You don’t want to run and hide and there’s really no reason to stay off high ledges or put away all the sharp objects, but for certain Gator football fans won’t be celebrating the holidays with the same gusto as they’re accustomed to doing. Attitude adjustments will be needed and everybody’s going to have to find their own Happy Holidays Place. It’s called Compromise.

Our usage of the press conference hosted by the University of Florida is limited to only three minutes. This is a three-minute excerpt from that press conference, where Coach Napier responded to a question about the recent firing of two other SEC coaches and discussed his own job security at the University of Florida."

A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning:

Me'Arah O'Neal, the youngest child of NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal, has officially committed to playing women's basketball for the Florida Gators. The 17-year-old, standing at 6-foot-4 and ranked 33rd in the espnW Top 100 for the 2024 class, chose Florida over other options, including her father's alma mater, LSU. Following her official visit to Gainesville in September, O'Neal expressed a strong connection with Coach Kelly Rae Finley, solidifying her decision to join the Gators. During her visit to LSU with her father last spring, O'Neal experienced a memorable moment where the school recognized her due to Shaquille O'Neal's iconic legacy with the Tigers. Despite the connection, Shaquille advised Me'Arah to "go where you're needed, not where you're wanted," encouraging her to embark on her unique journey. O'Neal, residing in Houston and attending Episcopal High School, emphasized that her family supported her but acknowledged making the college decision independently. Growing up in Orlando, Florida, O'Neal, inspired by her older siblings, started dribbling a basketball at the age of three. Her versatile skills gained national attention through appearances in events like the SLAM Summer Classic, Nike World Basketball Festival, and the Wootten Basketball Camp. Moochie Norris, her current skills and development coach and a former NBA player, praised her abilities, highlighting her ball-handling, shooting, rim protection, and decision-making. O'Neal's commitment adds to the strength of the Gators' 2024-25 recruiting class, which includes Alivia McGill, ranked as the No. 16 prospect in the class and considered the highest-ranked recruit in program history. With her family's basketball legacy and her own emerging talents, Me'Arah O'Neal is poised to make a significant impact for KRF.

‘I personally think it has to be the head coach.’ -- Urban Meyer If Billy Napier survives this gauntlet of three straight ranked opponents and manages to steal a win in Baton Rouge or Columbia, Mo., or knocks off unbeaten FSU at The Swamp, there won’t exactly be a parade down University Blvd., but there will be a big sigh of relief. Abject failure will be off the table. It may not sound like much, but you know what they say about beggars and choosers. There is already so much water under the bridge, you’d think maybe the Mississippi River runs through Alachua County. Every sector of the fan base seems to have its own agenda for Napier that needs fixing. Get a new offensive coordinator. Hire somebody else to call plays. Or, of course, find a special teams coach that can count to 11 and knows when to dispatch the corrrect unit at the ready. These are all justifiable requests given recent events of discombobulation. Some kind of change seems imminent. So pick one. Me, I’m going with a new special teams coordinator on the same level of an offensive or defensive coordinator. Because it feels like special teams are an afterthought for Napier. You don’t believe me? Ask somebody to name Florida’s special teams coach. Give up? You won’t find him because there’s nobody with that title. The guy who is sort of in charge of special teams is Chris Couch, but that’s not his title. He’s called “GameChanger Coordinator," and he’s listed right there between the performance dietician and graduate assistant offense. Not exactly on the masthead or at the right hand of the head coach. So I took it upon myself to learn about the importance of a special teams coordinator from the guy who has excelled at it for three national championship teams and several other successful programs. Nobody ever put more emphasis on special teams than Urban Meyer did at Florida, Ohio State or Utah. Urban started by telling his top recruits that the quickest way to secure a spot on the field was playing special teams and earning a battlefield promotion – including most all of his prized 5-star recruits and future high NFL draft picks (except quarterbacks). Then he went to work on “brainwashing them.” There was only one guy with that kind of clout: Him. “People don't go to college to play on kickoff (teams),” Meyer said. “You know, at Florida, Ohio State, or Alabama, these three, four, five-star athletes are not coming to Alabama or Florida to run down on kickoff, to be on kickoff return, to block for punt. They didn't do it in high school.” I doubt the GameChanger coach has enough sway to convince them that getting your body wracked up while running fast down field as a gunner would be conducive to a long term future in football. “So how do you convince a Joe Hayden or a Janoris Jenkins or a Chris Rainey or Jeff Demps to become elite special teams players?” Urban asked rhetorically. “You've got to brainwash them. They've got to really understand for us to win this game, ‘I need you.’ And it's part of our culture. “And there's only one person that can do that. And with all due respect to special teams coaches out there, in college I think it's head coach. I don't think there's any other way. I've watched and listened and learned and there are some teams, very well special teams, or maybe the head coaches involved, but not many. The ones I know, the head coach has his hand on it.’ It’s too late to do much about it now, but discouraged fans and boosters would like to know he’s got a plan. Because with an 11-11 record at this juncture, and looking at the likelihood of three losses and a second straight losing season, Billy can’t exactly keep kicking cans down the road. While I had his attention, I asked Urban how to prepare for these Take-No-Prisoner Novembers -- the kind Napier and the Gators are facing. "You know, we did all kinds of leadership training," Meyer said. "You don't train for November in November. You know, that's something, when you're in a stretch run, you're a product of what you did the previous eight, nine months. That's why we spent so much time in the off-season program. I was very involved, our coaching staff was very involved, and I hired the best I could with Mickey Moratti, our strength coach. "But our offseason was not about strength training. It was about leadership training. It was about building a bond in the team. It basically was Navy SEALs training, and I still believe in that. I mean, you are a product of your training. If you don't train hard, if you're not a close group, when you get to November, you fall apart. And we've had great Novembers and we've had a few not, most of them are pretty great. But we've also had a few that weren't and I go back to not to blame players, I don't blame staff, I blame myself that I did not do a good job of putting that team together in the off season. So remember this is much different than professional sports. These are college players. These are young people that need to be developed. How do you survive a storm? You prepare February, March, April, May, and throughout the summer to get ready for the storm of November." There is also the onslaught of social media when your program starts slipping. How do you train mentally for that as a coach? "Yeah, that's something I didn't do very good at sometimes. I did later in my career because I just shut it out. I just, I basically quit. People ask me that, and I shut everything down. I'm basically still the same way." Then there is the matter of winning close games "And that's why we spend so much time on special teams. And when you're in an equally matched game, when you're in a game that's going to come down to a couple yards here and there, in my mind there's no greater place to find those extra yards than special teams. "You think about the 2006 SEC Championship game, the fake punt to get another possession and flip the field. You talked about the South Carolina game, we had actually three blocked kicks in that game. And we don't win that game without obviously the final one but there was ones before that so I just think that you know when you start talking about championship runs in November and December talent becomes equated, games come down to the wire, you're looking for a yard here, three yards there, five yards there, in my mind there's no greater place to find those extra yards and field position than special teams. "And again, you build that in the offseason. You don't all of a sudden in November and say, hey, special teams are important. It's got to be part of your DNA. And that our greatest teams were built around our special teams." That sounds like good advice and hopefully Billy embraces it for future Novembers while he hangs on through this one.

Ben Troupe, Buddy Martin, Franz Beard, Kyle Curtis and Brenden Martin talk about can Billy Napier pull off an upset in Baton Rouge.

The Gators can’t say Todd Golden didn’t warn them Friday night prior to their matchup with Virginia in Charlotte. “One of the things we talked about before the game, we thought we had a really good game plan, but there was going to be a point where they punched us in the mouth … what was our response going to be?” Golden said after Florida dropped a 73-70 decision to the Cavaliers. The Gators did indeed have a good game plan and it showed the first few minutes of the game when Florida’s size allowed the Gators to score 18 of their first 20 points in the paint. The Cavaliers had no early answers for 7-1 Micah Handlogten or 6-10 Tyreese Samuel but when Golden began subbing to give his starters some rest, Virginia had a response. Florida led 14-7 at that point but Virginia scored the next 11 points. While Florida delivered body blows to get the lead, Virginia punched back with one jab after another. Nothing that would stagger the Gators, but the kind that shifted the momentum. “I thought we did a great job to start,” Golden said. “We were ready to play. Our starters did a really good job early. Obviously, we made some substitutions and it went the other way quick. I felt like we didn’t gather ourselves very well after that.” Emboldened by its dominance with the subs in the game, the Cavaliers got even more physical when the starters returned. They took away the inside game and tightened up on the perimeter, forcing the Gators to take some ill-advised shots. Although the Gators kept the game fairly even in the final eight minutes of the first half, it was like playing chase. Even though the Gators could pull even or take a slight lead, it seemed that Virginia had seized control and had the momentum. Florida turned the ball over eight times in the first half and each one seemed to be a momentum killer. It helped that Will Richard heated up to knock down three 3-pointers in the final 6:01 but Florida just couldn’t hit shots with any consistency. Virginia stretched its lead to five, 37-32, with 54 seconds left in the half, and took a 39-35 lead into the locker at the intermission. Four points seemed like a lot more. “I didn’t think we responded well enough until after the half and allowed them to get a little comfortable and little physical with us,” Golden said. “I thought it was a physical game, a really physical game.” If you break basketball down into five-minute segments, you typically discover that the three most important are the final five of the first half, the first five of the second half and the last five of the game. If you had to grade the Gators on those three segments, they would get either a D- or an F+. Virginia outscored the Gators 10-8 in the final five of the first half even though there were adequate chances for UF to pull even or take the lead. In the first five minutes of the second half, Virginia outscored the Gators 11-6 to stretch their lead to nine points (50-41), a lead that eventually increased to 11. It was 54-43 with 13:27 to go in the game when the Gators began punching back effectively. Down by 11, the Gators went on a 12-0 tear that got its start with a 3-ball by Walter Clayton with 12:38 to go. A dunk by Riley Kugel, a 3-pointer by Richard and a driving layup by Kugel with 8:19 left brought the Gators back within a single point at 54-53. Handlogten put UF ahead for the first time since the 3:19 mark of the first half with a stickback, Richard gave the Gators their last lead at 7:39 for a 57-55 lead. Went on a 7-0 spurt for a 62-57 lead that Florida trimmed to three on a Handlogten stickback with 5:19 to go. Then came those final five minutes in which the Gators missed opportunities to take control of the game. Three critical fouls, three turnovers and 5-8 the foul line doomed the Gators. Florida tied the game three different times and had a chance to knot it up at 71 with 51 seconds to go but Clayton made only 1-2 from the line. Clayton followed that up with a bad pass with 12 seconds to go when the Gators had a chance to win the game. The Gators had one more chance to either tie or win it but Clayton lost the ball with two seconds to go. Virginia hit a meaningless free throw with 0.07 left for the final margin. This was a game Florida probably wins a few weeks from now when the Gators develop more on court chemistry through experience, but on this night, a loss can be traced back to the first half when Virginia punched back and the Gators took way too long to answer. Golden knows the Gators missed chances to get a win, but at least he had that 12-0 rally to hang onto as a positive takeaway. “We went down 11 and that was another moment – ‘What are we going to be made of?’ – and we came back with a 12-0 run to take the lead,” Golden said. “So that was something we were proud about as well. Super disappointed that we lost, but I’m confident in this team and really excited for the rest of our season.” Stuffing the stat line: Handlogten had his first Florida double-double with 14 points on 7-10 shooting, 14 rebounds (8 offensive), two assists, one steal and two blocked shots … Richard, who had only three points in Florida season-opener, led the Gators with 16 points including 4-7 from the 3-point line … Kugel had 14 points, four rebounds, one assist and one steal, while Clayton had 12 points, four rebounds, five assists and a blocked shot … Samuel had a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds to go with three assists, a steal and a blocked shot. The Gators shot 40 percent for the game (26-65) and just 28 percent (7-28) from the 3-point line ... The Gators were 11-15 from the foul line and they turned the ball over 16 times … Virginia outscored the Gators off the bench 26-4.

Great week of shows and it's always nice to cap out week with this guy Urban Meyer. Urban talks about the Florida Gators chances on winning on Saturday, we go around the horn with the rest of the teams college football and once again we ask him the question, got any job prospects that are paying you $10 million dollars a year?

“Scared money don’t make money!” That was Billy Napier’s motto when he was the coach at Louisiana. Judging by the way he went for it on fourth down his first year on the job at Florida – the Gators went for it 32 times, converted 15 – Napier wasn’t afraid to go down in flames. Through nine games, the Gators are 7-17 on fourth down this year. The only game when fourth down gambles (3-4) paid off was the comeback from 10 down to win at South Carolina. The Gators were 0-2 on fourth down against Georgia and both times it led to the Bulldogs hanging points on the Florida beleaguered defense. It isn’t just going for it on fourth down that seems to be a problem, it’s the very conservative nature of the offense. The Gators have a receiver in Ricky Pearsall who is basically uncoverable. UF has a quarterback in Graham Mertz who has 17 touchdown passes and only two interceptions. You have to wonder how effective the Mertz-to-Pearsall combination could be if the UF offensive line could hold the pass rush a split second longer to allow Mertz to go vertical more often. In Montrell Johnson Jr. and Trevor Etienne, the Gators have two very explosive running backs. Both can break tackles, both have an extra breakaway gear, both can pass block and both are effective pass receivers. So how many times have they been on the field at the same time? Nobody runs two-back sets anymore and few teams have two backs as talented as these two. Defenses might have all sorts of problems adjusting. The first half of the season, the Florida defense was playing very well but starting with the Kentucky game (Wildcats ran for 329 yards, 280 by Ray Davis), Florida’s defense has been in a tailspin. The Gators don’t get turnovers and they rarely sack the opposing QB. Is it time to take a page out of the Joe Lee Dunn exotic defense playbook and do something no one has had a chance to prepare for? It is worth mentioning Mertz-to-Pearsall, Montrell and Etienne in the same backfield, and the defense in a tailspin ahead of Saturday night’s game in Death Valley against 18th-ranked LSU (6-3, 4-2 SEC). The Gators are 15.5-point underdogs and apparently Jayden Daniels has passed concussion protocol, so he’s the probable starter at QB. His stats – 2,792 passing yards for 27 TDs; 684 rushing yards for six more TDs – are off the charts good and the main reason LSU has the No. 1 offense (544.6 yards per game) in the country and the SEC’s top scoring offense (45.2 points per game). How do the Gators spring an upset on a team with an almost unstoppable QB that routinely lights up scoreboards? Maybe it’s time for Napier to throw conservative thought out the window and go “scared money don’t make money” on both sides of the ball. LSU’s defense ranks 12th in the SEC both in yards allowed per game and points per game. The Tigers give up chunk plays by the bushels (68 plays of 20 or more yards) so getting stops has been an issue. The only thing that has saved LSU is Daniels, who gets the Tigers on the scoreboard whether it’s with his arm or his legs. Florida’s inability to stop Daniels last year and its problems getting stops the last four games should grab the UF coaching staff by the lapels and shake them into going with something brand new because what they’ve been doing hasn’t worked. The Gators have the athletes who can move the football if the O-line can block someone effectively. Why not take more shots downfield? Why not give a brand new look with something like a 2-back set? Why not try to force LSU to win in shootout form with the offense while trying something brand new defensively with the hope of throwing the Tigers off schedule just enough for the Gators to have an extra shot at scoring? Why not? After all, scared money don’t make money and right now the Gators need to throw the kitchen sink at LSU or else they will be buried. If they don’t try something brand new, the Gators might need a miracle of changing the water into wine proportions to spring an upset. The Sayer says sooth!: LSU 45, Florida 35 The SEC Soothsayer No. 10 Ole Miss (8-1, 5-1 SEC) at No. 1 Georgia (9-0, 6-0 SEC): The Lane Train rolls into Athens looking for the signature win that has eluded the Rebels the last three years. The Rebels have the best offense Georgia has seen since the Bulldogs beat Ohio State in last year’s College Football Playoff semifinals. For Ole Miss to spring the upset, it has to get the running game going with Quinshon Judkins and its pass rush has to get in the face of Georgia QB Carson Beck. Georgia has to be motivated by the need to run the regular season table. If the Bulldogs are 12-0 in the regular season then lose to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, there is every good chance the Bulldogs will still make the playoff. Lose to Ole Miss and then lose in Atlanta, and a three-peat has been quashed. So, it’s Lane Kiffin’s offense against Will Muschamp’s defense. The people in Vegas like Muschamp’s defense because Georgia is 10.5-point favorites. It might be closer than that, but the game’s in Athens where Georgia has won its last 25 games. The Sayer says sooth!: Georgia 31, Ole Miss 24 No. 8 Alabama (8-1, 6-0 SEC) at Kentucky (6-3, 3-3 SEC): Most people don’t know that until a year ago, Bear Bryant was the winningest coach in Kentucky history. It took Mark Stoops 10 years to surpass Bear’s 60 wins. Bear had a good thing going at Kentucky until they gave Adolph Rupp a new Cadillac convertible after a year when UK basketball had the death penalty. Bear Bryant got an engraved cigarette lighter at the same ceremony. Bear left UK after the 1953 season and Kentucky football hasn’t been the same since, even with Stoops turning the Wildcats into the usual hosts of the Music City Bowl. Alabama is favored by 11. The only way it will be that close is if Alabama takes the Wildcats lightly. If they show up ready to play, it will get ugly early. The Sayer says sooth!: Alabama 35, Kentucky 17 No. 14 Tennessee (7-2, 3-2 SEC) at No. 16 Missouri (7-2, 3-2 SEC): Missouri has lost the only games it has played against ranked teams this year although the Tigers were in it until the bitter end with both LSU and Georgia. Along comes Tennessee, which can dominate games on both sides of the line of scrimmage. That’s what it will take for the Vols to score the win over Mizzou. The Vols have to run the ball and they have to figure out a way to stuff Cody Shrader, who ran for an impressive 112 yards on Georgia’s vaunted defense last week in Athens. What Tennessee can’t afford is for this game to be in Joe Milton’s hands. That has to be one-half of Missouri’s strategy – make Joe Milton win the game with his arm. The other half has to be give quarterback Brady Cook time to throw the football, no easy task since Tennessee has gotten to the quarterback 30 times already. The Vols are a 2-point favorite. They will win this one unless they’ve got Georgia on their minds (next week in Knoxville). The Sayer says sooth!: Tennessee 27, Missouri 24 Mississippi State (4-5, 1-5 SEC) at Texas A&M (5-4, 3-3 SEC): This could be the Dead Man Walking Bowl as in whoever loses probably gets fired. Jimbo Fisher might get fired even if he wins, but no doubt about it if the Aggies lose to Mississippi State. If Mike Leach were still alive and the Bulldogs were still running the Air Raid, Mississippi State would have more than a fighting chance. Leach passed away and Zach Arnett replaced the Air Raid with something that isn’t working. This is his first year on the job and fans are disgruntled. The buyout is only $4.5 million. If he could spring the upset there’s a really good chance MSU goes bowling, which would rip to shreds any plans the boosters have for a new coach next year. As for Jimbo, he’s lost four games, the Bobby Petrino experiment isn’t working well, and the boosters are already taking long looks at Dabo, the Lane Train and Kansas coach Lance Leipold. The Aggies are favored by 17. They’ll cover and the not if but when Jimbo goes suspense will continue to mount. The Sayer says sooth!: Texas A&M 35, Mississippi State 14 Auburn (5-4, 2-4 SEC) at Arkansas (3-6, 1-5 SEC): After beating Florida last week in Gainesville, Arkansas people think Sam Pittman has the Hogs ready to run the November table for a bowl game. If Sam can get KJ Jefferson and Rocket Sanders running the football like they did last week against the Gators, it’s possible with Auburn, Florida International and Missouri all at home to close out the season. Auburn, meanwhile, only needs one more win to go bowling. Since Alabama is the last game of the year, the Tigers either have to win this week or next week against New Mexico State to get to six wins. Arkansas is a better team than either of the two Auburn has beaten in the previous two weeks and the Hogs are favored by two at home. It’s going to be white knuckles, but Arkansas gets it done. The Sayer says sooth!: Arkansas 24, Auburn 20 Vanderbilt (2-8, 0-6 SEC) at South Carolina (3-6, 1-5 SEC): Perhaps this should be dubbed as the Two Steps Backward Bowl because both Vanderbilt and South Carolina were expected to be improved in 2023. Instead, Vandy has lost eight straight games and is once again everybody’s favorite homecoming opponent. Some were predicting the Gamecocks would challenge for second place in the SEC East, but their inability to protect Spencer Rattler has been their undoing. Rattler has gone down 37 times, which ranks 126th nationally. Fortunately, for South Carolina, Vanderbilt’s pass rush is relatively weak, so Rattler should light up the Commodores. The Gamecocks are favored by 14. They’ll cover. The Sayer says sooth!: South Carolina 38, Vanderbilt 20