Florida baseball got swept at Florida Ballpark by No. 1 Tennessee this past weekend, making it the first time the Gators have lost all three at home in softball and baseball since 2006. But hope is on the way. By KYLE CURTIS GatorBaitMedia.com While the Gators have been going through a rough stretch amid the pitching woes and the batting slumps, all wasn't lost for this young team and there are positives to take away. Freshman righthander Brandon Neely had a career game vs. the Vols, finishing with seven one-hit innings and one-run baseball while striking out a career-high eight batters in the process. Neely, coming out high school, was the No. 5 righthanded pitcher for his class and was MLB Pipeline’s No. 205 prospect. He is 6-foot-2, 190 with great athleticism and a fastball sitting in the mid 90s. His fastball also has big-time movement, and that, along with two good breaking balls he can consistently count on. He attended Spruce Creek high school where he served as a dominant pitcher on the school mound while also performing well in showcase events. After Neely’s strong performance holding the No. 1 team in check a strong duo of Phillip Abner and Nick Ficarotta blanked the Volunteers for the final three innings. Abner, another highly regarded freshman, is from Charlotte, N.C. Before arriving in Gainesville, Abner could boast a fastball around 90-93 and had a strong slider to compliment a firm changeup. He also showed promise as a hitter in high school, giving potential for a promise as a two-way player later in his career. Abner was the 67th ranked recruit according to Perfect Game for his class along with the 11th best lefthanded pitcher. In the big picture, both Abner and Neely showed what they were capable of against the best bats the Gators have faced all season. Bad news is that the Gators were not able to turn any of those performances into wins. In the long run, Florida has an ample supply of talent, but it is inexperienced against a lot of the older veteran teams with multiple Super Seniors. This new era of college sports has teams taking the transfer portal approach rather than attacking recruiting first. The Gators have dominated the recruiting trail but haven’t shown the product on the diamond. The teams that have shown recent success on the recruiting trail are seeing the product with more experienced teams. B.T. Riopelle is the only Gator transfer (coming from Coastal Carolina) and has also been one of Florida’s biggest producers this year. The Gators will finish out the season with the relatively easier end of the schedule. They will look to gain some momentum by gaining a few series wins. They'll start this stretch this weekend when they take on Kentucky.

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning: NFL DRAFT PROJECTIONS FOR UF PLAYERS Here are the final projections for UF players for tonight’s NFL Draft by some prominent national writers. Dane Brugler, The Athletic: Kaiir Elam, 1st round/No. 29 to Kansas City; Dameon Pierce, 5th round/No. 154 to Philadelphia; Zachary Carter, 6th round/No. 217 to Los Angeles Rams Matt Miller, ESPN: Elam, 2nd round/No. 34 to Detroit; Pierce, 4th round/No. 120 to New Orleans; Carter, 4thround/No. 130 to Buffalo; Jeremiah Moon, 7th round/No. 248 to Tampa Bay Chad Reuter, NFL Network: Elam, 1st round/No. 27 to Tampa Bay; Pierce, 5th round/No. 153 to Seattle; Carter, 6th round/No. 183 to New England; Moon, 7th round/No. 236 to Los Angeles Chargers; Jean Delance, 7th round/No. 250 to Minnesota Vinnie Iyer, Sporting News: Elam, 2nd round/No. 37 to Houston; Carter, 4th round/No. 120 to New Orleans; Pierce 5th round/No. 157 to Jacksonville; Moon, 6th round/No. 216 to Indianapolis Ryan Wilson, CBS: Elam, 2nd round/No. 37 to Houston; Pierce 3rd round/No. 104 to Los Angeles Rams; Carter, 6th round/No. 188 to Jacksonville UF FIRES SOCCER COACH TONY AMATO Tony Amato was a rather surprise choice when Scott Stricklin hired him to replace Becky Burleigh who retired. A year into the job and the worst record in UF history (4-12-4), Amato has been fired. It wasn’t necessarily the record that did him in but an unprecedented number of complaints from players and their parents. Soccer isn’t a revenue sport at Florida, Burleigh (14 SEC titles, 1998 NCAA title) established great tradition so Stricklin has to make this a priority hire. UF SOFTBALL: GATORS SHUT OUT STETSON, 5-0 Sure, it was Stetson, but the Gators (36-12) desperately needed a good pitching performance and they got one as Lexie Delbrey, Riley Trlicek and Elizabeth Hightower combined to pitch a 2-hitter to lead UF to a 5-0 win. Delbrey (11-2, 2.35 ERA) went the first five innings, giving up two hits while striking out six. Trlicek struck out two in her one inning and Hightower struck out the side in the seventh. The best news for head coach Tim Walton was zero walks issued, the first time that’s happened all season. Charla Echols had a pair of doubles and an RBI, Kendra Falby had two hits and two stolen bases and Skylar Wallace had an RBI and her 41st stolen base of the season. The Gators travel to Baton Rouge to face LSU this weekend. GATORS REMAIN NO. 1 IN USTA MEN’S TENNIS RANKINGS; UF WOMEN NO. 16 USTA men’s top 25: 1. FLORIDA; 2. Ohio State; 3. Michigan; 4. Baylor; 5. TCU; 6. Virginia; 7. Kentucky; 8. Tennessee; 9. Wake Forest; 10. Southern Cal; 11. South Carolina; 12. Georgia; 13. Texas; 14. Stanford; 15. Harvard; 16. North Carolina; 17. Arizona; 18. San Diego; 19. Pepperdine; 20. Middle Tennessee; 21. North Carolina State; 22. Auburn; 23. Louisville; 24. SMU; 25. Duke USTA Women’s top 25: 1. Texas A&M; 2. North Carolina; 3. Oklahoma; 4. Texas; 5. Duke; 6. Virginia; 7. North Carolina State; 8. Ohio State; 9. Georgia; 10. Pepperdine; 11. Miami; 12. California; 13. Oklahoma State; 14. Stanford; 15. Auburn; 16. FLORIDA; 17. Michigan; 18. UCLA; 19. Arizona State; 20. Loyola Marymount; 21. UC-Santa Barbara; 22. Tennessee; 23. Southern Cal; 24. UCF; 25. Old Dominion Other UF sports: Florida’s 6th-ranked lacrosse team (12-4) knocked off 22nd-ranked Jacksonville, 12-6, behind three goals by Emily Heller … The 11th-ranked women’s golf team was selected as the No. 2 seed in the Albuquerque Regional of the NCAA Championships which begin May 9. SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL Alabama: New York Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum says the next Tyreek Hill is former Bama wide receiver Jameson Williams, who is expected to go in the first round of tonight’s NFL Draft. Auburn: Defensive lineman Marquis Robinson, a former 4-star recruit, has removed his name from the transfer portal. Georgia: Linebacker Adam Anderson has been indicted on rape charges. He has been suspended from the football team since last November 2 … Guard Christian Wright, who started 11 games last year while averaging 5.3 points and 2.2 rebounds, is transferring to Oregon State. Kentucky: Jordan Robinson, a division II defensive back from Livingstone College, was flipped from Appalachian State to Kentucky. LSU: Defensive lineman Joseph Evans, who played in 13 games in three years at LSU, is in the transfer portal. Mississippi State: Center Tolu Smith, who averaged 14.2 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, announced he will return to MSU next season. Ole Miss: Safeties Jordan Jernigan and Jalen Denton are in the transfer portal. Jernigan is a converted wide receiver who played in nine games in three years while Denton is a walk-on. South Carolina: Ebrimma Dibba, who averaged 8.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists at Coastal Carolina, is transferring to South Carolina … Tight end Nate Adkins, who caught 33 passes for 357 yards and a TD last season, is transferring in from East Tennessee State. Tennessee: Former 4-star tight end Julian Nixon is in the transfer portal … Josiah Jordan-James has entered the NBA Draft but will not hire an agent, leaving the door open for a return to UT. He averaged 10.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.7 assists last year. Texas A&M: The Aggies are raising $120 million to redeveloping the Bright Football Complex, building a new indoor practice facility, adding 31 suites to Kyle Field and building a new indoor track stadium. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: There is good news and there is bad news with the NCAA. First the good news. Mark Emmert is stepping down as president. Now for the bad news. It won’t happen until June 30, 2023. Yesterday wouldn’t have been soon enough. Emmert has been in charge of the NCAA for 12 disastrous years. He did not create the problems the organization faces – they were already in place long before he arrived on the scene – but he did nothing at all to face the problems head-on and do something constructive to solve them. He is the embodiment of The Peter Principle, whose premise is that ambitious people, for the most part, rise through the ranks until they reach a profound level of incompetence. Of course, Mark Emmert doesn’t see it that way. In a statement announcing his decision to step down, Emmert said, “I am extremely proud of the work of the Association over the last 12 years and especially pleased with the hard work and dedication of the national office staff here in Indianapolis." Hard work and dedication usually produces meaningful achievements. No matter what he does between now and next June when he rides off into the sunset, presumably for a cave on the slopes of Mount Kinabalu, Emmert is going to be remembered for these five things at the tail end of a less than illustrious career: (1) No enforcement plan in place to act upon the FBI evidence in the college basketball corruption trials, (2) no plan for football in the fall of 2020 after canceling sports in the spring due to the pandemic; (3) fighting and losing every legal battle faced by the NCAA rather than sit down with the athletes bringing the lawsuits forward to find reasonable and practical solutions; (4) allowing a biological male to win an NCAA championship swimming against women who spent years in the pool to get good enough to live out a dream by making the finals; and (5) standing on the podium in New Orleans back on April 4 and calling the newly crowned NCAA basketball champions the “Kansas City Jayhawks.” Most CEOs would be fired for that kind of ineptitude, but not Emmert. As a former university president, he had the support of the majority of university presidents whose votes are the ultimate power in the NCAA. The Board of Governors gave him a raise and a contract extension a year ago. Perhaps they took a look around and found no one in their midst they thought could do a better job. That is one of the real problems with the NCAA. It is a business that is being run by academics who, with the exception of the occasional John Lombardi or Bernie Sliger, are clueless. They have a tendency to take a one size fits all approach, ignoring the fact that the same rules and regulations that apply for the smaller schools that operate on very limited budgets should not apply to the big schools. The dinosaur that is today’s NCAA began its death spiral when Walter Byers retired in 1988 after 37 years of ruling with an iron hand. Walter Byers was loathed and for good reason because if you got on his bad side, he would spare no expense to take you down (see Charley Pell; see SMU football and the death penalty in 1987). Byers did understand, however, that sports is a business. He also understood that the NCAA concept of “amateur sports” would eventually be its undoing. He wrote a book in 1995 called “Unsportsmanlike Conduct: Exploiting College Athletes” that should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the chaos that we have now in college sports. This passage from the book says it all: “Collegiate amateurism is not a moral issue; it is an economic camouflage of monopoly practice.” He went on to write that the NCAA operates “an air-tight racket of supplying cheap athletic labor.” That was written long before Mark Emmert was doing his fabulous impersonation of the near-sighted Don Quixote charging up the hill to take on the windmill, better known as “NCAA v. Alston.” Final score of that encounter: Alston 9, NCAA 0. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA has no standing when it comes to preventing its athletes from making money off their name, image and likeness (NIL). When the Good Ship NCAA struck the iceberg known as the Supreme Court, Emmert was exposed as a leader without a contingency plan. Since he lost every significant court case he chose to fight, one would think Emmert would have had a Plan B ready to go. Any decent CEO would have unveiled a new plan the day after losing a case like Alston, but to think Emmert would have one is to assume. Grandmothers throughout the English speaking world have long warned us that to assume is to make an ass out of u and me. Now, we live in a world where there are no rules and regulations. It’s enough that the icons of college football such as Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney and Kansas basketball coach Bill Self are issuing warnings that at some point, this will all come crashing down. They are right. This is unsustainable which is why Emmert is standing, hat in hand, before the United States Congress, begging for intervention. As if a Congress split down party lines is going to come together for the good of college athletics when half lean toward socialistic solutions and the other half takes a more capitalistic approach. Additionally, Emmert has unveiled plans for an NCAA transformation committee that is to oversee sweeping changes that shift governance to conferences writing their own rules and regulations. You don’t have to be a rocket surgeon or brain scientist to figure out there is no future for college athletics at the highest levels with the NCAA in charge. Without visionary leadership, the NCAA must be abandoned at least by The Haves of the college sports world. If The Have Nots wish to remain with the NCAA, so be it, but the schools that wish to compete at the highest levels really have no choice but to secede. It should start with college football since it pays the freight for the power schools. Start a new organization that completely rewrites the rules, makes its own schedules, puts a playoff plan in place and hires a commissioner, who, unlike Mark Emmert, actually is the smartest guy in the room. Give the new commissioner absolute authority like the NFL did to Pete Rozelle, the greatest example of a sports CEO in history. Once the governance kinks have been worked out, then extend invitations to the schools that are capable of playing at the highest levels in the other sports. For college sports to survive, there has to be a divorce from the NCAA and the new organization has to have both a plan to succeed and a commissioner capable of ruling with an iron hand.

A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning: DON’T SLEEP ON THESE THREE GUYS IN THE FALL Here are three Gators who will be vastly underrated when football cranks up again in the fall: Justin Shorter, WR: His 2021 numbers – 41 catches, 550 yards (13.4) and three touchdowns – weren’t bad, but they could have been and should have been better. That wasn’t necessarily his fault. He was open a lot, but didn’t get the ball thrown his way. He isn’t a burner but he has deceptive speed and he’s capable of getting open consistently. He was one of the hardest workers on the team this spring. Ethan White, LG: He’s 15 pounds heavier (334) than he was last year and he’s healthy. He’s been injured a lot in his career (played in only 18 games in three years, 8 starts). Rob Sale and Darnell Stapleton like maulers on the inside. They have one on the right side in O’Cyrus Torrence, the Louisiana transfer. White had a very good spring and if he continues the hard work in the weight room in the offseason, he will have a big season. Trey Dean III, S: The word around spring football was the Trey Dean you think you know from the past four years isn’t the Trey Dean you will see in the fall. Attribute that to two things – great attitude and better coaching from Patrick Toney. The talent has always been there. The attitude and coaching have not. HELP WANTED … Based on what I saw in the spring, here is where my transfer portal shopping list for Billy Napier begins: Wide receiver: Someone with elite speed who can back the safeties off the line of scrimmage. It doesn’t have to be someone with incredible numbers. Alabama got Tyrell Hatton from Louisville, who only caught 18 passes but he averaged almost 30 per catch. Someone like that is what the Gators need. I expect attrition here so three would be ideal. Right tackle: This is the one spot on the offensive line that is a concern. Michael Tarquin is okay in pass protection, but the Gators need to find someone who can grind in the running game and still have quick enough feet to pass protect. Overall, I think the Gators need to find three O-linemen with experience, one who can start at right tackle and two who can get in the rotation up and down the line. Defensive tackle: I’m not sold on Desmond Watson getting down to 380, which is where he will need to be to play regularly and I’m not sold on anyone other than Gervon Dexter. I expect attrition of one or two. I think Napier needs three at a minimum, but four ideally. Inside linebacker: I don’t see that 6-4, 250-pound guy who is a rock at the goal line. I think Diwun Black is an outside guy who will have to play inside unless Napier can find that prototypical big guy. Two big guys would be rather nice. UF BASEBALL: NO MIDWEEK GAME THIS WEEK It might be a good thing that the Gators (23-17, 6-12 SEC) get a midweek break before hosting Kentucky (22-18, 6-12 SEC) this weekend. Without Hunter Barco, Kevin O’Sullivan probably has found a weekend rotation in Ryan Slater, Brandon Sproat and Brandon Neely, but he needs a few days to get his other young pitchers some rest and to figure out the bullpen. The Gators are currently tied with Kentucky and South Carolina for fourth in the SEC East. D1Baseball Top 25: 1. Tennessee 37-3; 2. Oregon State 31-8; 3. Miami 391-9; 4. Southern Miss 32-8; 5. Arkansas 31-9; 6. Stanford 24-12; 7. Virginia Tech 28-9; 8. Oklahoma State 27-13; 9. Texas Tech 29-14; 10. Texas 30-13; 11. Virginia 31-10; 12. Gonzaga 26-11; 13. UCLA 27-12; 14. Georgia 28-12; 15. UConn 32-8; 16. Louisville 27-12; 17. Texas State 32-9; 18. Notre Dame 26-8; 19. Auburn 29-12; 20. TCU 27-13; 21. Texas A&M 25-14; 22. LSU 27-12; 23. Maryland 32-8; 24. Georgia Southern 37-12; 25. Wofford 30-10 UF SOFTBALL: GATORS DROP TO NO. 11 The Gators, who are 4-5 in their last nine SEC games, get a tune-up for their weekend roadie to Baton Rouge tonight when Stetson comes to town (6 p.m., Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium). The recent skid has dropped the Gators out of the top 10 into a very generous 11th in the latest D1Softball top 25. The Gators need one win this weekend at LSU (30-17, 10-8 SEC) to secure a break even record in conference play. The last time UF finished .500 in SEC play was 2019 (12-12) when they got hot in the post season, won the SEC Tournament, all three NCAA regional games and then beat Tennessee two out of three in the Super Regional to advance to the Women’s College World Series. D1Softball Top 25: 1. Oklahoma 42-1; 2. Virginia Tech 36-6; 3. Florida State 43-5; 4. UCLA 36-5; 5. Arkansas 35-8; 6. Oklahoma State 38-7; 7. Alabama 39-8; 8. Northwestern 34-7; 9. Washington 28-11; 10. Duke 36-7; 11. FLORIDA 35-12; 13. Arizona State 32-7; 13. Tennessee 33-13; 14. Kentucky 30-13; 15. Texas 32-15-1; 16. Georgia 37-11; 17. UCF 39-11; 18. Clemson 33-14; 19. Auburn 36-10; 20. Notre Dame 35-9; 21. Oregon State 31-15; 22. Michigan 29-14; 23. Stanford 31-13; 24. San Diego State 30-12; 25. LSU 30-17 UF TRACK AND FIELD: MEN, WOMEN NO. 3 NATIONALLY USTFCCA Men’s Top 25: 1. Texas; 2. Alabama; 3. FLORIDA; 4. Texas A&M; 5. Oregon; 6. Georgia; 7. Texas Tech; 8. BYU; 9. Kentucky; 10. LSU; 11. Baylor; 12. North Carolina A&T; 13 Arkansas; 14. Southern Cal; 15. Iowa; 16. Washington; 17. Arizona State; 18. Florida State; 19. Princeton; 20. Ohio State; 21. Tennessee; 22. Virginia; 23. Stanford; 24. Oklahoma; 25. Oklahoma State USTFCCA Women’s Top 25: 1. Texas; 2. Texas A&M; 3. FLORIDA; 4. LSU; 5. Texas Tech; 6. Arkansas; 7. Kentucky; 8. BYU; 9. Oregon; 10. Ohio State; 11. North Carolina A&T; 12. New Mexico; 13. South Carolina; 14. North Carolina State; 15. Arizona State; 16. Oklahoma State; 17. Baylor; 18. Ole Miss; 19. Duke; 20. Southern Cal; 21. Auburn; 22. California; 23. Washington; 24. Colorado; 25. Georgia UF GOLF: MEN NO. 10, WOMEN NO. 11 Golfweek Men’s Top 25: 1. Oklahoma; 2. Pepperdine; 3. Vanderbilt; 4. Oklahoma State; 5. Arizona State; 6. North Carolina; 7. Texas; 8. Washington; 9. Texas Tech; 10. FLORIDA; 11. Georgia Tech; 12. Georgia; 13. Texas A&M; 14. Notre Dame; 15. Arkansas; 16. Auburn; 17. Illinois; 18. Wake Forest; 19. LSU; 20. Florida State; 21. Stanford; 22. Tennessee; 23. Clemson; 24. Ohio State; 25. New Mexico Golfweek Women’s Top 25: 1. Stanford; 2. Oregon; 3. South Carolina; 4. Wake Forest; 5. Oklahoma State; 6. San Jose State; 7. Arizona State; 8. Southern Cal; 9. Alabama; 10. Virginia; 11. FLORIDA; 12. UCLA; 13. Florida State; 14. Texas; 15. LSU; 16. Baylor; 17. Auburn; 18. Texas A&M; 19. Arkansas; 20. Michigan; 21. Duke; 22. Ole Miss; 23. Arizona; 24. Kentucky; 25. Illinois UF LACROSSE: GATORS MOVE UP TO NO. 6 IWLCA Coaches Top 25: 1. North Carolina 15-0; 2. Northwestern 13-3; 3. Boston College 14-2; 4. Syracuse 13-4; 5. Maryland 14-1; 6. FLORIDA 11-4; 7. Denver 14-1; 8. Stony Brook 12-2; 9. Rutgers 13-3; 10. Duke 15-2; 11. Princeton 10-3; 12. James Madison 12-4; 13. UConn 13-2; 14. Loyola Maryland 15-1; 15. Southern Cal 12-3; 16. Temple 10-5; 17. UMass 15-2; 18. Johns Hopkins 9-7; 19. Michigan 10-5; 20. Jacksonville 11-3; 21. Ohio State 9-6; 22. Notre Dame 8-8; 23. Virginia 8-8; 24. Penn State 6-8; 25. Yale 10-3 SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL Alabama: Former 4-star defensive back Kaine Williams, who chose Alabama over Florida and LSU, is in the transfer portal. He has four years eligibility remaining. Arkansas: Defensive lineman Dorian Gerald and linebacker Kelin Burrle are in the transfer portal. Gerald, who had 22 sacks in two junior college seasons, went down with a season-ending injury in the first game of the 2021 season. Burrle is a former 3-star recruit who didn’t play last season. Georgia: Matthew-Alexander Moncrief (6-7, 196), who averaged 4.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per game at Oklahoma State, is the fourth transfer pickup for Mike White. Kentucky: Point guard Sahvir Wheeler (5-9, 180), who started 29 games for the Wildcats after transferring from Georgia, announced he will return next season. Wheeler averaged 10.1 points and was third in the nation, first in the SEC in assists at 6.9 per game … Bryce Hopkins (6-6, 220) is transferring to Providence after averaging 2.1 points and 1.4 rebounds at Kentucky last season as a true freshman. Mississippi State: Former 4-star corner Hunter Washington is transferring to Mississippi State from Florida State. He played in one game at FSU and took a redshirt … Point guard Iverson Molinar (6-3, 190), who averaged 17.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game, will remain in the NBA Draft. Missouri: Guard Amari Davis (6-2, 175), who started 13 games last season after transferring from Green Bay, is in the portal again. At Mizzou he averaged 9.0 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists … Defensive lineman Ben Key (6-5, 285), a former juco transfer who played in two games last year, is in the portal. South Carolina: Meechie Johnson Jr. (6-2, 172), a former 4-star recruit in 2020 who averaged 4.4 points and 1.5 rebounds per game per game at Ohio State, is transferring to South Carolina … Small forward Hayden Brown (6-5, 225) is transferring to South Carolina from The Citadel. He averaged 18.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game. Tennessee: Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (6-10, 246) is transferring to Louisville after a freshman year in which he averaged 3.9 points and 3.0 rebounds per game. Vanderbilt: Backup linebacker Michael Mincey, a former 3-star recruit from Waycross, is in the transfer portal. He appeared in one game last year but was also on the track team where he ran the 100 and 200 meters. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: “Kirby Smart is the best coach in college football. That’s right, Kirby Smart.” I didn’t say that. Matt Hayes did. Matt is one of the best college football writers in the country and his opinions are taken as gospel by a lot of folks. I’m not one of them when it comes to Kirby being the best coach in college football. I will concede that he was the best coach in college football last year, but in all of college football at this present moment? Moving forward? In the immortal words of Dennis Hopper as The Deacon in the film Water World, “There’s two chances that’s going to happen: No way and no how.” Okay, maybe someday it will happen, but not today. Not right now. There is that teensy little matter of Nick Saban at Alabama. Last time I checked, he hasn’t gone anywhere. Also, last time I checked he has won six national championships at Alabama and one at LSU, which is one more than Bear Bryant won. I wasn’t a math major but seven national championships is six more than Kirby Smart has won. He has won national championships at Alabama with five different offensive coordinators. He won a national championship with Doug Nussmeier as his offensive coordinator. That alone should tell you something. You do remember those brilliant offenses Nussmeier coordinated at Florida from 2015-17, don’t you? I’ll refresh you. They finished 112 (2015), 116 (2016) and 110 (2017) nationally. In the SEC the Gators were 12, 14 and 13. When Kirby Smart can win a national championship with Doug Nussmeier as his offensive coordinator, maybe I’ll concede that he’s the best coach in the country. For now, he was the best coach in the country for the 2021 season, but the best coach in the country? That’s Nick Saban and unless he was dropped on his head too many times as an infant and the residual effects of CTE don’t start showing up until 2022, he’s still the best in the country.

A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning: A BIG WEEK FOR ELAM, PIERCE AND CARTER By the time the NFL calls the name of Mr. Irrelevant with the final pick in the 2022 Draft, three Gators should have heard their names called – corner Kaiir Elam, running back Dameon Pierce and defensive lineman Zachary Carter. Barring something totally unexpected, it should be one of the slimmer drafts for the Gators since 2012 when defensive end Jaye Howard and running back Chris Rainey were the only two Gators drafted. Most mock drafts have Elam going in the last third of the first round although some have him early second. Mel Kiper has Elam as the sixth best corner. Pierce is somewhat of a puzzle. Kiper rates him as the sixth best running back in the draft but it might be hard for a running back to crack the first two rounds so sometime after the third round seems likely. Carter is ranked the 8th-best defensive tackle by Kiper. Some mocks have him going on the third day, but if there is a run on offensive and defensive lineman, he could sneak into the third round. UF MEN’S TENNIS: NO. 1 GATORS WIN SEC TOURNAMENT The No. 1 (USTA ranking) Gators (23-2) made a statement in the SEC Tournament in Athens, scoring a 4-1 quarterfinal win over LSU (15-11), a 4-1 semifinal win over 9th-ranked Tennessee (22-7) and a 4-0 shutout of 8th-ranked Kentucky (21-7) in the championship match. The Gators, who went undefeated to win the SEC regular season title, have now won 18 matches in a row. Under coach Bryan Shelton, Florida won the 2021 national championship and have won three SEC regular season titles (2019, 2021-22) but this was his first SEC Tournament title. In winning the SEC title, Duarte Vale picked up his 200th career win against LSU and Josh Goodger got his 100th in the win over Kentucky. UF MEN’S GOLF: GATORS FINISH SECOND IN SEC The 12th-ranked Gators had quite the week at St. Simon’s Island in Georgia. First, they qualified for match play by finishing third through three rounds of stroke play with John DuBois winning the SEC individual championship. In match play, the Gators beat 10th-ranked Georgia 3-1-1 in the quarterfinals and then 16th-ranked Texas A&M 3-1-1 in the semifinals when DuBois birdied the 18th hole and then won his match on the 19th. Sunday, the Gators lost to 5th-ranked Vanderbilt, 3-2, in the championship match. It was the 13th time Florida has finished second in SEC championship history and the highest finish for UF since 2010. GATORS SWEPT BY VOLS, BUT MAYBE THEY’VE FOUND TWO STARTERS The bad news is the Gators (23-17, 6-12 SEC) were swept by No. 1 Tennessee (37-3, 17-1 SEC) over the weekend. The good news is that in being forced to go without ace left Hunter Barcourt, who is sidelined indefinitely with a sore elbow, Kevin O’Sullivan may have found two quality starters. Sophomore Brandon Sproat gave up a pair of home runs Saturday to absorb a 3-0 loss, but he only gave up five hits in six innings. He throws upper 90s and when he has command of the strike zone he’s extremely tough to hit. Control has been a bit of an issue as he has 22 walks and four hit batters in 50 innings. He has given up four home runs. Freshman Brandon Neely took a no-hitter into the seventh inning Sunday afternoon, departing the game after giving up only one hit (a triple) and just two walks in seven full innings. The Gators held a 4-1 lead when he left the game. It was the bullpen that blew this one, giving up three ninth inning runs to tie the score and an 11th-inning homer to win it. Florida has one of the youngest pitching staffs in the country. Getting swept at home is never pleasant, but at least O’Sullivan has found himself two quality starters. If and when Barco comes back, the Gators should have a rather strong rotation. The Gators are idle until Friday when Kentucky (22-18, 6-12 SEC) comes to Gainesville. THESE SOFTBALL STATS TELL YOU PLENTY Arkansas, which had lost 30 consecutive softball games to the Gators, did the unthinkable over the weekend. The 6th-ranked Hogs (35-8, 14-4 SEC) swept the 8th-ranked Gators (35-12, 11-10 SEC) to take a commanding lead in the Southeastern Conference regular season race over second place Alabama (39-8, 14-7 SEC). Florida dropped all the way down to seventh place, unfamiliar territory for a program that has won nine SEC titles and two NCAA championships since 2006. So what has gone wrong? Why are the Gators struggling just a year removed from a 45-11 season that included a tie for the SEC title? The answer is in these two words: free passes. Through 46 games and 316 innings this season, Florida pitchers have walked 157 batters and hit another 31. In the field, the Gators have committed 26 errors. Now compare that to the last three full seasons (2020 doesn’t count since COVID wiped out half the season) and the national championship seasons of 2014-15. 2014 (55-12, NCAA champs): Florida pitchers walked 133 batters and hit 26 in 435 innings. In the field the Gators committed 40 errors. 2015 (60-7, NCAA champs): UF pitchers walked 100 batters and hit 36 in 437-1/3 innings. The Gators committed only 33 errors. 2018 (56-11, SEC champs, WCWS): The Gators walked 114 batters and hit 20 in 426-2/3 innings. The Gators committed 27 errors. 2019 (49-18, WCWS): The Gators walked 131 batters and hit 43 in 456 innings. The Gators committed 24 errors. 2021 (45-11, SEC champs): The Gators walked 117 batters and hit 22 in 375-2/3 innings. The Gators committed 28 errors. The Gators are likely to host an NCAA regional but unless they turn things around in their final nine regular season games (final SEC series next weekend in Baton Rouge) and then do some damage at the SEC Tournament it will be next to impossible for UF to host a super regional. For the Gators to go from a team treading water into a team capable of making it to the Women’s College World Series, they have to quit shooting themselves in the foot. That means throwing strikes and making plays in the field. That’s a tall order. It’s not impossible, but improbable. It’s very rare that a team suddenly finds the strike zone when it’s been missing on a regular basis. As for the fielding, with Hannah Adams out perhaps for the rest of the season, the defense has taken a huge hit. Other UF sports: The 15th-ranked women’s tennis team saw its bid for the SEC Tournament championship come to a crashing halt with a 4-3 loss to 6th-ranked Texas A&M (29-1) in Saturday’s semifinals. The Aggies went on to beat Georgia Sunday to win the tournament title. The Gators are idle until NCAA Tournament play begins in a couple of weeks …. Senior Day was memorable for the Florida lacrosse team as the 10th-ranked Gators boinked Temple, 18-7, to win the American Athletic Conference championship. It marked the 11thstraight year the Gators have won or shared a conference lacrosse title in the 13 years UF has fielded a team. SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL Alabama: Point guard Jahvon Quinerly announced that he will be back for one more season. In two seasons at Bama he is averaging 13.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game … Wide receiver Tyler Harrell is transferring to Alabama. Last season he caught 18 passes for 523 yards and six touchdowns. At Louisville’s Pro Day in 2021, Harrell was clocked at 4.24 in the 40. Auburn: Former Auburn corner Ro Torrence has committed to Arizona State. As a juco transfer at Auburn last year, he played in 10 games with six tackles. Georgia: Running back Kenny McIntosh was arrested and charged with reckless driving and failure to wear a seat belt. He was released on $2,000 bail. Kentucky: Former Ole Miss defensive back Keidron Smith is transferring to Kentucky. In 2021 he was in on 65 tackles with two interceptions, three pass breakups and two fumble recoveries … Wide receiver Clevan Thomas is in the transfer portal. He played in 29 games with eight starts while at Kentucky. LSU: Four quarterbacks played in LSU’s spring game – Myles Brennan, Garrett Nussmeier, Arizona State transfer Hayden Daniels and freshman Walker Howard – and each one threw at least one TD pass. None of the four emerged as a clear starter. Said HBC Brian Kelly: “We didn’t clear anything up with the quarterback today. We probably made it even more difficult.” Missouri: Point guard Jarron Coleman, who averaged 8.6 points and led the team in assists, is in the portal. This will be his second transfer. He spent three seasons at Ball State, one of which was a redshirt. Ole Miss: Last year’s backup Luke Altmeyer outplayed Southern Cal transfer Jaxson Dart in the Grove Bowl game Saturday. Tennessee: Three-time All-Missouri Valley Conference guard Tyreke Key, who has averaged 14.5 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game for his career at Indiana State, is transferring to Tennessee. The 6-3 Key averaged 17.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists last season. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Divorces are never without pain, not even when they are necessary and unavoidable. In the case of college football, we have one group that shall be labeled The Haves. The other group shall be labeled The Have Nots. Before going into further detail, the simple way of looking at this is The Haves have and The Have Nots have not. Unless you were on a mission to Mars the last dozen or so years, then you know what this is all about – money. The Haves – at least those that belong to the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten – have lots of it. Those that belong to the ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12 have less of it but still a whole lot more than those that belong to The Have Nots. The Haves are known as the Power Five, which is the five conferences plus Notre Dame. The Have Nots are the Group of Five. There are 65 Haves and 65 Have Nots at present, but there will be a bit of adjusting because BYU, Houston, UCF and Cincinnati are divorcing the Have Nots to join The Haves as newly minted members of the Big 12, which will finally have 12 teams again after all these years with 10. The Big Ten still insists it’s the Big Ten even though it has 14 members. It would gladly become the Big 15 if only Notre Dame would have one of those Eureka moments and wake up, smell the coffee and join a league. There are two chances that will happen – no way and no how. For one thing, Notre Dame is contractually obligated to join the ACC if it ever decides to join a conference again (they were ACC champs during the COVID year of 2020, their only foray into conference play). Back to the divorce. This could end up in several layers. Swarbrick can see where some athletic departments will essentially be tied to a university in name only. Florida Gators Inc. if you will. Sponsored by Publix or Tropicana? Georgia Bulldogs Inc. Sponsored by Chico’s Bail Bonds? Money will do the talking. Then there will be those tied to the university with the athletic department and education all bundled up together. The Have Nots in other words. Swarbrick doesn’t see this happening soon, but when everybody’s TV deals run out. The SEC, as Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated points out, has a deal that runs with ESPN through 2034. The ACC deal runs through 2036. Fox, he points out, is about to close in on the Big Ten. So, midway through the 2030s will be the eventual divorce to end all divorces. “I think it’s inevitable,” Swarbrick points out. Another layer while waiting for the eventual split. Schools trying to hook up with the SEC and Big Ten. Do we wind up with college football’s version of the NFL with the NFC and AFC? Swarbrick says “there are so many schools trying to get out of their current conference” but he didn’t name names, obviously to protect the guilty. Final layer. The NCAA. Swarbrick nor Forde said it but the implication was clear. They’re toast. So to sum it all up: The Haves will have more. The Have Nots will continue to have not. The NCAA will be standing in front of a congressional committee, hat in hand, begging. Too late.

“This is a guy who coached with Nick Saban,” (Mike) Griffith whined sarcastically on the Finebaum show. “Well, HIRE HIM BY ALL MEANS! It comes with a kit. You go out and hire 100 coaches. And here’s how your practices are run … Just add water and Florida sunshine." UAA Graphic There’s a joke going around that Billy Napier’s statue may already be molded in clay, even though he is yet to coach a game at Florida. Will they start polishing up the bronze before the Gators have finished spring practice and tee it up for the opener vs. Utah on Sept. 3? The Great Humpty Dumpty Fall of Dan Mullen may have left Gator fans in semi-shock, but since the hiring of Napier in late December, the hopes and dreams of Florida football are on the rise and on the mend. A fresh coat of cautious optimism is emerging. Almost universally, Napier is being hailed as the perfect replacement. Is this guy too good to be true? This is the University of Florida, where high expectations go with friends in high places, despite the fact that The Swamp is a mere 152 feet above sea level. Perhaps it’ll take a minute until at least they’ve beaten Florida State again on Nov. 24 to finish 7-5 in his first season before they start on the fourth statue. You get the point: Absurd infinitum! My late friend Dan Jenkins, perhaps the greatest sportswriter to ever grace a press box, once said of Florida football back in 1990, “They have the arrogance of Alabama … and the tradition of Wake Forest.” At Florida, they always exalt their coaches -- and if expectations aren’t met, they eat them for breakfast with their Cheerios. Ironically, only Steve Spurrier, who named The Swamp, ever got out of it alive. Remember, the week before the famous 2020 “LS-Shoe Game,” Mullen appeared on the precipice of claiming a Final Four spot. I thought he had a shot. In retrospect, with the benefit of 20/20 vision about the 2020 season, the program was apparently being held together with chewing gum, baling wire and Jim McElwain’s recruits. So I felt it incumbent upon me this time to ask others for their pre-snap reads on Napier before I formulate my own. In recent days I’ve polled some of the smartest football minds in the media for their reaction. From that first day we began trying to figure out: Who is this guy? (Chris Spears photo) Let me be clear: I love the Napier hire. Everybody I’ve talked to – players, coaches, fans, writers – sees a bright future with him. And nobody – Nobody! – has found any flies on Billy Napier. But again, he’s still 0-0-0. In fact, the only person to even question the hire early on was the sometimes-acerbic Paul Finebaum. Florida beat writer/analyst Allan Taylor recalled being on Finebaum’s show earlier this year when Napier was being considered for the Florida job; the SEC Network host had some serious doubts. “Paul likes to be combative, and that makes for good TV,” Taylor told me. “And that day he said, ‘why Napier? He got passed over for the OC job at Alabama. Things didn’t work out at Clemson … so why is he the guy that’s going to save Florida football?’” Finebaum is singing a different tune these days. In my poll among key media asking for adjectives that currently best describe Napier, Finebaum texted me: “Incredibly impressed with his immaculate attention to detail. He is one of the most organized coaches I’ve encountered and believe he is off to a phenomenal beginning.” Later in the day Thursday, as a guest on the Finebaum Show, I asked Paul the reason for his changed attitude: “I think I was just being an antagonist, in all candor,” Finebaum said of the Taylor comment. “What changed my mind was getting to know him better … But I came away stunningly impressed with his organization, his meticulousness, his attention to detail…. And to me that is a stark contrast with some of the coaches we’ve seen…” One basis for Napier’s ample political capital is his swift decision-making and how quickly he addressed issues through keen organizational skills. Right away, his players responded on social media – like when linebacker Derek Wingo tweeted, “Man, I got my own parking at the stadium and good food all day long. Life is great! #GoGators” The manner in which he assembled nearly a 45-plus person staff of highly qualified people has also brought big kudos. With the funds flowing, Napier was able to lace together an extremely talented staff of 10 coaches plus another 30-35 members of a support staff. “His off-field group is even more impressive,” one national reporter told me, “and that’s not to downgrade his coaching staff, because he hired some outstanding coaches.” The result is that he’s gotten the attention of recruits that weren’t paying much mind. As Jay Markle of gatorswire.USAToday wrote: “By all accounts they’re putting on an impressive display of unity as recruits meet with the staff…” In other words, those 4- and 5-stars who previously couldn’t find Gainesville with a GPS, flashlight and a map are suddenly scheduling visits. The words I kept hearing from the A-list of media experts were flattering … “genuine” being suggested by one or more. “Meticulous,” was echoed by former Gator QB Shane Matthews and current talk show host. “Analytical …researcher …” Bill Sikes, a writer/analyst whose work often appears in Gator Breakdown, told me he believed that the level of benign neglect of overall discipline for the Mullen staff and players was inexcusable. He was among those who began criticizing the leakage of top recruits before the Great Fall of Mullen. “Methodical…” Sikes said of a Napier trait he likes. “A method to his madness. He really knows what he wants … checks all the boxes. He’s a leader, but not like an ‘Alpha’ who yells and screams,” noted Sikes. “‘Precise delegator,’” were the words of 247 Sports’ Branden Marcello. In fact, when it was presented to him that most likely Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher and Kirby Smart would dominate the SEC in future years because of their coaching, recruiting and rich resources, asked Marcello what other team might have a puncher’s chance in the next two or three years, he quickly blurted: “Florida … because of Billy Napier.” Gannett columnist David Whitley of the Gainesville Sun recently spent 30 minutes with Napier and came back impressed. Whitley offered as his description. “‘Placid,’ but in a good way. He is well-grounded and uses his faith to get firm footing – he starts his day by reading the bible.” Whitley was quick to point out that there have been highly successful coaches who were not strong in their faith, as well as “some good Christians who failed.” But he said faith plays an important role for Napier’s stabilization of the program. “Focused … Real Deal … Serene … Excellent Communicator … Understated,” were other words that surfaced from a variety of people. It was generally agreed that Napier had a strong coaching game, but he was characterized as placid and somewhat low-key in personality. David Moulton of the Miller & Moulton Show said “architect” to describe Napier’s coaching personality. “Because he’s building the program a certain way, as he did at Louisiana. And he’s doing the same thing at Florida.” Talk show host Rob Browne of Sidelines praised Napier’s attention to detail. “Mechanical engineer,“ said Browne. So all he had to do was add water and stir with sunshine? Really? (Chris Spears Photo) I mentioned how ironic it was that Napier’s very first mantra that drew a strong reaction from Gator fans, the bold mantra “Scared Money Don’t Make Money.” That he has turned out to be more like a Sunday school teacher than a river boat gambler might surprise some people – but it pleases many. Even Finebaum reversed his field, so that leaves zero dissenters on Napier. Check that: There was one. Mike Griffith of Dawg Nation (there’s a surprise!), calling Napier’s program a ripoff. Mike Griffith: The Lone Dissenter (File photo) “This is a guy who coached with Nick Saban,” Griffith whined sarcastically on the Finebaum show. “Well, HIRE HIM BY ALL MEANS! It comes with a kit. You go out and hire 100 coaches. And here’s how your practices are run … Just add water and Florida sunshine.” While he’s at it, Napier could borrow the blueprint from Kirby Smart, who used it to win the first national championship for Georgia since Herschel. Georgia. The team that Griffith now loves to chirp about. OK, that’s fair. Napier does not deny that he is emulating, “The Man In The Straw Hat,” as he refers to Saban. Not a bad program, or coach, to emulate. As Kirby found out. You might also criticize Napier for hiring so many coaches from Louisiana Lafayette, I guess, or staying behind during critical Florida recruiting time to coach his team in the conference championship post-season game. Except, you know who else did the same thing when he arrived in Gainesville from Duke? Steve Spurrier.

By KYLE CURTIS GatorBaitMedia.com Florida baseball has hit a midseason slump after dropping eight of its last twelve matchups. Amidst the woes, the Gators have their hardest challenge yet this weekend at Florida Ballpark when they host the No. 1 nationally ranked Tennessee Volunteers. Undoubtedly, the Gators have had one of the SEC’s toughest stretches in baseball you could have after playing at Vanderbilt, Georgia and hosting No. 22 Arkansas over the past three weekends. This weekend is the cherry on top as they host the hottest team in college baseball. The Volunteers boast a 34-3 record on the season in the nation’s hardest conference. Tennessee is well-rounded and polished in all aspects of the game: topnotch pitching, hitting and few self-inflicted errors. For the Gators to win a few things need to happen. Especially after news came out that ace pitcher Hunter Barco, the only bright spot from the pitching staff this year, is out indefinitely and will be re-evaluated shortly after severe elbow soreness -- a big blow for the Gators to lose their Friday starter and a premier pitcher in college baseball. Barco is projected to be a top 10 pick in the upcoming MLB draft, ranking Barco No. 7 on MLB’s latest draft board. With the news that Barco is out, it will be intriguing to see who Coach Kevin O’Sullivan will give the nod to on Friday night. Throughout the whole weekend, if the Gators want a chance to steal the series, they need to have pitchers step up. Between Nick Pogue and Brandon Sproat, there have been a few bright moments where they show potential to be that guy. To add to the pitching dilemma, the Gators need to find someone to come in from the bullpen and consistently be able to close games outside of Blake Purnell. While Purnell has been great, it would be tough for him to have extended innings three straight days. Younger guys will get opportunities to shine this weekend and be able to earn some quality innings against top-tier competition. Another key to the Gators’ chances of pulling off the upset this weekend lies on the latter part of the batting order. Jud Fabian brings his SEC-leading 16 home runs with Sterlin Thompson establishing himself as one of the nation’s best hitters. B.T. Riopelle has been on an absolute tear as well – three home runs in Game 2 vs. Vanderbilt -- all three providing spark with their bats. The question is whether Josh Rivera, Kendrick Calilao and even Deric Fabian can provide run support on the back end. Defensively, the Gators have been sharp all year in comparison to last year’s surplus of errors. Limiting errors will be another key component to the Gator’s success. One thing the Gators have going for them is their playing at Florida Ballpark, where the Gators are 42-10 over their last 52 game and have been a different team at home. A big series in Gainesville that can set the table for the post-season as the Gators look to steal the series and gain some momentum going into the final stretch of their regular season.

By LOREN MEADOWS GatorBaitMedia.com Head Track and Field Coach Mike Holloway has built a dynasty in Gainesville over 20 seasons. His most recent championship came earlier this year as the Florida Gator Women took home the 2022 Division I Indoor Championships. With that title, Coach Holloway became one of six coaches in the history of NCAA Track and Field to win at least 10 national championships. Holloway is also one of two black head coaches to win 10 team titles in any sport in NCAA Division I history. Under his guidance, Florida has won 75 individual Men’s and Women’s national titles and set 11 collegiate records -- six of which stand today. He has also coached two winners of the Bowerman Award, which is the equivalent to the Heisman Trophy in football. Of the four national sweeps in both the 110-meter Hurdles and the 400-meter Hurdles, the Gators own three of the four with only the Gators winning the 60-meter hurdles as well in 2017 (Grant Holloway). On a recent April weekend in Gainesville under the watchful eye of Holloway, the 4x400-meter relay team of Jacory Patterson, Ryan Willie, Jacob Milley and Champion Allison became the first collegiate team in history to run sub-2:59.00. The time of 2:58.53 now gives Florida the collegiate records in both the 4x400 and 4x100-meter relays both set by Holloway coached teams. Most impressive of Mike Holloway’s success at Florida may be the fact that he has maintained this level of success while working with facilities that are not on par with major schools around the country. While Percy Beard Track boast one of the faster surfaces in collegiate track and field, there is not an adequate indoor track facility to practice in or hold meets. In spite of the need for improvements Coach Holloway and the Gators women’s team were able to score 68 points and capture the Indoor National Title with three events to go. This was the second indoor title for the Gators and the first under Holloway. Two women who played major roles in the Gators run (and jump) to the national title are Jasmine Moore and Claire Bryant. Once high school rivals back in Texas, these two women now make their strides and jumps together as two of the most exciting jumpers in the country. Moore, a sophomore long jumper/triple jumper from Grand Prairie, Texas, transferred to Florida from Georgia in 2021. She is the reigning Indoor national champion in both the long jump and triple jump where she set Florida school records of 22 feet 1.75 inches and 47 feet 9.75 inches. These feats also garnered her the honor 2022 SEC Indoor Women’s Athlete of the Year. Jasmine was also a 2020 Olympian in the Triple Jump finishing 12th representing the United States. Bryant is a sophomore long jumper/high jumper from Houston, Texas. She is second in Gator history in the indoor long jump at 21 feet 11.75 inches and 5th all-time in the high jump at 5 feet 11.5 inches. Bryant finished 3rd in the Long Jump and 5th in the High Jump at the 2022 SEC Championships. She would follow that finish with a 7th place finish in the 2022 National Championships to aid the Gators in winning the national title while garnering All-American honors. [Both women spoke glowingly about coach Coach Holloway. “It’s great having Coach Holloway as your Head Coach,” said Moore. “If you ever need anything he’s the person to go to and he will fight for you.” “All around he’s just a great person,” Bryant added. “He is a very intense person, but he knows how to get us focused at a meet.” When asked about her transfer and time at Florida, Moore stated, “The athletic transition to [Florida] was pretty smooth, I mixed in well with the team.” She added, “Academically it was a bit of challenge at first but so far so good. When asked about her time at Florida, Bryant stated, “Early on with COVID it was hard to get involved in everything that Florida has to offer.” In 2022, Bryant suggests that “this team has meshed well together, is a lot more cohesive” and is quick to give Moore and (fellow jumper) Natricia Hooper credit for pushing one another and building team chemistry. Both athletes admit that they did not know one another very well prior to coming to Florida due to their prep rivalry and success in high school. Now both in Gainesville, they have developed an admiration and even at times a dependency of one another. Claire describes Jasmine as “very intense on the track someone who won’t let anyone get in the way of her being her best self. “Jasmine is always willing to go one more rep, and that’s helped my training,” she said. Jasmine’s intensity is offset by Claire’s “lighthearted” down-to-earth nature. While encouraging Jasmine to have fun, she knows “Claire is always pushing me and I can never slack off and having the competition in practice is exciting.” The mutual admiration for one another is what helps the Gators go. However, the two athletes shared their admiration for other sports as well. When asked if they could compete in another sport outside of track, Jasmine expressed the desire to play for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. “I love everything about them, everything they stand for. More eccentric of the duo, Claire desires to try fencing as a second sport. “I had friends that participated, but I never got to do it because of track,” she said. Bryant would even encourage her friends to “parry” her because she thought it was so much fun. The friendship that has developed between the two has also created evidence of a swagger that shows these two are at the top of their game. So much swagger that they both suggested what their “walk out” or “pre-jump” music would be if given the option. “Let It All Work Out by Lil Wayne,” said Jasmine, drawing encouragement from one of hip-hop’s giants. “Midnight Sky by M83” stated Claire, even humming the melody as she described the song. The ability to keep things light goes a long way during the grind of a collegiate track season. It is evident that Mike “Mouse” Holloway has built a pantheon of track excellence that is unrivaled. In an athletic program and region where football reigns supreme the “Ol’ Track Coach” has silently cemented a 20-year legacy that could continue to lend some female hardware to an already stuffed men’s trophy case. While track usually reigns supreme for one week every four years, the Gator Men and Women should be able to keep your attention until then.

"After I found out a different piece he added to his staff, I prayed about it,” said Trey. “I know a lot of people say I shouldn’t have come back even though a lot of people don’t have the chance to go to the NFL. But what coach Napier is bringing to the University of Florida, it’s going to be special.” By BUDDY MARTIN GatorBaitMedia.com Editor Ever since he was a small boy, while traveling south to Orlando, Trey Dean felt the I-75 Gainesville exit calling him. “I want to go to The Swamp,” he would cry to his parents, Kai and Thad Dean, as they passed through Alachua County. Sometimes they would stop and visit Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. And eventually one day he would play for the Gators, indeed — except it took a minute. One thing Trey would learn in a hurry was how quickly, and frequently, change could come. Yet there was no way he could have foreseen that he’d be committing to play for one coach (Jim McElwain) and then staying around long enough to play for two others. Never mind the cataclysmic events like NIL and the Transfer Portal. A long time ago. But Florida was Trey’s “Dream School” and he showed up for his date with destiny. Before he got there, McElwain was gone but as his mom Kai said, “If it wasn’t for God putting people in his life, there’s no way he could have done it.” He was influenced by his Gator cousins Ahmad Black and Houston Harrison. (Also his distant cousin was Crimson Tide star Amari Cooper ). Tennessee won his affections early and he gave a verbal to Butch Jones. That was 2017 when Trump was sworn in as president; hurricanes ravaged Florida, Texas and the Caribbean and Gator football took a downturn after an ugly 4-7 campaign, setting the table for Dan Mullen. Meanwhile Dean was about to become a chess piece in the secondary, moving into three different positions in four seasons — corner, STAR and now safety, which is exactly where Nick Saban had predicted he’d wind up playing if he went to Florida. In between, having graduated in December, there was the option of the Transfer Portal as a grad transfer since he’d achieved his goal to earn his UF degree. Now what? Trey thus became a "Super Senior," choosing to add on his extra Covid year. Even though he was invited to take advantage of the NFL Combine, he chose not to, but used the evaluation information to possibly improve his odds of getting drafted. As a result, playing safety, he now adds significant punch on the back end for Patrick Toney. "After I found out a different piece he added to his staff, I prayed about it,” said Trey. “I know a lot of people say I shouldn’t have come back even though a lot of people don’t have the chance to go to the NFL. But what coach Napier is bringing to the University of Florida, it’s going to be special.” Now for the unfinished business: First of all, he said, "I really prayed on it. God blessed me with a great athletic director, Scott Stricklin, to hire Coach Napier. And Coach Napier hired a lot of great assistants, like Patrick Toney, in addition to Corey Raymond. That made my decision. If I had it to do over again I would do it." "I knew coach Napier was going to hire the right staff and the right people around me to help me become a better person," Trey said about returning, also mentioning that he had confidence that athletic director Scott Stricklin would make the right hire after letting Dan Mullen go. So Part 2 of the Trey Dean Journey was jump-started. In the process, says Kai, Gator Collective has “really helped Trey develop a true brand package that is uniquely Trey.” And now it is up to her son to exercise those principles. “They have done an amazing job of filling the gaps where the players really are. In totality it’s definitely my son.” For Kai it’s not so much the money that the NIL brings, but “the guidance.” As it sits now, Trey Dean is showing up to play for Napier — Kai said there was a level of trust with the new coach — capping off a career that will likely be NFL worthy. For the Dean family it has been a journey of faith, but not without challenges. She and Thad raised her son in a Christian home and it has greatly influenced his decisions. “It doesn’t prohibit them from going through their own individual trials,” said Kai, who said she and her husband raised Trey in an atmosphere of faith. “Trey has seen God put people in his life to work on his behalf when he didn’t even know they were there.” Now that he's a grown man, Kai says she has realized she has to let Trey run his own life. “I can tell you,” Kai said of the past year or uncertainty, “that during this experience, our son has really grown as a man. I had to really step back and allow him to lead. Because we’re not the same people and he’s not the same player who came to Florida four years ago. There’s been a lot of growing and a lot of stuff has happened from a personal perspective and player development.” After a parents meeting with the coaches, Kai was asked for her reaction, to which she responded: Q: What is your initial impression of the new defensive coordinator, and Trey's position coach, Patrick Toney? A: Initial change is very difficult for most people. In the game of college football, the unknown from change can be frightening and uncertain. We have researched and been informed about Coach Toney’s strengths and proven coaching intelligence. During our individual position coach meeting on Saturday, I was very impressed with Coach Toney’s eye for detail and execution plan. As a family we are looking forward to seeing the influence of Coach Toney’s knowledge on our Trey, the secondary, and entire defense. As Coach Toney and Coach (Corey) Raymond work cohesively together in building a powerful competitive secondary, I believe DBU will arise again. Q: Do you see, feel, or does your son talk about any differences here in the first two months under Napier? A: Thus far Coach Napier’s word has been followed with resolution and delivery. He shared with us, that he was going to build an infrastructure of subject manner experts, professional coaches, and staff that will cultivate a highly productive program that produces highly competitive college football players. He’s shown to be a very organized person with attention to the details of intentional planning and operating cohesively on the same page. Mountains can be moved and games can be won when all parties are working on the same vision, mission and goal. Looking forward to seeing the results from spring practice and beyond. Trey says a bond is building between the DBs. The confidence of he and Rashad Torrence at safety, Jaydon Hill and Jason Marshall Jr. at corner is growing and they're developing an attitude of "We're coming for you LSU, and we're the new DBU." (My words, not theirs.) So how will Trey Dean be different? "I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity I have," he said," and really wear my colors with pride. Every time I step on the field it's going to be a blessing. I'm going to be the man God wants me to be. I'm gonna make plays -- a lot of them." Trey feels the coaches will put he and his teammates in the "right position to make plays" and assures the interviewer "at the University of Florida it's not a 'talent problem.'" He feels the coaches can teach him and his teammates how to be in position to make plays before the snap. No talent problem. Getting coached up on technique. "And now you've got a monster!" Sounds like Billy Napier is off to a good start in the attitude department, huh? I'm starting to smell confidence.

“We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better, than he was. Better, stronger, faster.” – Oscar Goldman, from the “Six Million Dollar Man” The patient in this case is not astronaut Steve Austin but the football program at the University of Florida and the rebuild is not going to cost $6 million but $7.4 million. Per year. Chalk it up to inflation since the last guy in charge of a rebuild was making $6 million when he was summarily dismissed back last November. Billy Napier has the technology, and he has the people in place to do a rebuild. Make Florida football better, stronger and faster than it was. That’s the job and he seems to be the right guy to do a rebuild. Napier has a plan with everything outlined, detailed and in triplicate. On the surface, at least, everything about him screams at you that if anyone can rebuild Florida football from the ground up – this time in a way that success can be sustained and championships can be won again – that he is the right guy at the right time and at the right place to do it. Napier is the fourth Florida football coach since 2010. The first one – Will Muschamp – made the mistake of being the guy that follows a coaching legend. Will was all about defense and it showed with the assistant hires he made on that side of the ball. He put together PhD program defenses, Sesame Street offenses, so he didn’t make it. Jim McElwain made it to Atlanta two years with the NFL defense Muschamp left behind. When Muschamp’s guys left to play for the No Fun League the balloon burst and then Mac took the knife to his own program and lied his way out of a job. Dan Mullen had the offense that Muschamp and Mac never had. If he had been fortunate enough to have one of those Muschamp defenses he might still be coaching at UF, but he didn’t. Somewhere along the way, Mullen’s enthusiasm for the Florida job checked out and the offense went AWOL along with a defense that was too often a no show. Mullen was fired after losing to Missouri in Florida’s final SEC game, becoming the third straight coach to crash and burn on a job that some critics say “chews you up and spits you out.” The search for a new coach didn’t last long. Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin had been preparing for this eventuality since December of 2020 when Mullen flirted with the NFL and basically let it be known that if the right coach with the right job offered, he was all ears. Stricklin began making a list and checking it twice. One by one vetted candidates wound up like lost balls in the tall grass. The one that stood out was Lousiana’s Billy Napier, owner of three consecutive seasons with 10-plus wins, each one better than the last. At Louisiana, Napier didn’t wake up on third and think he had hit a triple. He took over a program that was spinning its wheels and going nowhere. So, he basically gutted the program, turned his assistants and recruiting analysts loose in the state of Louisiana in search of those diamonds in the rough that had been overlooked by the power programs that regularly raid the state. It was obvious to Stricklin that this was a guy with a comprehensive plan, the relentless recruiting dynamic and the willingness to roll up his sleeves to do a rebuild. It helped that Napier has the right pedigree – he’s a sturdy branch on the coaching trees of both Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban – and nary a blemish on his character. “Squeaky clean” is how Stricklin described Napier when discussing the hiring process one Sunday afternoon in January while he was watching Kelly Rae Finley’s Gator women’s basketball team score another win over a highly ranked opponent. “Everyone we asked came back with the same thing,” Stricklin said. “You start thinking this is too good to be true, but there wasn’t a single negative. Not even one.” Which is why Stricklin flew to Lafayette, Louisiana to see if Napier passed the eyeball test once Florida’s regular season ended with a win over arch-rival FSU. As impressive as Napier was on paper and in the reports that flooded Stricklin’s desk, he was more impressive in person and so the football answer to The Property Brothers was brought to Gainesville to take the structure that’s already in place, gut it and make the fixer-upper better than what it was before. Here is what has happened in the months since Napier was introduced to the Florida media back on December 5. He’s signed a good – not great but good – early signing class that included huge surprises Kamari Wilson, Devin Moore, Shemar James and Chris McClellan. He brought in five transfers from the portal including right guard O’Cyrus Torrence and running back Montrell Johnson, both from Louisiana and both projected to start in the fall. Next he went about adding more signees for the February class including running back Trevor Etienne, younger brother of former Clemson All-American Travis Etienne and edge rusher Jack Pyburn. The Gators have gone through the Identity Program phase, which is a polite way of saying mat drills where players are pushed to their limits to toughen them up and get them ready for spring practice early on February mornings. That was followed by spring practice and the Orange and Blue Game, both of which Napier has deemed a success. What all of that has done is prepare Napier for the next phase of the roster rebuild. After all, this is what college football is all about. The teams with the best roster are the teams that win championships. That’s where Florida fell way behind in the last few years. During the Muschamp years and the first two years of McElwain, the Gators had defenses that could compete with anyone. During the first three Mullen years, the Gators could score points on just about anyone. Unfortunately, there was never a time when you could look at the Florida roster and say it’s complete on both sides of the ball. We’ve gone through years of incomplete, inadequate rosters and that is why Florida went from the program that won more games from 1990-2010 (210) than any team in the country to 32nd in the country (87 wins) in the years since. Following the Orange and Blue Game, Napier said, “We worked our way through Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3 and now we get to regroup and access where we’re at. Our players will get ready to move into what we call ‘reload period,’ or ‘discretionary period.’ We’ll have exit meetings. We’ll talk about strengths and weaknesses, things to work on, and there will be a very specific plan for our team to improve.” What that means is the fun and games are over. Four months on the job and Billy Napier knows who’s going to cut it and who isn’t. Exit meetings for some are painful since they’ll be hearing words they really don’t wish to hear – “Son, if you choose to stay here at Florida there is zero chance you will ever see the field except in mop-up duty, if then, and you’ll spend your practices on the meat squad where you’ll get beat up every day by the guys who play.” For others, the exit meetings are a mere formality since they’ve already determined their future will be at St. Somewhere Else, wearing another uniform and playing for a new coach. So for the next couple of weeks and probably well into May, attrition and Florida football will be synonymous. “We need players,” Napier said after a few practices in the spring, pointing out that he had been forced to commandeer Dante Zanders and Griffin McDowell from the defensive line and Noah Keeter from linebacker just to have enough tight ends to practice due to injuries at the position. Zanders and Keeter performed so well the rest of the spring and during the Orange and Blue Game that they figure to be fixtures at the position in the fall. Keeter is a former scholarship linebacker at UCLA and a Gainesville native who walked on after returning home. Zanders, Keeter and McDowell leaving one position to patchwork another, however, is a sure sign that recruiting by the previous staff left holes in the roster that Napier is going to have to fill in the transfer portal. There are 87 scholarship players currently on the Florida roster. Napier stated during a spring practice press conference that he’s going to be giving out five scholarships to walk-ons. That’s 92 on scholarship and the NCAA limit is 85. This is before any transfers are added to the roster. “Now, I think the approach is going to be, you know, acquire as many good players as we can at any position, right?” Napier said. “So, you know, we're thin and we need help in a lot of different spots. So, I think we have, we're approaching double digits if that makes sense.” Double digits means at least 10 so for the Gators to sign 10 transfers when they’re already seven over the limit with the walk-on scholarships, that means 17 on the current roster will have to leave, either by their own volition or nudged out the door by the cold hard reality that they have no hope whatsoever of seeing the playing field. Nineteen sounds like a lot and it is, but Billy Napier was not brought here to do a gradual restructuring of the roster. If you simply go by the players he has on hand, the roster is inadequate. Sure, with the personnel he has right now the Gators could quite possibly earn a trip to a garden spot like Shreveport for a bowl game where if you lose you’re required to stay an extra week, but that isn’t going to cut it. Napier wasn’t given a 7-year, $7.4 million contract to go to the Weedwacker or Cheez-It bowls. He was hired to elbow the Gators back into the mix for Southeastern Conference championships which means making tough personnel decisions. “Certainly the transfer portal is a part of college football now, and certainly a lot different dynamic because they can go play immediately,” Napier said. “I think you're going to see this is just part of the game now, and certainly what we need to do is build a really good culture here where players want to be as part of our organization and play for the University of Florida, and hopefully we don't have to deal with those issues unless we're wanting to deal with them. “But in the meantime, there's going to be some attrition. I think that's reality … That creates opportunity, and we'll go to work. It's another way to acquire a player much like NFL free agency. The problem is we don't have a salary cap and we don't have schedule parity, so it's a little bit different dynamic.” Napier has the perfect model for a roster rebuild in his good friend and former coaching colleague at Alabama Mel Tucker. All he did was gut his Michigan State roster the 2020 season, bring in 21 guns for hire from the transfer portal and win 11 games. With rules in place that have essentially given players free agency, a coach can load up on mercenaries who are looking for a new place to play after saying adios to the program that recruited them in the first place. So expect Billy Napier to follow the Michigan State model by bringing in players who can either start or at least be rotational players who see the field early and often. The roster you see today probably won't bear any resemblance to the one you'll see in the fall. So where does Florida need help in this roster rebuild? Here is a position by position look at the scholarship players on the roster as it stands on April 21, 2022: QUARTERBACKS (4) Anthony Richardson (6-4, 235, SO); Jack Miller III (6-4, 210, SO/Transfer from Ohio State); Jalen Kitna (6-4, 210, RFR); Max Brown (6-2, 200, FR) The situation: Emory Jones and Carlos Del Rio-Wilson are in the portal. If anyone else goes, then expect the Gators to add one from the portal. RUNNING BACKS (5) NayQuan Wright (5-9, 196, JR); Lorenzo Lingard (6-0, 203, RJR); Demarkcus Bowman (5-10, 193, SO); Montrell Johnson (5-11, 210, SO/Transfer from Louisiana); Trevor Etienne (5-9, 217, FR) The situation: This is one of the stronger positions on the team and maybe one of the better units in the SEC. WIDE RECEIVERS (10) Justin Shorter (6-5, 228, SR); Trent Whittemore (6-4, 211, RSO); Ja’Markis Weston (6-3, 215, RSO); Xzavier Henderson (6-3, 195, SO); Ja’Quavion Fraziars (6-3, 220, SO); Fenley Graham Jr. (5-9, 171, SO); Marcus Burke (6-4, 187, RFR); Daejon Reynolds (6-2, 205, RFR); Caleb Douglas (6-3, 191, FR); Arlis Boardingham (6-4, 225, FR) The situation: This is a young group with only one senior. Expect one or two with stretch the field speed will be added from the portal. That could lead to one or two departing. TIGHT ENDS (7) Dante Zanders (6-5, 261, RJR); Griffin McDowell (6-4, 283, RJR); Keon Zipperer (6-3, 234, JR); Jonathan Odom (6-5, 240, RFR); Nick Elksnis (6-6, 243, RFR); Tony Livingston (6-5, 225, FR); Hayden Hansen (6-6, 256, FR) The situation: Attrition expected here. There were too few due to injuries in the spring, and too many once everyone is healthy. At the most six tight ends will be on the roster, but more than likely five. Expect Noah Keeter (6-5, 220, RSO) to be on scholarship soon. OFFENSIVE LINEMEN (16) Richard Gouraige (6-5, 310, RJR); O’Cyrus Torrence (6-5, 335, JR/Transfer from Louisiana); Ethan White (6-5, 334, JR); Kingsley Eguakun (6-4, 305, RSO); Josh Braun (6-6, 357, SO); Michael Tarquin (6-5, 301, RSO); Riley Simonds (6-3, 301, RSO); Will Harrod (6-5, 333, RSO); Richie Leonard (6-2, 315, SO); Austin Barber (6-6, 311, RFR); Yousef Mugharbil (6-4, 311, RFR); Jake Slaughter (6-5, 302, RFR); Kamryn Waites (6-8, 358, RFR/Transfer from Louisiana); David Conner (6-5, 295, FR); Christian Williams (6-4, 319, FR); Jalen Farmer (6-5, 334, FR) The situation: This is a position of need and also a position where at least two or three could transfer out. There are six very good linemen, seven based on experience. Napier needs nine or ten with experience. Expect two or three from the portal. Expect walk-ons Kaleb Boateng (6-4, 287, RJR) and Mark Pitts (6-6, 322, So) to be awarded scholarships. DEFENSIVE LINEMEN (12) Gervon Dexter (6-6, 303, SO); Princely Umanmeielen (6-4, 259, SO); Jaelin Humphries (6-3, 328, RSO); Desmond Watson (6-5, 415, SO); Jalen Lee (6-2, 305, SO); Justus Boone (6-4, 245, RFR); Chris Thomas Jr. (6-5, 309, RFR); Tyreak Sapp (6-2, 264, RFR); Chris McClellan (6-3, 305, FR); Jamari Lyons (6-4, 298, FR); Jack Pyburn (6-3, 263, FR); Andrew Savaiinaea (6-3, 261, FR) The situation: This is another need position as well as a position where it wouldn’t be a shock to see three leaving. The Gators are good on the outside, but help needed at tackle. LINEBACKERS/EDGE (11) Ventrell Miller (6-1, 228, SR); Amari Burney (6-2, 236, SR); Brenton Cox Jr. (6-4, 253, RJR); David Reese (6-2, 236, RJR); Diwun Black (6-3, 221, JR); Lloyd Summerall III (6-5, 236, RSO); Derek Wingo (6-1, 225, SO); Antwaun Powell-Ryland Jr. (6-2, 245, SO); Chief Borders (6-4, 241, RFR); Scooby Williams (6-2, 232, RFR); Shemar James (6-1, 210, FR) The situation: Based on what we saw in the spring, this is a position of strength. Still, there are at least one or two who wouldn’t shock the world by transferring out. If there is an edge rusher of repute who wants to be a Gator, he will be welcomed. SECONDARY (18) Trey Dean III (6-3, 201, RSR); Jadarrius Perkins (6-1, 185, JR); Jaydon Hill (6-0, 193, RSO); Jalen Kimber (6-0, 170, RFR/Transfer from Georgia); Avery Helm (6-1, 174, SO); Jason Marshall Jr. (6-0, 192, SO); Rashad Torrence II (6-0, 197, SO); Tre’Vez Johnson (5-11, 192, SO); Kamar Wilcoxson (6-1, 183, SO); Donovan McMillon (6-1, 197, SO); Mordecai McDaniel (6-1, 194, SO); Ethan Pouncey (6-1, 166, SO); Jordan Young (6-0, 188, RFR); Corey Collier Jr. (6-1, 179, RFR); Dakota Mitchell (5-11, 171, RFR); Kamari Wilson (6-0, 201, FR); Devin Moore (6-3, 190, FR); Miguel Mitchell (6-1, 205, FR) The situation: Despite so many young guys, it’s a position of depth and experience. If another safety or another corner with experience and speed were to be available, Napier would probably take him. Expect at least three to be leaving. SPECIAL TEAMS (4) Long snappers (2): Marco Ortiz (6-4, 235, RJR); Rocco Underwood (6-3, 227, RFR) Punter (1): Jeremy Crawshaw (6-4, 188, SO) Kicker (1): Trey Smack (6-1, 200) The situation: It would be a surprise if anyone leaves or is added.

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning: BILLY NAPIER: TAKE THAT PAUL FINEBAUM! In the humble (maybe) opinion of Paul Finebaum, Florida fans need to brace themselves for a long, difficult 2022. On the Birmingham radio show “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” Finebaum said Monday, “I think fans better beware that this is not going to be a great team. I never in my life thought saying that getting to a decent bowl game would be considered a success at Florida. That’s blasphemous. But I think that’s about it because they’ve got a difficult schedule. You really can’t find a more treacherous beginning than they have. And I think they’ll be struggling.” In so many words Tuesday night in Tampa, Florida coach Billy Napier told a Gator Club meeting that Paul Finebaum can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. “I could [not] care less what Paul Finebaum says,” Napier told the crowd. “We’ve got a group of great individuals here. We have some positions where we gotta hope they stay healthy. We need to be aggressive in the transfer portal. We got a group of good ones.” Finebaum might turn out to be prophetic. Might. It’s also possible that in the next few weeks Billy Napier is going to reshape Florida’s roster through the portal much the same way his buddy Mel Tucker did at Michigan State last year. Tucker and the Spartans were picked to be among the bottom feeders of the Big Ten, but 21 transfers later they challenged for the Big Ten title and made a New Year’s Six bowl game. What Napier does in the portal is going to go a long, long way toward determining how well the Gators play in the fall. Right now, too soon to tell. WITH THE NO. 1 VOLS COMING TO TOWN, BAD NEWS FOR THE GATORS The very last thing the Gators (23-14, 6-9 SEC) need with the No. 1 Tennessee Vols (34-3, 14-1 SEC) coming to town is for Hunter Barco to be sidelined with an elbow issue that will keep him out indefinitely. Barco (5-2, 2.50 ERA) is a surefire first round choice when Major League Baseball drafts this summer. He’s also the only consistent starting pitcher the Gators have had all season. With him on the mound, you figure the Gators have a very good chance to win at least the first game of every SEC series. Without him? Matters look bleak for Kevin O’Sullivan. Where will he find the starting pitcher to compensate for the loss of Barco? The Gators are one of the youngest teams in all of collegiate baseball and Barco is the only starting pitcher with experience, which shows in a team ERA of 4.54. Only once in O’Sullivan’s tenure as the Florida baseball coach have the Gators posted a higher team ERA. Sophomore Brandon Sproat (4-3, 4.91 ERA; 6-4 career, 5.15 ERA) likely takes over as the Friday night starter. His best outing this season was a 5-2/3-inning stint against then No. 2 Arkansas in which he gave up seven hits and just one run while striking out eight. The likely No. 2 will be freshman Brandon Neely (1-0, 4.30 ERA), who threw an impressive six innings in Florida’s only win of the Vanderbilt series, when he gave up three hits, one run and struck out seven in 6-1/3 innings. The third starter could turn out to be Ryan Slater (2-1, 3.52 ERA), who has had a couple of strong relief appearances lately. He has gone five innings twice this year, giving up one hit and no runs against Jacksonville and five hits and two runs against Alabama. Both those appearances were in relief. The problem with moving Slater into the weekend rotation is that he’s Florida’s best middle reliever. In Tennessee, the Gators are facing a team that not only ranks No. 1 in the polls, but also dominates the SEC in most statistical categories. The Vols lead the SEC in batting average (.317), runs scored (359, 59 more than any other team), home runs (88, 17 more than second place Florida), pitching (2.09 ERA, nearly 1 run lower than second place Arkansas) and strikeouts (427 in 331 innings). The Vols would have been highly favored to win this series even if Barco were healthy. Without him, some pitchers are going to have to grow up in a hurry for the Gators to have a punchers’ chance. SEC SOFTBALL: GATORS BLANK SOUTH FLORIDA, 1-0 Speed kills. Just ask the South Florida Bulls who saw their hopes of springing an upset of the 8th-ranked Gators about Skylar Wallace and Kendra Falby. All Wallace did in the bottom of the sixth inning Wednesday night at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium was prove you don’t need a base hit to score a run, and in this case, the game winner. Falby used her speed in left field to make a sliding catch of a foul ball for the game’s final out with two USF runners in scoring position. With two out in the sixth, Wallace stole second, breaking the school single season record along the way. When Josie Foreman’s late throw dribbled into center field, Wallace was on her feet racing to third where Tim Walton waved her home. Wallace slid in just ahead of the throw for the game’s only run as the Gators scored a 1-0 win over the Bulls of the American Athletic Conference. It took speed to win this one because South Florida’s Georgina Corrick (27-5) was brilliant. She gave up a second inning single to Cheyenne Lindsey, but otherwise was untouchable, finishing the game with seven strikeouts and three walks. Elizabeth Hightower (12-3, 2.41 ERA) was every bit as impressive as Corrick. Hightower gave up three hits, walked two and struck out six. In the seventh, she wiggled her way out of a second and third, two-out jam by inducing Dezarae Maldonado to hit that seventh inning liner to left that Falby ran down to save the game. The Gators (35-9, 11-7 SEC) will be home this weekend when sixth-ranked and league-leading Arkansas (32-8, 11-4) pays a visit to KSP for the biggest weekend series in the SEC. SEC GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS: UF FIFTH AFTER FIRST ROUND After one day at the SEC Golf Championships at the Sea Island Golf Club in Georgia, the 16th-ranked Gators find themselves tied for fifth with Missouri, nine shots behind 3rd-ranked Vanderbilt, which came in at 7-under par Wednesday. In second is 12th-ranked Georgia (-4), followed by LSU (-3) and 19th-ranked Texas A&M (-1). Yuxin Lin shot an opening round 68 (-2), which is good for a tie for 8th. Ricky Castillo and Fred Biondi both shot 1-over 71s. They’re in a 14-player logjam for 20th place. SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL Alabama: Wide receiver Argiye Hall, only two weeks removed from the Alabama program, has committed to Texas … Fifth-year defensive lineman Stephon Wynn, who played in seven games and had five tackles last season, is in the transfer portal. Arkansas: The Hogs are making a run at Memphis transfer Emoni Bates, who just a year ago before he skilled his senior season in high school, was considered a generational talent. Georgia: Walk-on defensive back Jehlen Cannady, who was with the second unit defense during Georgia’s G-Day, is in the transfer portal Kentucky: National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe is returning to Kentucky for one more season. Tshiebwe averaged 17.4 points and led the nation with 15.2 rebounds per game. Projected as a late first/early second NBA Draft choice, Tshiebwe would take a pay cut to go pro when compared to what he will make NIL from Kentucky. LSU: Coach O, discussing on 1010XL what the expectations should be for Brian Kelly as the LSU HBC: “I don’t know that it’s fair, but [national title] is eh expectation. Great players, great support. You should be able to win a national championship in three years.” Ole Miss: Last year’s leading scorer Jarkel Joyner (6-1, 180) is transferring to North Carolina State while guard Luis Rodriguez (6-6, 210) is transferring to UNLV and guard Grant Slatten (6-5, 195) is transferring to Tennessee Tech. Joyner averaged 13.2 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game while Rodriguez averaged 6.6 points and 5.5 rebounds. Slatten played in six games and averaged 2.5 points. South Carolina: Former 4-star wide receiver Rico Powers, a 2020 recruit, is in the transfer portal. He caught two passes for 12 yards in 2021. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Villanova basketball coach Jay Wright is going to retire and that troubles me. Enormously. He is one of the classiest coaches ever to grace a college sideline and he’s proven you can win big without cheating and without loading up your roster every year with one-and-done types. More important, he proved that you can win and win big with guys who actually go to class and graduate. His graduation rate: 100 percent. Let me repeat that. 100 percent. I’ve long felt that Jay Wright embodies everything that college sports should be about. Although he hasn’t said why he’s getting out at age 60 with a 520-197 career record at Villanova (642-282 if you add in his record at Hofstra), two national championships, four Final Fours, eight Big East regular season championship and five Big East Tournament titles, I suspect it has something to do with all this NIL money that is about to make it so that the only teams that will win national championships in the future are the ones that can buy the most talent and a transfer portal that is totally out of control. I think Jay Wright knows all too well that it is actually way too late to reel things in. As they say, you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube and when it comes to college sports – particularly football and basketball – the toothpaste is out of the tube to stay. We’re only fooling ourselves if we think there are practical solutions. There were some to be had, but that was BEFORE the NCAA decided to do its best Pontius Pilate routine by giving the mob what it wanted and then washing its hands. We are certifiably nuts if we think the United States Congress is going to get involved and do anything close to reasonably intelligent. Half those people can’t remember to unzip before they pee, so why should we think they can fix college sports? Now, please understand that I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing for players to get some sort of compensation from universities that make millions off their particular skills, just as I don’t blame the kids who play the games for wanting the freedom to go someplace else when they discover a particular coach or school isn’t all that it was cracked up to be when they were recruited. I also don’t blame them for believing that if a school can pay its head coach 10 or 20 times more than we pay the president of the United States then the school can afford to give them a small slice of the pie. The problem isn’t the kids, it’s the people who run the NCAA, the college presidents and administrators who swept all this stuff under the rug for more than 20 years rather than deal with the issues in an intelligent, responsible way. Now we have kids who are getting millions even before they’ve ever played a college game and they’re telling the coaches that recruit them what they’re asking price is. The portal? It’s estimated that more than 2,000 scholarship football and basketball players will not have a scholarship next year because they weren’t recruited or offered when they were in the portal. College sports will survive NIL and the transfer portal, although we won’t recognize them four or five years into the future. I suspect that’s exactly what Jay Wright was thinking today when he said sayonara to college basketball.

A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning: GET READY FOR A REVOLVING DOOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS Redshirt freshman quarterback Carlos Del Rio-Wilson put his name in the NCAA transfer portal Tuesday. He is the first to announce he’s leaving since last week’s spring game, but he definitely won’t be the last as Billy Napier expects to bring in 10 or more players from the portal. “You can anticipate us being very aggressive in the portal this spring,” Napier said back on March 31. “We need players. Now, I think the approach is going to be, you know, acquire as many good players as we can at any position, right? So, you know, we're thin and we need help in a lot of different spots. So, I think we have, we're approaching double digits if that makes sense.” For the Gators to bring in 10 or more transfers plus put give scholarships walk-ons – “I mean, we're literally going to give five walk-ons scholarships this spring,” Napier said on March 31 – it means there will be some serious attrition. Counting super seniors back for their COVID year plus the signees who have yet to arrive on campus and the Gators have approximately 90 players on scholarship. So add in the five walk-ons and that could mean 95, 10 more than the NCAA limit of 85. Figure then 10 current Gators will have to exit the team just to get to 85, but that’s when the situation gets tricky. If there are no transfers, then Napier is at the limit, but if he wants to bring in 10 or more, then for every transfer he signs, the Gators will have to lose one to the portal, retirement or disciplinary actions. As the May 1 deadline approaches for players to be in the portal so they can have eligibility in the fall, it will seem like a revolving door as Florida’s roster rebuild enters the next phase. JUD FABIAN’S HOME ENSURES 10-8 WIN OVER STETSON Jud Fabian hit his 16th homer of the season, a 2-run shot to left field with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning to give the Gators the cushion they would need to take a 10-8 win over Stetson at the Florida Ballpark Tuesday night. The Gators led, 8-7, when Fabian launched Florida’s third home run of the game to give the Gators a three-run cushion, rather helpful considering the visiting Hatters added a run in the top of the ninth. The big inning for the Gators was the bottom of the fourth when they struck for five runs to take a 7-5 lead. Josh Rivera hit a solo homer to lead off the inning, Sterlin Thompson had a run-scoring single, and Wyatt Langford drove in three with his 13th homer of the season. Langford added a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth to give the Gators an 8-5 lead. The Florida bullpen had a shaky seventh when Stetson rallied for two runs to close the gap to 8-7. Kevin O’Sullivan had to use three pitchers in the inning to snuff out the rally and preserve the lead. All told, O’Sullivan used seven pitchers on the night. Nick Ficarrotta (2-0, 4.28 ERA), who gave up a couple of runs in three innings after relieving starter Karl Hartman, picked up the win while Blake Purnell (1.62 ERA), who gave up Stetson’s ninth inning run, picked up his fourth save. Next up for the Gators (23-14, 6-9 SEC) is No. 1 Tennessee (34-3, 14-1 SEC), a 9-3 winner over Bellarmine Tuesday night. UF SOFTBALL: GATORS EXPECT TO FACE USF ACE TONIGHT When the 10th-ranked Gators face South Florida (35-11) of the American Athletic Conference tonight (6 p.m., SEC Network+) at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium, it’s expected they’ll be going against ace Georgina Corrick, who owns an 0.48 earned run average. She’s thrown 25 shutouts this season while striking out 315 in 204 innings. The challenge of getting on base and scoring against Corrick will be good preparation for the Gators (34-9, 11-7 SEC), who host 6th-ranked Arkansas (32-8, 11-4 SEC) in a critical Southeastern Conference series beginning Friday. The Gators own a 12-0 win over South Florida from the first weekend of the season, but Corrick didn’t pitch that game. While Corrick has been mowing down the hitters since that first weekend, the Gators have put together one of their better offenses in recent years. Currently UF is hitting .325 and is averaging 6.37 runs per game, which is 18th nationally. Skylar Wallace is having an All-America type season for the Gators, hitting .414 with five homers, 35 RBI and 36 stolen bases. Wallace needs one more steal to set the single season Florida record held by Kelsey Stewart in 2013. UF MEN’S BASKETBALL: 2023 RECRUITING BEGINS IN THE STATE The roster is in a state of transition that isn’t going to end even when Todd Golden fills out the roster for next season. Colin Castleton and Myreon Jones will be 5th-year guys so they’ll definitely be gone after next season. CJ Felder and Jason Jitoboh are listed as seniors so four of the 11 currently on the roster could be gone, leaving room for as many as six signees in case Golden doesn’t completely fill out the roster with high school kids or transfers. Golden said at his initial press conference that he plans to go with a Florida-first recruiting approach, so here are eight in-state prospects for 2023 who are ranked four starts or better: Jayden Hastings (6-10, 220, Orlando, FL Orlando Christian Prep): His offense is a work in progress, largely because at OCP he’s been the fourth option, but he can protect the rim. He’s still growing and has a tremendous upside. He’s a 4-star recruit who Georgia Tech has been working a long time. Sam Walters (6-9, 180, The Villages, FL): He seems an exceptional fit for Golden’s offense because he can load it up and drain it from distance. He’s got very narrow shoulders and he’s skinny, but surprisingly strong and a better defender than you would think. LSU looked like the place he would be but regime changes in Baton Rouge and Gainesville make the Gators serious players. He’s a 4-star recruit. If the Gators want him, he’ll be at UF. John Gamble (6-6, 175, Punta Gorda, FL Charlotte County): Gamble is a 4-star wing whose best offer so far is Ole Miss. He’s draw interest from Florida, FSU, Michigan and Alabama but hasn’t gotten an offer from any of them yet. If Florida were to offer, he would probably say yes. Marvel Allen (6-4, 195, West Palm Beach, FL Calvary Christian): He is a 5-star point guard who decommitted LSU when Will Wade was fired. The Gators are a long shot at this point with Arkansas, Kansas, Alabama and Michigan perceived to be the teams to beat. Kris Parker (6-6, 175, Quincy, FL Crossroad Academy): This is going to come down to a Florida-Florida State decision although Missouri might elbow its way into the mix now that Charlton Young has joined Dennis Gates’ new staff. Parker is a 4-star prospect who plays for Team Breakdown on the Under Armour circuit. He’s a streaky shooter and a slasher who can get to the rim. Jason Jackson (6-3, 180, Sarasota, FL Riverview): LSU and Virginia Tech are also involved with Jackson, who is listed as a 4-star prospect. He’s a good shooter, but you wish he were taller. He’s a good passer but you wish he were quicker and a better ball handler. His three big offers so far are Florida, LSU and Virginia Tech. Carl Cherenfant (6-4, 180, Fort Lauderdale, FL Calvary Christian Academy): The backcourt mate to Marvel Allen, he was considered a mortal lock to Memphis, but that was before the NCAA smacked Penny Hardaway with several Level I violations and before Mike White left for Georgia. With White at UF, the Gators had no chance. He’s a 4-star prospect. Dylan James (6-9, 200, Winter Haven, FL): He’s a 4-star that Florida was going after when Mike White was the head coach. The relationship was with Erik Pastrana, who followed White to Georgia. Alabama, Virginia Tech, Creighton and Georgetown have offered. SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL Alabama: Nick Saban on how well Alabama players did with NIL without the benefit of a collective. “We didn’t do that last year and our guys made more money than anybody in college football on their own, representing themselves – creating a good image, being good players, creating value for themselves.” Arkansas: HBC Sam Pittman on agreeing to a raise and a contract extension: “I agree, they agree, so I guess that means we agreed.” Auburn: Former Auburn backup quarterback Dematrius Davis, a former 4-star recruit, is transferring to Alabama State. Georgia: Defensive lineman Tymon Mitchell (6-3, 285), a former 3-star recruit, is in the transfer portal. Mitchell played in six games the past three seasons. LSU: Former Ohio State corner Sevyn Banks, a former 4-star recruit who played in 24 games in four seasons, is transferring to LSU. He had 43 tackles, an interception, 10 pass breakups and a fumble recovery for a touchdown in his Ohio State career. Mississippi State: Shakeel Moore is in the transfer portal again. Moore averaged 8.7 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.6 steals for MSU last year after transferring in from North Carolina State. MSU had four transfers on last year’s team. Garrison Brooks is out of eligibility. The other three are on the move again ... Camryn Carter has transferred to Kansas State. Missouri: Nick Honor, who started 35 games at the point the last two seasons for Clemson, has committed to Mizzou. He averaged 7.7 points per game last year. Previously, he started 36 games at Fordham where he averaged 15.3 points per game ... Dajuan Gordon, who averaged 8.3 points and 4.0 rebounds per game for the Tigers last year, is transferring to New Mexico State … Transferring out is Yaya Keita (6-9, 235) South Carolina: Defensive lineman Will Rogers, who played in one game over the last three years, is the third South Carolina DL to enter the transfer portal in the last two days. Texas A&M: Guard Aaron Cash, who averaged 2.4 points and 3.0 rebounds in 11.8 minutes per game last year, is transferring out … Former 5-star tight end Baylor Cupp is transferring to Texas Tech. He was the No. 1 tight end in the country coming out of high school in 2019. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Here is a quote from an excellent article from Stewart Mandel of The Athletic regarding what’s going on with NIL and football recruiting: “We lost a kid (on signing day) over that. That hurt,” a Power 5 head coach told The Athletic. “Two hours before, the mom is telling me he’s coming here. And then she said, ‘Coach, how can we turn down $300,000?’ You can’t. Take it, I get it.” There is something seriously wrong with a system when a high school kid who has never played a down of college football gets $300,000. If you’ve been thinking this is a random occurrence, then you may want to recalculate. Despite Jimbo Fisher’s feigned outrage that Lane Kiffin and others would speculate that Aggie boosters actively paid recruits to sign, no one should be naïve enough to think it didn’t happen. Jimbo moaned, groaned and acted indignant. Then you can bet the moment no one was watching he broke into “I did it and you didn’t catch me” giggles. He’s probably still laughing. Don’t think for even a nano-second that Jimbo and the Aggies are the only ones doing it, either. This is just the beginning of a nuclear winter that is about to descend upon college football and all college sports. If you are shocked by what is going on with NIL, then brace yourself. It’s going to get worse and maybe the only way to slow it down is going to be for college football (and other sports) to make athletes employees and pay them. When athletes become employees, their scholarships become taxable income because they are part of their compensation packages. Coaches will be able to fire their players. These are unintended consequences. NIL, like most things of that nature, may have seemed like a good idea at the moment. We’re just scratching the surface on the problems that are headed our way and we haven’t even had the chance to see how the NCAA is going to try to make things better. I know. You’re laughing at that. The NCAA never makes anything better. Never.

By KYLE CURTIS GatorBaitMedia.com It was a historic night for Adam Mihalek, who went a perfect three for three on extra points and two for two on field goals, including a record-tying boot. His field goals were 47 yards and a 52-yard bomb. Mihalek’s 52-yarder tied the school record (unofficially) as the longest field goal previously, set by Chris Hetland in 2006 and matched by Eddie Pinerio in 2016. Chris Howard, on the other hand had a bit different night. He missed the opening field goal attempt for the Orange team from 37-yards. Mihalek also handled kickoff responsibilities. He had seven kickoffs on the night, although the first one of those seven did go out of bounds resulting in a flag. Both kickers are expected to take a backseat to Trey Smack come the fall. Smack, the No. 3 ranked kicker in the nation for the 2022 class, is known for his strong leg and accuracy. Mihalek’s impressive outing will set up for a heated kicking competition before the opening game Sept. 3. Returning kickoffs were Demarkcus Bowman, Fenley Graham, and Ja’Markis Weston. Bowman took the opening kickoff out 20 yards before he fumbled and was recovered by Derek Wingo. Fenley Graham had a strong showing returning with five returns for 87 yards. Returning responsibilities will be one of a committee, although Graham lived up to the offseason hype and had a strong outing. Before the game, Bowman was seen fielding punts for the Orange team, which is a good sign for Gator fans since there has been a lack of explosiveness in recent years in punt returning. Later he fumbled his first kickoff, not going as planned, although the Orange team retained possession due to the scrimmage format. On a night where punts were minimal, Jeremy Crawshaw picked up right where he left off last season. He had one punt for 40 yards but was able to pin it roughly on the 10-yard line. Jacob Watkins also had one punt for 44 yards, although Crenshaw will be the day one starter. All in all, after a sluggish start from a group Napier refers to as the “Game-Changers” they finished strong. After the opening fumble and missed field goal, Mihalek was able to put together a great night along with a few key plays across the board. The Game-Changers will be looking to earn their name come Sept. 3 when the Gators take on Utah in The Swamp.