed 72.4 percent of his passes. Not even Danny Wuerffel, Tim Tebow or Kyle Trask ever did that. Too often last season when the protection was iffy at best, Mertz had to take the first open guy he saw instead of waiting for something downfield to break free. The extra split seconds he expects to get in the fall will allow him to get the ball downfield more often, which, in turn, should make the Gators much more explosive. “They always tell me to be judicious, not cautious with the football,” Mertz said.  “Calculated risks, understanding leverage, and there's so many layers to it, but the biggest thing is it all comes down to communication, and if I can get us in the right protection, get everything picked up, get everybody thinking the same thing, and that comes back to taking extra time to meet with the receivers. 'Based on this coverage, you can kind of lean in a little bit to the post.' So there's so many details that go into it, but yeah, that's definitely been a point of emphasis." A season ago, Mertz’s only consistent downfield receiver was Ricky Pearsall, off now to the NFL. This season, the Gators have more vertical speed than they’ve had in years, a potential superstar in sophomore Eugene (Tre) Wilson III, and a familiar face in transfer Chimere Dike, who connected with Mertz for 47 completions and 689 yards in 2022 when they were battery mates at Wisconsin. So Mertz has options. Wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales, who’s been around a few good quarterbacks in his day (Alex Smith, Tim Tebow, Dak Prescott, Kyle Trask) thinks Mertz is capable of great things this year. “Graham is one of the best quarterbacks I’ve ever been around,” Gonzales said. “He is a super smart football player, he processes super fast, he’s a big-time football player. Tough, mentally tough, competitor, leader, but walking into a program just kind of feeling the program out to make sure ‘Okay, when can I step up and really take charge’, well that happened during the offseason, summertime, and the season. It’s come night and day, my opinion’s night and day different from last year at this time. He’s a leader, he’s a competitor, the team knows that, and a super, super smart football player. Super excited about him, I think he’s a great football player. I can’t say enough great things about Graham.” UF BASKETBALL: 20 possibilities from the portal for Todd Golden Todd Golden has been flying back and forth across the country trying to decide who the Gators are going to bring in from the portal for next season. The Gators have eight returning scholarship players and one signee already. Golden will be seeking to land three, possibly four from the portal. Here are 20 possibilities. Point guards Koren Johnson, Washington (6-2, 175, SO): He has Florida on his short list. Last season averaged 11.1 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game while hitting 37.3 percent on threes. Frankie Collins, Arizona State (6-1, 185, JR): Florida is on his short list. Last season averaged 13.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game playing for Bobby Hurley. Drew Thelwell, Morehead State (6-3, 190, SR): Prepped at The Master’s Academy in Orlando. Played at Morehead for Matt McMahon (now LSU coach) and Preston Spradlin (now coach at James Madison). Excellent on ball defender who last season averaged 10 points, 3.0 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 1.3 steals per game. Dionte Bostick, Cal State-Northridge (6-2, 190, JR): He’s from Clearwater and the same conference that sent Zyon Pullin to the Gators. Averaged 15.4 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game. Myles Rice, Washington State: (6-2, 175, RFR): He’s an Atlanta kid who might find Florida quite attractive if he doesn’t follow Kyle Smith to Stanford. Rice played his AAU ball for the Atlanta Celtics, which was founded and is run by UF assistant Korey McCrays family. At Wazzoo last year he averaged 13.8 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. Kerr Kriisa, West Virginia (6-3, 180, SR): He’s from the same Lithuanian club program that sent freshman KK. He’s a solid distributor who excels as a long range shooter. Averaged 11 points, 2.5 rebounds and 4.7 assists while shooting 42.3 percent on 3-pointers. Javian McCollum (6-1, 185, JR): This is another kid who played high school ball in Florida in the portal. McCollum was a skinny 155 when he left Fort Myers. He’s 185 and solid now. At Oklahoma last season averaged 13.3 points, 2.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game. Not in the portal … yet Bruce Thornton, Ohio State (6-2, 215, SO): There is plenty of speculation and whispering that he will transfer to Florida where baby brother Bryce is a safety for Billy Napier and the Gators. Averaged 15.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game. The coach who recruited him to Ohio State was fired, so this could weigh in Florida’s favor IF he decides to transfer. Small forwards/shooting guards Cade Tyson, Belmont (6-7, 210, SO): Florida is in it, but so are Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky. Averaged 16.2 points, 5.9 rebounds and shot a scorching 46.5 percent from the 3-point line. Florida’s Will Richard is from Belmont. Mike James, Louisville (6-6, 200, SO): Played high school ball at Oak Ridge where he was a consensus 4-star recruit. Florida was never on his radar. Averaged 12.6 points and 5.0 rebounds. Alabama and Texas A&M are in hot pursuit. Rytis Petraitis, Air Force (6-7, 210, SO): Can defend the wings and the post. Had a triple-double this past season where he averaged 15.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists. Zach Anderson, Florida Gulf Coast (6-7, 205, JR): Played high school ball with Sam Alexis at Apopka but was a low-to-mid major recruit who has blossomed and filled out his body. Outstanding long distance shooter who averaged 12.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and hit 45.3 percent of his 3-pointers. Max Jones, Cal State-Fullerton (6-4, 200, JR): Clearwater High grad who spent a year at Tampa before transferring to Fullerton. Shot 38.3 percent on 3-pointers while averaging 15.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.9 assists. Scotty Middleton, Ohio State (6-6, 200, FR): A top 50 high school recruit from Miami and Sunrise Christian (KS), he struggled to get minutes at Ohio State. Has offers out of high school from UConn and Kansas among others. Excellent in transition and an elite defender who averaged 4.4 points but shot 45.3 percent on limited three attempts. AJ Staton-McCoy, Samford (6-6, 200, JR): Thrives in an up and down style. Can defend three positions and can nail the 3-ball (41.3 percent) in transition. Averaged 11.5 points, 4.6 rebounds in Bucky Ball at Samford. Big guys Sam Alexis, Chattanooga (6-9, 230, SO): He was a skinny 190 when he was a high school center in Apopka. He’s a powerful 230-plus now who averaged 10.8 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.1 blocks while making the Southern Conference defensive team. Florida is in his top five and thought to be the hands down leader. Eric Daily Jr., Oklahoma State (6-8, 230, FR): He is from Palmetto, prepped at IMG Academy. Supposedly wants to come home to the state. As a freshman averaged 9.3 points and 4.8 rebounds per game. Justin Abson, Appalachian State (6-9, 235, SO): Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year for the conference champs. Averaged 7.9 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game. Played high school ball at North Broward Prep in Pompano Beach. Vladislav Goldin, Florida Atlantic (7-1, 240, JR): Does he follow Dusty May to Michigan or step into a starting role at Florida? He averaged 15.7 points, 6.9 rebounds per game and is an intimidator in the paint. Goldin playing for Golden. That has a nice ring to it. Danny Wolf, Yale (7-1, 255, SO): Michigan has made him a priority recruit which would seem that Dusty doesn’t think he’s going to get Goldin to follow him. Averaged 14.1 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.4 assists for the Yale team that beat Auburn in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Maxime Reynaud, Stanford (7-1, 250, JR): Everybody wants the big Frenchman.  Florida might have a better shot than people think because Todd Golden’s style would allow him to run and shoot the 3-pointer, plus Golden has a very successful track record with international players. Averaged 15.9 points, 9.6 rebounds per game. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Do we really need a super league to save college football? There is a group working on just such a proposal. Among its members are West Virginia president Gordon Gee (formerly of Vanderbilt and Ohio State) and Syracuse president Kent Syverud. They have engaged the NFL’s No. 2 guy in Brian Rolapp to come up with a plan that would see college football divided into seven 10-team leagues from what we now call the power conferences and an eighth league of 10 teams from the Group of Five. The 70 power conference schools would always be secure but the 10 from the Group of Five could be kicked off the island for poor performance, replaced by an up-and-comer. It sounds a lot like the British Premier League to me. There is no question that college football and college sports in general are at a significant crossroads. Too many of the power conference schools are teetering on the verge of financial disaster. With pay for play an almost certainty in the near future, there are schools that won’t be able to afford to field a football team anymore. Entire conferences may have to give up scholarship football and do it like Division III or the Ivy League. Is this what we want? Take a moment to consider this: There are 133 Division I football teams. If all 133 are maxed out on scholarships, that’s 11,305 kids who have a chance to get a college education. Say one 12-school conference bottoms out and all 12 have to quit football. That’s 1,020 kids who just lost their scholarships. That’s 1,020 lost opportunities. I do not have the answers but I do know this. Business people have to take over college football. College presidents, I can assure you, don’t have the answers and the NCAA is absolutely clueless. Divorce the NCAA. Start a new organization with a business model designed to keep the majority of football-playing schools able to field a team. It can be done. It has to be done.

A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning: “It is a prolate spheroid, an elongated sphere in which the outer leather casing is drawn tightly over a somewhat smaller rubber tubing. Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football.” – John Heisman Billy Gonzales feels pretty much the same way about catching passes. If you had to sum up Billy G as a wide receivers coach, you would say break these three rules and you’ll find yourself forever in football purgatory: 1. Do not drop this football. Ever. 2. If the route is supposed to be 10 yards, don’t run 9-1/2, so run every route precisely. 3. If you intend to actually see the field on game days for something other than warmups, then you will block. If the ball doesn’t come your way you can still affect its outcome. Just ask Ricky Pearsall about the Billy G effect on wide receivers. When the 2023 season began a lot of folks had him pegged as a sixth or seventh rounder in the NFL Draft. After the 2023 season in which he caught 60 passes, one of which is one of the great catches in Florida football history, and a Combine in which he caught anything and everything that came anywhere close while dazzling the scouts with his precise route running, Ricky Pearsall could be drafted as high as the second round. Now in the second year of his third stint as Florida’s wide receivers coach (for Urban Meyer 2005-09; for Dan Mullen 2018-22), Gonzales has a room full of talented, fast receivers, easily the fastest group assembled in Billy Napier’s time on the job. Pair these guys with the experience and skills of quarterback Graham Mertz and there is reason to believe Florida’s offense could be more explosive than at any time the last three seasons. Speed is a wonderful thing and these guys have it. Eugene (Tre) Wilson has make-you-miss moves, but his role in the offense will expand this year which means downfield routes to take advantage of his vertical speed. Gonzales said Tuesday that Wilson is “Explosive, super explosive, an elite football player.” He says Kahliel Jackson is deceptively fast, that freshmen Tank Hawkins and TJ Abrams are “super fast” and that redshirt freshman Aidan Mizell might be every bit as fast. Marcus Burke is making plays both on the outside and in the slot during the spring and J’Quavion Fraziars is ready to get on the field and make plays. Then there is Wisconsin transfer Chimere Dike, who two seasons ago caught 47 passes from Graham Mertz when they were teammates in the Big Ten. Gonzales says “they’ve kind of hooked up and they’ve got that rhythm back right now.” Then there is the value of running the route precisely. He pointed out to a play during Saturday’s scrimmage. “We ran a route Saturday in the scrimmage … we ran two routes and we were about three yards off,” Gonzales said. “That matters, that’s attention to detail of why, because if I can get three extra yards it allows me to turn the DB’s hips and makes him open up and run with me, if I come out of my break right now and I haven’t pushed those extra three, it allows him to sit and make that play, and that’s what happened.” And then there is blocking. Speed is wonderful. So is running great routes. The guys who are on the field this year will have speed and they will all be running precision routes. But if they don’t block, they aren’t seeing the field. “You guys all know who I am as far as from the standpoint, in my history of coaching, you’ve got to be able to block for us,” Gonzales said. “We’ll block. If you don’t block you’re not going to play. You’ve got to be able to block, and that’s how you go about showing the rest of your team your commitment to the concept of being successful and winning as a team.” The goal for the Gators will be a minimum of five plays to the wide receivers that cover at least 20 yards. That is one goal for the wide receivers that has stayed the same for Gonzales whether he’s working for Meyer, Mullen or for Napier. When the ball is going downfield and receivers are turning catches into gains of 20, 30, 40 yards or more, the offense is going to be successful and put points on the scoreboard. “If we can have 5-plus plays of 20 yards or more in a game, we’re going to put ourselves in a really good opportunity at the end of the game to be successful,” Gonzales said.“But … everything’s got to be clicking on great plays. It’s not just the quarterbacks or receivers, it’s the running back – it’s all 11. We’ve got to have 11 players playing … If you got a guard that’s pulling and someone comes off right through, you’ve got an issue, whether we’re open downfield or not or if we got great protection up front and a wide receiver doesn’t separate at the top end of his route. So everything, they rely on each other. Ultimately, you want to have 11 players that can create a winning performance every snap that you take. Now, that’s hard to do, that doesn’t happen all the time. But when it does happen, that’s when you’re gonna get your big plays.” UF BASEBALL: Gators hit five homers, outslug FAMU 10-7 The Gators were outhit by Florida A&M 13-8 Tuesday evening, but five of Florida’s hits left Condron Family Ballpark including a massive shot that left the yard completely in right field by Jac Caglianone in the seventh inning. Florida’s home run power and four innings of shutout relief by Blake Purnell and Cade Fisher carried the 6th-ranked Gators to a 10-7 win over the Rattlers. The Gators got a 3-run homer from Cade Kurland (6th) in the bottom of the first and a 3-run home from Brody Donay (3rd) in the third. Colby Shelton hit his 13th homer in the fourth, Caglianone hit his 14th in the seventh and Donay came back to hit his fourth in the bottom of the eighth. It was a good thing the Gators had the home run power going for them because the Rattlers torched starter Ryan Slater and reliever Fisher Jameson for seven runs and nine hits through the first six innings. Purnell came on with nobody out to douse the fire in the sixth and Fisher came on in the seventh with a runner in scoring position to bring home the win the rest of the way for his first save. Fisher struck out five hitters in 2-2/3 innings. The Gators (17-11, 6-3 SEC) will travel to Columbia to face Missouri (11-18, 1-8 SEC) for a 3-game series beginning Friday. UF SOFTBALL: Gators No. 10 in all polls There is consensus when it comes to the Florida Gators. All four polls have the Gators No. 10 nationally. Florida is one of four Southeastern Conference teams in the top 10. Ten SEC teams are ranked in everybody’s top 25. Florida’s Tuesday night game at Stetson was moved back to Thursday due to inclement weather. The Gators will be home this weekend to face LSU for a 3-game series beginning Saturday. USA Today/NFCA Coaches top 25: 1. Oklahoma 34-1; 2. Duke 29-3; 3. Georgia 29-4; 4. Texas 29-5; 5. LSU 29-4; 6. Tennessee 28-5; 7. Oklahoma State 29-6; 8. Stanford 27-6; 9. Washington 25-5; 10. FLORIDA 31-5; 11. Missouri 29-7; 12. UCLA 20-8; 13. Texas A&M 28-7; 14. Alabama 26-8; 15. Virginia Tech 25-8-1; 16. Mississippi State 25-9; 17. Clemson 25-10; 18. Florida State 24-9; 19. Arkansas 25-9; 20. California 26-10; 21. Arizona 22-11-1; 22. South Carolina 26-10; 23. Boston University 27-3; 24. Oregon 20-12; 25. Baylor 19-12 D1Softball top 25: 1. Oklahoma 34-1; 2. Duke 29-3; 3. Georgia 29-5; 4. Tennessee 28-5; 5. Texas 29-5; 6. Oklahoma State 29-6; 7. LSU 29-4; 8. Stanford 27-6; 9. Washington 25-5; 10. FLORIDA 31-5; 11. Missouri 29-7; 12. UCLA 20-8; 13. Virginia Tech 25-8-1; 14. Texas A&M 28-7; 15. Alabama 26-8; 16. Mississippi State 25-9; 17. Clemson 23-10; 18. Florida State 24-9; 19. Arkansas 25-9; 20. California 26-10; 21. Baylor 19-12; 22. Oregon 20-12; 23. Texas State 29-8; 24. Louisiana 24-13; 25. South Carolina 26-10 ESPN/USA Softball top 25: 1. Oklahoma 34-1; 2. Duke 29-3; 3. Georgia 29-5; 4. Tennessee 28-5; 5. Texas 29-5; 6. Oklahoma State 29-6; 7. LSU 29-4; 8. Stanford 27-6; 9. Washington 25-5; 10. FLORIDA 31-5; 11. Missouri 29-7; 12. UCLA 20-8; 13. Virginia Tech 25-8-1; 14. Texas A&M 28-7; 15. Alabama 26-8; 16. Mississippi State 25-9; 17. Clemson 23-10; 18. Florida State 24-9; 19. Arkansas 25-9; 20. California 26-10; 21. Baylor 19-12; 22. Oregon 20-12; 23. Texas State 29-8; 24. Louisiana 24-13; 25. South Carolina 26-10 Softball America top 25: 1. Oklahoma 34-1; 2. Duke 29-3; 3. Georgia 29-5; 4. Tennessee 28-5; 5. Texas 29-5; 6. Oklahoma State 29-6; 7. LSU 29-4; 8. Stanford 27-6; 9. Washington 25-5; 10. FLORIDA 31-5; 11. Missouri 29-7; 12. UCLA 20-8; 13. Virginia Tech 25-8-1; 14. Texas A&M 28-7; 15. Alabama 26-8; 16. Mississippi State 25-9; 17. Clemson 23-10; 18. Florida State 24-9; 19. Arkansas 25-9; 20. California 26-10; 21. Baylor 19-12; 22. Oregon 20-12; 23. Texas State 29-8; 24. Louisiana 24-13; 25. South Carolina 26-10 UF TRACK AND FIELD: UF men No. 2; women No. 12 USTFCCCA men’s top 25: 1. Texas A&M; 2. FLORIDA; 3. LSU; 4. Texas; 5. Auburn; 6. Mississippi State; 7. Texas Tech; 8. Alabama; 9. Georgia; 10. Southern California; 11. Kentucky; 12. Arizona State; 13. South Florida; 14. Ole Miss; 15. Washington; 16. South Carolina; 17. Virginia; 18. Virginia Tech; 19. Texas State; 20. California; 21. Cal State-Northridge; 22. BYU; 23. Montana State; 24. Penn State; 25. Arizona USTFCCA women’s top 25: 1. LSU; 2. South Carolina; 3. Texas A&M; 4. BYU; 5. Ole Miss; 6. Georgia; 7. Texas; 8. TCU; 9. UCF; 10. Texas Tech; 11. UCLA; 12. FLORIDA; 13. Nebraska; 14. Southern California; 15. Arkansas; 16. Baylor; 17. Virginia; 18. Michigan; 19. Duke; 20. UTEP; 21. Illinois; 22. Penn State; 23. Notre Dame; 24. Louisville; 25. Oregon UF WOMEN’S TENNIS: Gators rise to No. 13 ITA top 25: 1. Oklahoma State 21-0; 2. Michigan 18-3; 3. Pepperdine 11-3; 4. Virginia 17-2; 5. Stanford 14-2; 6. North Carolina 15-3; 7. Georgia13-4; 8. Texas 15-4; 9. Southern California 14-6; 10. California 12-4; 11. Texas A&M 16-6; 12. Ohio State 12-6; 13. FLORIDA 12-7; 14. UCLA 11-4; 15. North Carolina State 16-6; 16. Auburn 13-8; 17. South Carolina 14-5; 18. Tennessee 13-6; 19. Miami 8-4; 20. Duke 12-6; 21. San Diego 11-5; 22. Georgia Tech 11-7;  23. Oklahoma 12-5; 24. Alabama 14-6; 25. Washington 14-6 ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Saturday, Alabama will face 2023 national champ UConn in the semifinals at the Final Four in Glendale, Arizona. This is the same Alabama team that Florida hosed twice and should have beaten a third time (lost in overtime by five). Anyone who saw all three games doesn’t have to be reminded that Florida was a better basketball team than Alabama. That Alabama is in the Final Four and not Florida has a lot to do with the unfortunate injury to Micah Handlogten and Alabama landing a rather favorable seeding and draw in the NCAA Tournament. Now, give Alabama credit. The Crimson Tide has won four straight games by bombing away – and hitting – from the 3-point line. Alabama is 4-0 in the tournament and needs just two more wins to win the title. If that happens does that mean Alabama was the best team in the country? Hardly. It will simply mean Bama got hot and won six straight games over a three-week period. The best team doesn’t always win the national title, but the team that goes 6-0 over three weekends always does. Credit should be given to Todd Golden, too. The Gators lost to Colorado in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Would Florida have won if Handlogten hadn’t broken his leg against Auburn in the SEC championship game? Maybe. Would they have won the game in overtime against Colorado if KJ Simpson had been whistled for the obvious offensive foul at the end of regulation. Again maybe. There are a lot of maybes, but one thing that should be obvious to every Gator fan and the rest of the SEC is that Todd Golden does indeed know how to coach and it’s a matter of when not if he brings Florida basketball back to a consistent, championship level.

A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning:

Jac Caglianone sees so few fast balls these days that when he gets one, he knows he better cash in quickly. Sunday afternoon was one of those times. After a weekend of one offspeed pitch after another and three walks including one intentional on Sunday, Caglianone was at the plate down in the count 1-2 when Mississippi State’s Evan Siary tried to sneak a fast ball by him. A couple of pitches earlier, Siary had hung a slider that Caglianone turned on a little too quickly, sending a hard liner foul over the berm down the right field line. The changeup wasn’t working so well and Caglianone overpowered that slider, so the fast ball it was. Perhaps whoever calls the pitches for Mississippi State thought that after a steady diet of change-ups and sliders all weekend that a fast ball might catch Caglianone by surprise. It didn’t. It was a cut fast ball, belt high and over the plate. It left the yard faster than it arrived at Caglianone’s bat, hugging the right field line just inside the foul pole for a walk-off 2-run homer that gave 6th-ranked Florida (16-11, 6-3 SEC) a 4-3, come-from-behind win and the weekend series against 21st-ranked Mississippi State (19-10, 4-5 SEC). Caglianone knew he put a good swing on the pitch but he wasn’t 100 percent sure it would clear the fence. “It was top-spun so I was hoping it had enough to get out,” Caglianone said of his 13th homer of the season. “And, I was hoping it wouldn’t go foul, too, you know. (Dakota) Jordan has a cannon [of an arm] so I wasn’t trying to repeat (Texas) A&M and get thrown out at second. So, I was like please, just get out. I saw him (Jordan) stop running so it kind of sunk in I hit it.” Prior to his ninth-inning game-winner, Caglianone was 2-10 for the weekend. Friday night he didn’t get the ball out of the infield, but his funny spin squibber bounced away from the third baseman for a hit. Saturday he was 1-4 with a single up the middle, but the best ball he struck was a laser beam line drive right at the first baseman. Sunday, he hit a towering fly ball deep enough to advance a runner to third base in the bottom of the third, but that didn’t even make the warning track. The Gators managed only four hits Sunday but they got a lot of help from the Mississippi State pitchers who walked six batters and hit five more. Hit batters factored in all four of Florida’s runs. In the third, the Gators took a 1-0 lead when Colby Shelton and Ty Evans were hit on consecutive pitches to lead off the inning. Caglianone’s fly ball advanced Shelton to third and he scored on a wild pitch. In the sixth after Luke Heyman walked on a full count, pinch-hitter Armando Albert was hit, moving Heyman to second. A sacrifice bunt by Tanner Garrison moved the runners up a base and Hayden Yost followed with an excuse-me tapper down the third base line that he beat out for an infield hit, scoring Heyman on the play. Caglianone got the start on the mound and for four innings he dominated the Bulldogs. A double, a sacrifice bunt and a single tied the game at 1-1 in the fifth. In the sixth, Caglianone ran out of gas and there went his control. He didn’t walk a batter through the first five innings but he walked four in the sixth when Mississippi State scored two runs for a 3-1 lead. The last two walks came on eight straight pitches, plating the second run. That’s when Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan brought in freshman Luke McNellie, who has found his niche in the bullpen lately. McNellie thought he had served up serious trouble when Bryce Chance hit a line drive into the gap in right center field, but Evans ran it down and made a diving stab to prevent a bases-clearing extra base hit. When he saw the ball reach the outfield, McNellie was certain he had given up a hit that would have cost the Gators the game. “I thought it was getting down,” McNellie said. “That was the point of the game that if he didn’t make that catch we definitely would have lost that game.” McNellie pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth, but experienced a bit of trouble in the top of the ninth. Chance led off with a single and was sacrificed to second. Colby Shelton made one of the better defensive plays of the game when Johnny Long bounced a ball into the third-short hole. Shelton ranged to his right, looked Chance back to second and left his feet to throw Long out at first. That left leadoff batter Armani Larry and it necessitated a trip to the mound by O’Sullivan. “He came out and just said, ‘This kid can’t hit that spin’ so all you gotta do is locate the slider,’” McNellie said. It took four pitches for a swinging strike three to end the inning. This was the second win of the series for McNellie, who struck out the side in the ninth Friday when the Gators came from down 6-2 in the eighth for a walk-off 7-6 win. In his last ten innings, all of them out of the bullpen, McNellie has allowed no runs, five hits, walked three and struck out 14. The Gators will be home Tuesday night for a non-conference game with Florida A&M. Next weekend they travel to Columbia to face Missouri (10-18, 1-8 SEC). SEC Baseball Sunday’s scores: No. 6 FLORIDA (16-11, 6-3 SEC) 4, No. 21 Mississippi State (19-10, 4-5 SEC); No. 5 Tennessee (24-5, 5-4 SEC) 7, Georgia (22-6, 4-5 SEC) 0; No. 24 Kentucky 24-4, 8-1 SEC) 15, No. 22 Ole Miss (18-11, 3-6 SEC) 1 East Division standings: 1. Kentucky (24-4, 8-1 SEC); 2. (TIE) FLORIDA (16-11, 6-3 SEC) and Vanderbilt (23-6, 6-3 SEC); 4. Tennessee (24-5, 5-4 SEC) and South Carolina (21-7, 5-4 SEC); 6. Georgia (22-6, 4-5 SEC); 7. Missouri (10-18, 1-8 SEC) West Division standings: 1. Arkansas (23-3, 8-1 SEC); 2. Texas A&M (25-3, 6-3 SEC); 3. (TIE) Alabama (21-7, 4-5 SEC) and Mississippi State (19-10, 4-5 SEC); 5. Ole Miss (18-11, 3-6 SEC); 6. LSU (20-9, 2-7 SEC); 7. Auburn (16-11, 1-8 SEC) UF WOMEN’S TENNIS: Gators take down Ole Miss, 4-3 Alicia Dudeney scored a 5-7, 7-6, 6-0 win to give the 12th-ranked Gators (12-7, 8-2 SEC) win over 30th-ranked Ole Miss (10-7, 4-5 SEC) at the Ring Tennis Center. The Gators have won seven consecutive matches and have moved within a half match of SEC co-leaders Georgia and Texas A&M (both 8-1 in SEC play). The Gators will be at No. 27 Vanderbilt (11-5, 6-3 SEC) Friday and at Kentucky (8-10, 2-7) on Sunday. UF MEN’S TENNIS: Gators get a road win at Georgia The Gators got their first road win of the season Sunday when they beat Georgia, 4-2, in Athens. The Gators (10-9, 4-5 SEC) clinched when Tanapatt Nirundorn won his match 6-4, 3-6, 6-4. Georgia fell to 10-11, 3-6 in the SEC). Florida will be home next Friday against Vanderbilt (11-9, 2-6 SEC).

After a season in which his productivity and playing time diminished considerably in the last month, Riley Kugel is transferring to Kansas. Kugel needed a fresh start and at Kansas, he will not only get the fresh start but will have a chance to play for a national championship contender. Kugel is an immense talent who had games at Florida in which he lit it up and others in which he disappeared. There were obvious issues with head coach Todd Golden, otherwise he wouldn’t have sat the bench in both the semifinal and championship games of the Southeastern Conference Tournament. Just what were the issues? That’s something neither Golden nor Kugel have outwardly discussed but there is no question there was a rift between the two. In his final five appearances in a Florida uniform, Kugel scored 36 points. He had 11 in 21 minutes on the floor in the NCAA Tournament loss to Colorado. When the Gators unloaded on Auburn at the O-Dome, a bell-to-bell XX win back on February 10, Kugel was a dominator, scoring 22 points and playing lock down defense. Three days later he scored only six in a win over LSU and followed that up with a rather lackadaisical five in a win over Georgia in Athens. He played three minutes in Florida’s overtime loss to Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Kugel scored only 49 points the rest of the season including five tournament games (4 SEC, 1 NCAA). Kugel continued to play outstanding defense, but he became almost lethargic when the Gators had the basketball, almost as if he expected to be lifted at any point. Obviously, it’s a loss when someone of Kugel’s ability leaves the program with two years of eligibility, but sometimes it is addition by subtraction. In no way is this a jab at Kugel, but you just can’t have someone of his talent level in a relatively unproductive role on the team. At some point it has to be a distraction for the coaches and teammates alike. At Kansas, Kugel should thrive in Bill Self’s system. Both the wing/combo guards – Kevin McCullar and Nicolas Timberlake – have used up their eligibility so there is playing time available. Kansas did sign 5-star wing Rakease Passmore, but there is room for both Passmore and Kugel in the KU lineup. So what does Florida do? Will Richard is expected to return for his senior season and Denzel Aberdeen can play both the point or either of the wings. The Gators have signed an explosive wing in Isaiah Brown (6-6, 190) out of Orlando Christian Prep, who is more of a scorer than shooter. It is likely the Gators will be looking to add a wing from the transfer portal along with at least one big and a point guard. Cade Tyson (6-7, 200) from Belmont is on Florida’s radar but he has plenty of suitors including Clemson where older brother Hunter Tyson had a very good career. Tyson (16.2 points, 5.9 rebounds, 46.5 percent 3-pointers) is from Monroe, North Carolina which is barely an hour away from Clemson. If Florida has an advantage here it is that Richard transferred to UF from Belmont. The Gators are reportedly pursuing Tyson’s Belmont teammate Malik Dia (6-9, 240), who visited Ole Miss this weekend. The knock on Dia is that wherever he transfers will be his third school in three years (began at Vanderbilt). At Belmont last season he averaged 16.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. Here is a look at the Florida roster. On scholarship Guards/small forwards (4): Will Richard (6-4, 206, JR); Walter Clayton Jr. (6-2, 195, JR); Denzel Aberdeen (6-5, 190, SO); Kajus Kublickas (6-2, 171, FR) Big guys (4): Micah Handlogten (7-1, 230, SO); Aleks Szymczyk (6-10, 250, RFR); Alex Condon (6-11, 230, FR); Thomas Haugh (6-9, 215, FR) Signed: Isaiah Brown (6-6, 190, Orlando, FL Orlando Christian Prep) Committed: Olivier Rioux (7-7, 300, Montreal, Quebec Canada/Bradenton, FL IMG Academy). He’s a 2025 recruit who says he will reclassify. This one is still up in the air but one thing you cannot teach is tall and Rioux is definitely tall. Listed by some at 7-6 and others at 7-7, but what’s an inch when you’re that height? Who’s in the portal that UF may find interesting Point guards Dug McDaniel, Michigan (5-11, 175, SO): Averaged 16.2 points, 3.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game. Visited Kansas State this weekend. Lots of talk about TCU. Dionte Bostick, Cal State-Northridge (6-2, 190, JR): He’s from Clearwater and the same league that gave UF Zyon Pullin. Averaged 15.4 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game. Drew Thelwell, Morehead State (6-3, 190, SR): He’s from Orlando. The coach who originally recruited him (Matt Fortuna) is at LSU. His coach the last two years (Preston Spradlin) just left for James Madison. Averaged 10 points, three rebounds and 6.2 assists per game. Malik Mack, Harvard (6-1, 180, FR): Everybody wants him. Syracuse is putting on the full court press. As a freshman averaged 17.2 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.7 assists. Leland Walker, Eastern Kentucky (6-1, 185, SO): Averaged 15.4 points, 2.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game. Indiana is pushing hard. Koren Johnson, Washington (6-2, 175, SO): Averaged 11.1 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists while shooting 37.3 percent from the 3-point line. Florida is very much in the hunt. Rayshon Harrison, Grand Canyon (6-4, 190, JR): Greenville, SC native who averaged 13.5 points, 2.9 rebounds, 3.9 assists per game. Matt Allocco, Princeton (6-4, 200, JR): Serious shooter and trash talker. Averaged 12.7 points, 2.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists. Shot 50.8 percent overall, 42.7 percent 3-pointers and 90.9 percent at the foul line. Small forwards/big guards J’Vonne Hadley, Colorado (6-6, 200, JR): Hit 41.7 percent from three while averaging 11.6 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. Heavily pursued by Michigan State. Cade Tyson, Belmont (6-7, 210, SO): Can defend three positions and is an absolute bomber from the outside where he shot 46.5 percent on his 3-pointers. Averaged 16.2 points, 5.9 rebounds. Florida is in it but so are Kansas, Oregon, Ole Miss and Auburn. Rytis Petraitis, Air Force (6-7, 200, SO): Super high basketball IQ who had a triple double this year. Averaged 15.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists. Terrence Edwards, James Madison (6-6, 190, SR): Averaged 17.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists. Atlanta kid who’s hearing from everyone in the SEC. His JMU coach is now at Vandy. Louisville is pushing hard. Tyrin Lawrence, Vanderbilt (6-4, 200, SR): Averaged 13.8 points and 5.1 rebounds. He was thought to be Florida-bound last year before electing to return to Vandy. Can defend three positions. BJ Freeman, Milwaukee (6-6, 200, SR): Averaged 21.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game. Will decide between the NBA Draft and one more year of college. Kentucky is parked on his doorstep. Michael James, Louisville (6-6, 200, SO): Played high school ball at Orlando Oak Ridge. Averaged 12.6 points and 5.0 rebounds as a redshirt sophomore last season.  A 4-star recruit out of high school who wasn’t interested in UF and the previous coach. Big guys Danny Wolf, Yale (7-0, 255, SO): Averaged 14.1 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game. Everybody wants him. Dusty May seems to have the inside track. He’s from Chicago, so Michigan is not so far away. Eddie Lambkin, Colorado (6-11, 300, SR): Averaged 10.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game. Florida couldn’t stop him. Ideal replacement for Tyrese Samuel. Joshua Jefferson, Saint Mary’s (6-8, 225, SO): Averaged 10.2 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game. Had knee surgery in February. Justin Abson, Appalachian State (6-9, 240, SO): Pompano Beach native who was the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year. Averaged 7.9 points, 7.1 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game for the Sun Belt champs. Maxime Reynaud, Stanford (7-1, 240, JR): Averaged 15.5 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. Everybody wants him. Sam Alexis, Chattanooga (6-9, 240, SO): Apopka kid who was 190 when he signed out of high school. Averaged 10.9 points, 9.1 rebounds and 2.1 blocked shots per game.

Naturally, we’re prejudiced toward the HBC. However, I’m not here today to argue the selection of the best coaches for Mt. Rushmore.