Vernell Brown III stretches for a deep throw against South Florida in 2025 (Photo by Chris Spears) A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning: It may not matter who offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner starts at quarterback this fall. Whether it’s Aaron Philo, Trammel Jones Jr. or even freshman Will Griffin the task will be get the ball out quickly to what might very well prove to be the best wide receiver room in the Southeastern Conference. Athlon’s preseason magazine rates the Florida receivers No. 3 in the SEC and No. 10 nationally. They could be better than that. The last time Faulkner worked with this much wide receiver talent he was coaching Stetson Bennett to get the ball out in a hurry to a collection of future pros like George Pickens. Bennett threw 56 touchdown passes while taking Georgia to back-to-back national championships. With incumbents Vernell Brown III, Dallas Wilson and TJ Abrams joined by stud transfers Eric Singleton Jr., Micah Mays Jr., Jaylen Lloyd and Bailey Stockton, the Gators have stretch the field vertically types to go with a very nice collection of slot guys who can keep the chains moving. Whoever is throwing the ball won’t lack for fast targets who can stretch the field vertically. If the quarterbacks can simply remember to avoid the cardinal sins of holding onto the ball too long and throwing the ball into double coverage, the Gators should be explosive and capable of lighting up the scoreboard. Here are Florida’s wide receivers: Eric Singleton Jr. (5-10, 182, SR): He was misused at Auburn last year but still caught 58 passes for 534 yards and three touchdowns. Go back to the previous two seasons when he was the go to guy in Faulkner’s Georgia Tech passing game where he caught 104 passes for 1,468 yards and nine touchdowns. Micah Mays Jr. (6-1, 195, RJR): In two seasons playing in a spread the ball around passing offense at Wake Forest, Mays caught 34 passes for 520 yards (15.29 per catch) and four touchdowns. Vernell Brown III (5-11, 177, SO): As a true freshman in Florida’s underperforming pass attack, VBIII caught 40 passes for 512 yards and also averaged 11.67 per punt return. TJ Abrams (5-10, 194, RSO): Another under-used wide receiver whose blazing speed was never fully taken advantage of the last two seasons where he caught 16 passes for 236 yards (15.7 per catch). Dallas Wilson (6-3, 218, RFR): In his first start in a season cut short due to injuries, Wilson caught six passes for 111 yards and two touchdowns to help the Gators upset Texas. In four games he caught 12 passes for 174 yards and three touchdowns. Retaining Wilson and Vernell Brown III was a priority for Jon Sumrall when he arrived in Gainesville. Kahliel Jackson (6-3, 220, GR): Injuries have cost him the last two seasons. Got a waiver from the NCAA to play in 2026. Career 24 catches, 307 yards (17.1) and one touchdown. Jaylen Lloyd (5-10, 190, RJR): Spent his first two seasons at Nebraska then transferred to Oklahoma State last year where he played in one game before a season-ending injury. At Nebraska caught 19 passes for 492 yards (25.89 per catch) and three TDs. Bailey Stockton (5-10, 182, RJR): A slot receiver at Georgia Tech where he caught 38 passes for 439 yards (11.6 per catch) and one touchdown. Ace Ciongoli (5-10, 172, RFR): Spent his freshman season at Indiana where he took a redshirt. Davian Groce (6-2, 197, FR): High school running back who won the state 200 gold medal in track as a junior. Four-star talent out of high school who was projected as the No. 8 wide receiver nationally. Justin Williams (5-11, 195, FR): Listed as a 4-star athlete out of Gainesville Buchholz where he played both wide receiver and running back. Marquez Daniel (6-5, 205, FR): Has size, speed and vertical hops who needs coaching but has the physical intangibles for the future. Four-star recruit who was listed as the No. 38 wide receiver in the country. ALIJAH MARTIN SIGNS AN NBA (NOT 2-WAY) CONTRACT Persistence has once again paid off for former Gator Alijah Martin, who signed a two-year deal worth $4.8 million to remain with the Toronto Raptors.Selected 39th in the 2025 NBA Draft, Martin was on a two-way contract with the Raptors last season, playing 21 games with the Raptors G-League affiliate where he averaged 18.7 points and 2.2 in 23 NBA games with the Raptures. Martin was named to the All-NBA G-League Rookie team, the G-League defensive team and third team All-G-League. Year one of Martin’s new two-year deal is fully guaranteed. He has a partial guarantee for year two. Martin could have turned pro and played in the G-League during the 2024-25 season but he decided to not only stay in school but transfer to Florida where he joined Walter Clayton Jr. and Will Richard to form one of the great backcourts of the last 25 years of college basketball. That move paid off with a national championship. Will this latest move pay off with increased playing time and an opportunity for a much bigger contract either with Toronto or elsewhere in the NBA. SULLY LANDS TWO MORE TRANSFERS Kevin O’Sullivan went to the portal again Wednesday, landing two more transfers as he begins to fill in the blanks for next season’s roster ahead of the Major League Baseball Draft where the Gators could lose several signees. The newbies are outfielder Drew Dickerson, a sophomore member of Oklahoma’s national championship team, and catcher Eddie Marshall from Samford. Dickerson started 22 games for the Sooners, most of them as the designated hitter. He hit .281 with four doubles, two triples, four home runs and 21 RBI. As a freshman at OU, Dickerson got 17 starts, finishing the season with a .303 batting average with four doubles, a triple, four home runs and 17 RBI. Dickerson is a Missouri native with three years of eligibility remaining. As a freshman at Samford, Marshall hit .247 with 10 home runs and 22 RBI in 36 games, 28 as the starting catcher. A Florida native who prepped at Cardinal Gibbons, Marshall has four years of eligibility remaining Incoming (9): OF Drew Dickerson (from Oklahoma); C Eddie Mashall (from Samford); 1B Caden Davidson (from Gaston College, NC); RHP Zachary Edwards (from Oregon State); 2B Kyle McDaniel (from Utah Tech); RHP Maddox McDonald (from Jacksonville State); C John Embury (from Florida Gulf Coast); LHP Trey Morris (from Oregon State) Outgoing (10): SS/3B Kolt Myers (to Grand Canyon); LHP Cooper Moss (to South Florida); RHP Cooper Walls (to Georgia); LHP Eli Blair; LHP McCall Biemiller (to North Carolina State); LHP Rivers Kurland; 2B Cade Kurland (to LSU); RHP Blake Brookins; RHP Christian Rodriguez; RHP Matthew Jenkins (to Charlotte) ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: One of my lasting memories is game two of the 1973 World Series between the Oakland A’s and New York Mets. In the top of the ninth with the Mets leading 6-4, John Milner singled to right field. Willie Mays, once the most terrifying baserunner in the game, missed second base then stumbled trying to get back to the base. In the bottom half of the inning, Mays lost a fly ball in the high sky then stumbled face first to the ground trying to catch the ball barehanded. It went for a double and the A’s went on to tie the game. The Mets prevailed in 12 innings, but likely would have won in nine if not for Willie’s mishaps. Willie said he was trying to watch the ball in right field when he missed the base. “I don’t know it happened that I missed the bag,” Mays said. “I guess it was trying to do two things at the same time – watch the ball and touch the bag.” Nobody but nobody could ever remember Willie Mays making that kind of baserunning blunder. Even a couple of years earlier he would have made it to third standing up. When he was at his best Willie might have scored from first. That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Regarding the fly ball, Curt Gowdy, calling the game for NBC, remarked: “Ten years ago he would have put that ball in his back pocket.” I bring that up because Willie Mays kept hanging on long after he should have hung up his spikes and called it a Hall of Fame career. Those last two seasons with the Mets, particularly the World Series, were painful to watch for those of us who grew up idolizing Willie. How we wished he had departed the game he loved so much with a measure of dignity. Young people who never saw Willie Mays at his peak saw an old man turning routine plays into adventures. I got to sit with Joe DiMaggio in Fort Lauderdale when the Yankees were doing spring training there back in the 1970s. Joe retired at age 36 after an injury-filled season in which he failed to hit .300 for only the second time in his Hall of Fame career. Healthy he could have still played three or four more productive years but he walked away. I asked him why. “I was making catches on the run in the outfield on balls I used to wait for” was his reply. He left the game because he couldn’t perform to the level of greatness that marked the previous 12 years in the big leagues. In a conversation I had at his museum in Beverly Hills, Florida a few years prior to his death, Ted Williams told me, “Joe DiMaggio was the greatest player I ever saw. He did everything gracefully, almost effortlessly.” Joe DiMaggio got out while people still remembered him for his greatness. They never saw him stumble, fall and look the part of someone who just couldn’t let go. There have been others who got out while still on top. Bill Russell, Jim Brown and Sandy Koufax come to mind. Then there are others like Willie Mays, Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana whose sell by dates expired long before they faced the indignity of hanging on too long. I watched highlights of Serena Williams and wondered why she came back to play at Wimbledon. She lost in the first round to an opponent half her age, someone she would have simply overpowered a few years back. Her legacy is tarnished but hopefully she got the hint and will call it a career. If she continues to play it won’t be pretty and people will forget how dominant she once was. As The Byrds sang back in the 1960s, “To everything, turn, turn, turn; There is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Serena Williams’ season of greatness is in the past and hopefully it stays there so people can remember her the right way.

A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning: As a third-year sophomore at Valdosta State, Buster Faulkner learned a football version of Charles Darwin’s adapt or die theory of evolution. As a freshman and sophomore, Faulkner was the backup to strong-armed Dusty Bonner, who threw for 107 touchdowns while winning the Harlon Hill Trophy, the Division II version of the Heisman. Bonner was blessed with a pro-style arm capable of making all the throws. While Faulkner had the leadership qualities VSU head coach Chris Hatcher wanted in his quarterback, he didn’t have a Bonner-like arm that could wing it deep down the field. “Dusty Bonner before me, and he could throw it down the field,” Faulkner, Florida’s offensive coordinator, said at a February press conference. “He was a great player, and then when I became the quarterback, I couldn't throw it down the field, so we threw it sideways a bunch.” Adapting the offense to the talent on hand, Hatcher took Valdosta to a 14-1 season Faulkner’s first year as the quarterback, the only loss to Brian Kelly-coached Grand Valley State in the Division II national championship game. The horizontal approach resulted in Faulkner throwing for 3,941 yards and 44 touchdowns. In the coaching career that has followed, Faulkner has mastered the art of adapting the offense to the personnel on hand. While coaching quarterbacks at Georgia for offensive coordinator Todd Monken, Faulkner helped turn former walk-on Stetson Bennett into a capable quarterback who led the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championships. A fourth-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Rams, Bennett is the backup for future Hall of Fame QB Matt Stafford. Faulkner followed the Georgia stint with three seasons as the offensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, where Brent Key likes a smash and go type of offense. Faulker had the right QB for that kind of offense in Texas A&M transfer Haynes King, a run-first type who was an adequate but not great passer. Faulkner easily incorporated King’s running skills into the offense, then spent the next three years honing his passing skills. King threw 16 interceptions in his first year but only eight combined in the next two. King ran for 2,247 yards (5.3 per carry) and 36 touchdowns in his Tech career while throwing for 7,907 yards and 55 touchdowns. King completed 67.3 percent of his passes while averaging 7.9 per pass attempt for his three seasons, 8.2 per attempt as a senior in 2025. Now that he’s at Florida, Faulkner is charged with turning a sluggish offense prone to turning the ball over into one that is explosive while at the same time cuts down on turnovers. Last season the Gators finished dead last in the SEC in scoring (21.6 per game), 13th in total offense (341.3 yards per game) and tied for 13th in turnovers (18). Georgia Tech last year finished fourth in the ACC in scoring (32.5 per game) and second in total offense (460 yards per game). The Yellow Jackets averaged 197.5 yards per game running the ball and 262.5 per game throwing it. The Gators don’t lack for talent at the skill positions where there is abundant speed and one of the best running backs in the country in Jadan Baugh. There are questions on the offensive line and at quarterback that will have to be resolved. At Georgia Tech, the offense was predicated on getting the ball out of the quarterback’s hands and into the hands of skill players quickly, negating the pass rush. To compensate for any perceived weakness in the O-line, he schemed so that opposing linebackers had to hedge out in coverage, creating running lanes. If the safeties tried to creep up to assist in the running game, he threw it over the top. There is no lack of talent at quarterback but there is a lack of experience. Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo has started one game in his career while redshirt freshman Trammel Jones has a grand total of 35 pass attempts to show for last year at UF. Philo is thought to be the better runner of the two while Jones is supposed to be the best passer. Adapting the scheme to accommodate what Philo and Jones do best will go a long way toward determining how many games the Gators win this year. Philo and Jones don’t necessarily have to be playmakers but will be required to be good game managers. There is more than enough offensive talent. Faulkner just needs Philo and Jones to read the defenses and get the ball to the right people in a timely manner. That is called game management and it doesn’t have to be sexy to be effective. Good game managers adapt, something Faulkner has been doing all his college football life. SULLY GETS A BIG BOPPER Kevin O’Sullivan got the power hitter he was looking for from the junior college ranks Tuesday when he signed Gaston College (NC) All-American first baseman Caden Davidson. As a freshman in the recently concluded season, Davidson hit .500 (93-186) with 18 doubles, two triples, 23 home runs and 110 RBI. Davidson is the seventh player signed since the transfer portal opened. He fits in at first base where Landon Stripling hit .289 with six home runs and 17 RBI last year. Incoming (7): 1B Caden Davidson (from Gaston College, NC); RHP Zachary Edwards (from Oregon State); 2B/3B John Martinez (from Florida Atlantic); 2B Kyle McDaniel (from Utah Tech); RHP Maddox McDougal (from Jacksonville State); C John Embury (from Florida Gulf Coast); LHP Trey Morris (from Oregon State) Outgoing (9): SS/3B Kolt Myers (to Grand Canyon); LHP Cooper Moss (to South Florida); RHP Cooper Walls (to Georgia); LHP Eli Blair; LHP McCall Biemiller (to North Carolina State); LHP Rivers Kurland; 2B Cade Kurland (to LSU); RHP Blake Brookins; RHP Christian Rodriguez ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: To the best of my knowledge, my grandmother never went to a single Florida football or basketball game, but she was a diehard Gator fan who scoured the Gainesville Sun and Florida Times-Union sports sections and never spared her opinion. There was only so much she could tolerate, particularly when it applied to former Gator football coach Bob Woodruff, so conservative that he would sometimes punt on third down. When it comes to the college sports and its lack of leadership, I can only imagine what she might say, so I offer these two Ivey-isms that I think she might use if the discussion turned that way: (1) “If these people actually had brains they would take them out of their heads and play with them”; and (2) “They need to use their brains for something else besides parting their ears.” We are indeed in the midst of a leadership crisis at the top, largely because I don’t think they have allowed common sense to venture into the solution equations. So here are a few common sense suggestions that I would offer to college sports leaders who would have to go to the emergency room if struck by an intelligent thought. 1. Make academic progress count in the transfer portal: Only athletes with a 2.5 or better GPA in legitimate courses can transfer without sitting a year. Any athlete taking remedial course must sit a year. 2. Eliminate spring practice in favor of NFL-like minicamps in the summer: Bodies and minds need R and R after the grind of a college football season. Give players the spring to recharge their bodies and to get their academic house in order. Starting in mid-May allow mini-camps like they have in the NFL leading up to the start of fall practice in August. 3. Give college football autonomy and a commissioner: Since the university presidents are reluctant to secede entire athletic programs from the NCAA, at least make football fully autonomous with its own set of rules. Reduce the rule book down to about 100 pages from the current volumes and give the commissioner power to enforce rules with harsh sanctions. Run football like the big business that it is. 4. Give Group of Six conferences their own national championship: Let’s face it, the Group of Six conferences aren’t going to go through the College Football Playoff unbeaten to emerge as national champion. Instead give the Group of Six their own national championship. People would rather watch that then some silly bowl game played in a half-empty stadium in a garden spot such as Shreveport. Give the Group of Six something to play for rather than a brutal beatdown as a CFP bottom feeder. Playoff games for Group of Six schools would be more appealing for the networks than some of these silly bowl matchups. 5. No more game against D1AA opponents: That would cause economic hardship at schools that rely on paycheck games, but there is a practical solution. Allow an exhibition game pre-season. Isn’t that what a game against a D1AA opponent is anyway? So play it pre-season. Sell out the stadium, give the visiting school a paycheck and play a game that won’t count in the standings or strength of schedule that plays into the College Football Playoff equation. 6. More networks involved: ESPN has a virtual monopoly that needs to be broken with more networks involved in all sports. More networks participating would help eliminate some of these ridiculous starting time that are dictated by ESPN’s limited time slots. More network involvement could also result in smaller conferences getting more money and much needed exposure. 7. Make Notre Dame join a conference: Notre Dame is a member of the ACC in all sports but football and ice hockey. Make the Irish join a league if they are going to participate in the College Football Playoff.

A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning: The philosophy of William James, considered the father of American psychology, could be paraphrased like this: The decisions you make will form the foundation of your lasting legacy. When it comes to Florida football, the legacy of the last 15 years is inconsistency that can be traced to bad decisions that probably seemed like a good idea at the moment. Whether it was bad decisions when it came to hiring head coaches or the bad decisions by the coaches themselves, Florida has gone from a consistent championship program into one treading water in a pool of mediocrity. Yogi Berra would have called this déjà vu all over again because the same thing keeps happening. It does seem like a college football version of the movie “Groundhog Day” where every day, or in this case season, seems to be a repeat of the last. Administration can’t escape the legacy of hiring Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, Dan Mullen and Billy Napier. Looking back, all four of them arrived promising better days ahead, but instead all four crashed and burned, departing Florida with large amounts of its been swell but now you have to go money in their bank accounts. So blame athletic directors Jeremy Foley and Scott Stricklin for the revolving door of head football coaches since Urban Meyer “retired” following the 2010 season. The buck does, after all, stop at the top of the food chain. Bad decisions have a way of compounding. While true that Foley and Stricklin hired Muschamp, McElwain, Mullen and Napier, that was just the beginning. The end was brought about by bad decisions by the head coaches themselves. Put the blame where it belongs, on the people who hired them and on the coaches who chose the wrong fork on a road less traveled. Muschamp had no head coaching experience when Foley hired him. It was like turning the keys to the Caddy to the cabana boy. Even though he was a hot property at the time of his hire, he didn’t have four seasons of head coaching experience to serve as his GPS as Urban Meyer before him. Like Muschamp, McElwain was a former Nick Saban assistant, offensive coordinator on two national championship teams. He did have three years of head coaching experience at Colorado State when hired by Foley. Mullen should have been hired after Urban Meyer retired but when Stricklin hired him in 2018 he had nine years of head coaching experience at Mississippi State. Napier was another former Saban assistant who was a hot name in coaching circles when Stricklin hired him after he spent four very successful seasons in which he turned Louisiana into a Sun Belt power. On paper, all four were good decisions. Florida did go cheap when hiring them since more expensive coaches would have jumped at the chance to take over the UF program. But, what’s on paper doesn’t always translate into real time success. That’s because hiring the head coach sets off a chain reaction because the head coach then has to make assistant coach and support staff decisions that will impact winning. In that regard, the legacies of Muschamp, McElwain, Mullen and Napier are tarnished because of bad decisions. There is no escaping the fact that all four were given the opportunity to lead a brand name football program that has a history of winning championships both at the Southeastern Conference and national levels. Much of their inability to produce consistent contenders has everything to do with bad decisions at the coordinator level. Start with Muschamp’s first offensive coordinator. Charlie Weis was a lousy decision. Despite 16 skill people and seven offensive linemen that eventually spent at least one year in the NFL, the 2011 offense stunk and it carried over to the next three years, two of which saw Brent Pease take the offense to its lowest levels since 1979. McElwain won 19 games in his first two seasons at UF, but when the NFL defense that Muschamp left behind moved on to the NFL, things went from bad to worse offensively. McElwain’s reputation was an offensive guru but with Doug Nussmeier calling the plays the Gators never averaged more than 27.3 points per game. When season three was flopping, McElwain tried to alleviate the pressure with a whopper of a lie – that he and his family were recipients of death threats. When confronted with the truth, McElwain doubled down on the lie. Another rotten decision, but one that might not have happened if McElwain had hired a competent offensive coordinator in the first place. Mullen won 21 games his first two years and had the Gators on the verge of making the College Football Playoff in year three. Critics too easily point to Marco Wilson’s shoe toss as the beginning of the end for Mullen, but a look at Todd Grantham’s defense throughout the 2020 season and it’s easy to see his sell-by date had already expired prior to the Wilson incident. Despite encouragement to make changes, Mullen stuck with Grantham, just as he also stuck with offensive line coach Jon Hevesy, two decisions that helped lead to the undoing of the head coach. Napier was a former Dabo and Saban assistant who won 41 games in four years as a head coach at Louisiana. At Florida where there was far more responsibility for the head coach, Napier was given a blank check that among other things sent players on extended field trips to places like Paris and Tokyo. He should have used some of the money to hire the best possible offensive and defensive coordinators. He decided he was the best play caller on the offensive side and his revolving door of defensive coordinators brought in Austin Armstrong, too young and too inexperienced to get the job done properly. Four head coaches, all of them who came to Florida with so much promise and each of them gone before their contracts expired. Hindsight says all four were bad decisions but all four made matters worse with their own bad decisions. This exercise brings us to Jon Sumrall, who has hired Buster Faulkner as his offensive coordinator and Brad White as his defensive coordinator. Based on track records – Sumrall’s plus those of Faulkner and White – this seems to point the Gators in the direction of long term success. Most experts believe Faulkner will be somebody’s Division I head coach within a couple of years. White won’t be on nearly the same fast track as Faulkner, but given the talent he will coach at Florida is vastly superior to what he coached at Kentucky, head coaching opportunities should follow. If Faulkner and White produce, then Sumrall is going to win. If, as expected, Faulker and White depart for head coaching jobs somewhere else in two or three more years, Sumrall will have to decide who’s next. If the Gators are winning there should be no shortage of outstanding coordinator candidates to take over and keep things going. If the Gators aren't winning big in three or four years, then Sumrall will be gone and the “Groundhog Day” legacy will live on. It will all come down to making good decisions. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: When the United States faces Bosnia-Herzegovina in the knockout round of the World Cup tomorrow, it could go down as the single most important day for soccer in the history of the country. A win, even though it’s just the next step of an arduous journey toward the impossible dream of winning the championship, could very well have a similar impact as the US hockey team that beat the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. That 1980 team of college hockey players upset the world’s greatest hockey power in the semifinals, then went on to win the gold medal, awakening hockey like never before in the United States. In the years since, the US has won two more Olympic Gold Medals and the 2025 US team won the world championship. The US national women’s hockey team has won three Olympic Gold Medals. NHL championships have been won by the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning. Florida, a hockey mecca. Who would have thought it? It all started with the miracle on ice. Do you remember Al Michaels’ famous declaration: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”? It may take a miracle for the US national soccer team to advance much further than the first knockout round game tomorrow, but a win will certainly fuel an unprecedented surge in soccer popularity. If the US team somehow advances to the quarterfinals (eight teams left standing) the television ratings will go through the roof and names like Christian Pulisic will have a chance for true stardom in the eyes of the entire country. Besides winning at the highest levels on the international stage, producing homegrown talent recognized for stardom around the world is a necessity for soccer in the United States. Ask nearly anyone to name the greatest baseball players in history and you probably hear names like Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Ted Williams mentioned. Football you hear Joe Montana, Roger Staubach and Jerry Rice. Basketball Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. All of them American born and American developed. Soccer? Very few can even name one American produced superstar who has proven it on the international stage. It’s different on the women’s side. Superstars such as Abby Wambach, Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers and Carli Lloyd have led the US National team to five Olympic Gold Medals and four World Cup championships. Why the US women have had such success and the men have hardly made a dent has to do with the fact soccer is the one sport that American women are never compared to men. This is their sport and they have the great athletes, success, trophies and championships from the highest levels to back them up. The men are still looking for that breakthrough. Americans will support a winner, which is why tomorrow’s game is so important. Win and it has a crescendo effect that reverberates across the country. Win and the round of 16 game becomes the most watched US men’s team game in history. Get to the quarterfinals and perceptions change like never before. We saw the miracle of 1980 and what it did for hockey’s popularity across the nation. That it happened in the United States on the biggest international stage created momentum that has continued for 46 years. There is no international stage bigger than the World Cup where the fate of the US team will play itself out in American stadiums with the whole country watching. For soccer to experience explosive growth in America, the US team has to take advantage of the opportunity to make a statement on American soil. Failure to do so might be like a sighting of Halley’s Comet. The last time Halley’s Comet was seen was 1986. The next appearance will be 2061.

“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.” – Don Shula Someone once said quarterbacks get too much credit when teams do well, too much criticism when teams don’t produce. It is the single most important position no matter the sport. The right quarterback can take a team with outstanding talent to championships (see Tim Tebow, Cam Newton, Joe Burrow). The right quarterback can even lead typically below average teams to unprecedented heights (see Diego Pavia at Vanderbilt the last two years; Fernando Mendoza at Indiana last year). The wrong quarterback can turn even potentially great teams into losers and force boosters to pony up millions to buy out the head coach's contract. The Southeastern Conference's three-season national championship drought could very well end this year because it is a very strong year for the quarterback position, starting with Arch Manning (Texas), Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss), John Mateer (Oklahoma) and Gunner Stockton (Georgia). Chambliss, Mateer and Stockton led their teams to the College Football Playoff. Chambliss was a pass interference no-call in the end zone from taking Ole Miss to the national championship game. Here are the top ten quarterbacks for the SEC in 2026 followed by a where are they now look at the quarterback recruiting class of 2022. SEC TOP TEN QUARTERBACKS FOR 2026 1. Arch Manning, Texas: Steve Sarkisian brought in stud transfers like running back Hollywood Smothers and wide receiver Cam Coleman to surround Arch Manning with NFL-like talent. Manning endured too much criticism last year when he threw 26 TDPs and ran for 10 more. This is the year he will live up to the hype and make Texas a legitimate SEC and national championship contender. 2. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss: Legitimate Heisman contender after leading Ole Miss to within a play of making the College Football Playoff championship game last season. Played four years in Division II at Ferris State in Michigan where he led the Bulldogs to the 2024 national championship and won the Conerly Trophy as the best player in the country. Taking over at Ole Miss when Austin Simmons was hurt last year he passed for 22 touchdowns and ran for eight more. Beat the NCAA in court for a sixth season of college football. 3. John Mateer, Oklahoma: If he can stay healthy and Oklahoma can keep him upright, the Sooners could sneak into the SEC championship picture and make the College Football Playoff a second straight year. Physically as tough as it gets. Strong arm, outstanding runner. 4. Gunner Stockton, Georgia: His main job is to manage the game, get the Bulldogs in the right play and avoid turnovers. He is efficient but not spectacular. Went 12-2 as a starter last year and has Georgia ranked among the top four contenders for the 2026 national title. 5. Marcel Reed, Texas A&M: He played at an elite level until the end of last year when Texas and Miami made him look very average in back-to-back losses. Completes too many passes to the other team’s DBs because he thinks he can strongarm the ball into double coverage. If he cuts down on the interceptions, the Aggies will be very tough to beat. 6. Sam Leavitt, LSU: He’s Lane Kiffin’s latest reclamation project. He was a stud at Arizona State, taking the Sun Devils to 11 wins and the College Football Playoff in 2024. Injuries were part of the reason for regression in 2025 at ASU, but he’s healthy now, at LSU, and Kiffin’s starter. If he’s studly, then LSU will contend. 7. Byrum Brown, Auburn: He’s probably underrated at No. 7, but the defenses in the SEC are certainly tougher than the ones in the American that he consistently shredded at South Florida. If he lives up to the USF hype, there will be comparisons to Cam Newton cropping up by midseason. 8. LaNorris Sellers, South Carolina: He started 2025 as a Heisman contender, ended as a Heisman hoax. Was it Mike Shula’s offensive schemes and play calling or was 2024 a fluke? He has to play at the 2024 level for South Carolina to post a winning season. 9. Aaron Philo, Florida: He’s not even assured of being Florida’s starting quarterback but he knows Buster Faulkner’s offense inside and out from two years together at Georgia Tech. Faulkner’s ability to spread the field will create running lanes for Philo. If he can throw it to the guys wearing the same color shirt, Florida’s offense will be explosive. 10. Austin Simmons, Missouri: Potentially, he’s a top five guy, but it remains to be seen if Eli Drinkwitz can coach him out of his inconsistencies in the pocket. From his days at Ole Miss, his biggest sin is he holds the ball way too long and takes unnecessary sacks. Harness all that talent and he could turn Mizzou into a legitimate contender. SOMETIMES THE RANKINGS FIB A LITTLE Here are the top 20 high school quarterbacks in 2022: 1. Cade Klubnik (Clemson): He was supposed to be the next Trevor Lawrence. Decent career but followed an outstanding 2024 with a mediocre 2025. Drafted in the fourth round by the New York Jets. 2. Ty Simpson (Alabama): Started 15 games in 2025 after playing in 16 total in his first three seasons at Alabama. Turned one good year into the first round, taken 13th by the Los Angeles Rams. 3. Drew Allar (Penn State): Had two good years (2023-24) but injuries curtailed him to six games in 2025. Never got the Nittany Lions into the College Football Playoff. Fourth round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers. 4. Conner Weigman (Texas A&M): Started his career with the Aggies where he spent most of his time injured. Transferred to Houston in 2025 where he stayed healthy and had an outstanding dual threat season. Draft stock will rise if he avoids injury and plays in 2026 like he did in 2025. 5. Devin Brown (Ohio State): Threw 55 passes in four seasons (three at Ohio State, one at California) before transferring to D1AA Weber State for the 2026 season. 6. Walker Howard (LSU): From LSU to Ole Miss and now at Louisiana, he’s thrown 51 passes in four years. Doesn’t project as the starter for the Ragin Cajuns this year. 7. Brady Allen (Purdue): After one year at Purdue, transferred to Louisville where he spent the last three seasons. He’s thrown 16 passes in four years. Entered the transfer portal after 2025 and is off the radar. 8. Nick Evers (Oklahoma): Started at Oklahoma, transferred to Wisconsin and then spent two seasons at UConn. Currently at Mizzou where he projects as a backup. He’s thrown six collegiate TDPs. 9. Gunner Stockton (Georgia): In his first year as a starter he threw for 24 touchdowns and ran for 10 more. He is 12-3 as a starter. 10. A.J. Duffy (Florida State): Two years at FSU, seven pass attempts, then transferred to San Diego State where he didn’t play in 2024. Transferred to D2 New Haven, threw for 22 touchdowns and will start again in 2026. 11. Tayven Jackson (Tennessee): He’s gone from Tennessee, to Indiana and then to UCF where he threw for 10 TDPs last year. Transferred again, this time to North Texas where he is projected to be the starter in 2026. 12. Maalik Murphy (Texas): His journey has taken him from Texas to Duke, where he thrived in 2024 (26 TDPs) to Oregon State, where he started for a bad (2-10) team that could be worse in 2026. 13. Katin Houser (Michigan State): Two seasons on the bench at Michigan State were spent by two good seaons (37 TDPs) at East Carolina. He’s projected to be the starter at Illinois this year. 14. Sam Horn (Missouri): Threw eight passes at Missouri. Pitches in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization. 15. Holden Geriner (Auburn): Three seasons at Auburn and one at Texas State produced 21 pass attempts. He’s now a backup QB at Pitt. 16. Justyn Martin (UCLA): He spent three years at UCLA before transferring to Maryland. Threw 35 passes in four years. Now he’s a backup at Ohio State. 17. Garret Rangel (Oklahoma State): Three seasons at Okie State produced eight TDPs. He transferred to Virginia Tech and didn’t play. Now he’s projected to start at D1AA UT-Rio Grande Valley. 18. Jacurri Brown (Miami): Two seasons at Miami, two at UCF and now he’s the projected starter at Rice. More INTs (9) than TDPs (6) in four years. 19. Tanner Bailey (South Carolina): Saw the field in 2023 at South Carolina, retired from football in 2024. Enrolled at Auburn as a student in 2024, then walked on the football team in 2025. Retired again. 20. Nate Johnson (Utah): Spent two seasons as a backup QB at Utah, then transferred to Vanderbilt in 2024 where he was a backup QB. Transferred back to Utah where he is a backup QB, running back and wide receiver. And some other notables: 31. Nah Fifita (Arizona): Three-year starter after a redshirt in 2022. He’s thrown 73 TDPs in his career. 41. Josh Hoover (TCU): Redshirt in 2022, three seasons as a starter with 71 TDPs. Transferred to Indiana where he will be the successor to Fernando Mendoza. 59. Max Brown (Florida): Redshirt in 2022, transferred to Charlotte in 2024, then to West Virginia last year. Projected backup at WVU. Three TDPs and eight INTs for his career. 61. Ashton Daniels (Stanford): Threw 21 TDPs in 33 games at Stanford before transferring to Auburn where he played in four games last year with three TDPs. Projected to start at QB for FSU this year. 67. Byrum Brown (South Florida): Last season threw for 3,158 yards and 28 touchdowns while running for 1,008 and 14. Four years at USF produced 61 passing TDs and 31 rushing. He will be the starter at Auburn this year. 83. Brendan Sorsby (Indiana): Transferred to Cincinnati after throwing 15 TDPs in 2023. In two years at Cincinnati threw for 5,613 yards and 45 touchdowns. Transferred to Texas Tech where he was ruled ineligible for gambling on his own team. 107. John Mateer (Washington State): When he’s healthy he ranks among the best QBs in the country. After two seasons as a backup at Wazzoo, threw for 29 touchdowns and ran for 15 more. Transferred to Oklahoma where he led the Sooners to the playoff despite numerous injuries. Threw for 14 TDPs, ran for eight last year at Oklahoma. 127. Fernando Mendoza (California): Wanted to walk on at The U but was denied the opportunity so he signed with California out of Christopher Columbus in Miami. After a redshirt, started two years at Cal, throwing 30 TDPs. Transferred to Indiana where he threw 41 TDPs, leading the Hoosiers to an unbeaten national championship season. Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

What happened Monday should be a wakeup call to the conference commissioners, school presidents, administrators and athletic directors in all of college sports, but particularly in Division I. Less than 90 days after winning the NCAA basketball championship at Michigan, Dusty May walked out on college sports, preferring instead the NBA where very few college coaches succeed. Dusty May is only 49 years old. Just eight years ago he left Mike White’s staff at Florida to become the head coach at Florida Atlantic where several predecessors tried but none of them succeeded in making the basketball program relevant. In his fifth season at FAU in 2023, May took the Owls to the Final Four. He took the Michigan job in 2025 and in two years took the Wolverines to the national championship, securing the Big Ten’s first NCAA basketball title since 2000. He’s young, good looking, great personality and he knows what it takes to build a powerhouse program. He was the head coach at Michigan, which with its large, prosperous alumni base and Big Ten dollars he had the Wolverines poised to be a national contender well into the future. So why is this guy leaving? A better question might be is Dusty May leaving a shot across the bow of not just basketball but all of college sports? The answer to both questions is the same: The uncertainty of the pros seems far less daunting than navigating the mess that is college sports today. Not many coaches succeed in the NBA after leaving the college ranks. The pro game is different, not so much about the basketball but the money that transforms egos into something large enough to apply for statehood. During the summer of 2011 while attending an AAU tournament held at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, Rick Pitino, then of Louisville, and I hung on the rail overlooking the court where Alex Poythress was having a big game playing for the Georgia Stars. A few steps away were Billy Donovan and John Pelphrey from Florida. They were there to watch Poythress and Kasey Hill, who was playing for the Florida Rams. The conversation with Pitino shifted from the game taking place on the basketball court to the NBA. Pitino was an NBA head coach twice – 1987-89 with the New York Knicks; 1997-2001 with the Boston Celtics – before returning to college basketball. He had success with the Knicks but never produced a winning season with the Celtics. Now this is a Hall of Fame basketball coach who heads into the 2026-27 season at St. John’s with 914 college wins on his belt. Few coaches have a track record of preparing their players for success in the NBA as Pitino. If anyone should have been easily successful making the transition from the college game to the pros it should have been Rick Pitino. So why didn’t it work out? To paraphrase our conversation, Pitino talked about the moment he knew he was out of place coaching in the NBA. “I had to make a sub,” he told me. “My guy on the floor is in a slump and he can’t find the ocean from the end of the pier. If I take him out, he’s going to think I lost confidence in him. I look at my bench and I’ve got two guys I’m thinking about. One is a veteran who’s had a good career. Put him in and my guy on the floor’s feelings are hurt, plus my veteran guy thinks he should be starting anyway. I don’t put him in and he pouts and maybe starts thinking about where he can go as a free agent. The other guy is a young kid who wants minutes to prove himself. He’s got star potential. He needs to be playing. I need to get him quality minutes, but at what price?” Near the end of the conversation, Pitino said and I’m paraphrasing again, “Another big problem is the players are getting paid more than the coach so they’re thinking why are you telling me what to do? I make more money than you.” The late, great Al McGuire once said the only way he would coach in the NBA would be if he was paid at least $1 more than the highest paid player. You get the drift here, and yet Dusty May is jumping into that fire to coach the Dallas Mavericks. It’s not about the money so much because Michigan has the bucks to pay him just about any amount he wants. It has more to do with escaping the chaos that lies ahead for college sports and unless there are drastic reforms initiated rather soon, Dusty May won’t be the only college coach to bolt for the pros. Todd Golden’s name has already surfaced with the Golden State Warriors. Jon Scheyer of Duke was prominent in the Dallas discussions before May was lured from Michigan. This won’t be confined to college basketball coaches. Jim Harbaugh made the jump from Michigan to the Los Angeles Chargers. Any time there is change in Atlanta, Kirby Smart’s name will be at the top of the list. Let Mario Cristobal win a national championship at Miami and you can bet the farm the Dolphins will think seriously about hiring a guy who grew up here, played college football here and who has resuscitated football at The U. Do you think the Tampa Bay Bucs or the Jacksonville Jaguars might follow Jon Sumrall’s rebuild of the Florida program? Sumrall will be 44 in a couple of weeks. He relates to players and he wins. The reason Todd Golden and Jon Sumrall might seriously think about leaving the college game for the pros at some point in the future is the same one that caused Dusty May to hitch a ride on the NBA wagon. Fewer hassles, no 24-hour, 365-day recruiting cycle, no dealing with parents who think their kid should be starting, no dealing with fat cat boosters who think that because they have more money than brains that they actually know a thing or two about sports. If there is a player you don’t like in the pros you can always cut him or tell your GM to trade him. In college sports, everybody is a free agent so a coach has to re-recruit his own players every year while filling gaps in his own roster by finding gems that fit his system in the portal. In the pros, there are strict guardrails that dictate player movement. And on and on and on. We have something called the Protect College Sports Act working its way through the Congress. Is it THE answer to all of college sports’ problems? The answer to that is a flat no. There is a reason that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the most powerful and smartest man in all of college sports, says no to this bill. There are holes big enough to drive a truck through that should be closed before making this the law of the land. At the heart of the bill is the 5-for-5 provision which sets age limits and starts the clock ticking on eligibility from the moment an athlete graduates from high school. The 5-for-5 grants five years to play, sets transfer guardrails and eliminates the selective partiality of the waiver process. Those are good ideas that should be implemented but there are other parts of the bill that require better solutions. But, as bad as some parts of the bill may be, this is a start. It may not be the final product by the time lawmakers, the NCAA and college administrators get through with it, but it’s a place to begin and no time should be wasted putting it in place. An incomplete bill that needs tweaks is far better than what we have now. The harsh reality of the current state of college sports is that if reform and changes aren’t put in place soon, the entire system is going to collapse under the weight of incompetence and chaos. The people in charge need to understand the urgency and do something before it’s too late, otherwise losing top quality coaches will be the least of their problems.

(Photo by Chris Spears) A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning: Early in the season when Jac Caglianone was struggling at the plate there was plenty of talk that the Kansas City Royals had brought him along too fast, that he needed to go back down to Triple A for some more seasoning. That was before June. In the 18 games he’s played in since June 1, the former Gator All-American is hitting .378 with seven home runs and 17 RBI. He has homered in three straight games including Sunday when he went deep twice, a pair of moon shots that traveled a combined 870 feet, against the St. Louis Cardinals. There have been no cheapies in this latest demonstration of power. All seven of Caglianone’s home runs in the month of June traveled at least 402 feet. Caglianone’s hot month of June has raised his batting average to .275 with 12 home runs and 28 RBI. He is now the team leader in home runs. Former Gator Wyatt Langford, who missed more than a month with a severe forearm injury, has come alive in the last seven days, hitting .416 with three home runs and eight RBI. In his 35 games this season, Langford is hitting .271 with six home runs and 16 RBI. Sunday in a win against San Diego, Langford blasted a 3-run home run, capping a three-game series in which he went 7-13 with two home runs and seven RBI. COUNTDOWN TO FIRING DAY: JUNE 22, 2026 It is never too early to identify coaches who would be very smart to avoid big real estate transactions in their current locales. We’re in the final days of June which means a number of coaches have 68 days maximum before they will need constant hydration to compensate for their sweat glands redlining around the clock. Extinct Species List Nobody so far, but it’s only June. On Life Support Dave Aranda, Baylor: Since that 12-2 season in 2021, the Bears are only 22-28. The Bears are predicted to finish barely above the catfish in the Big 12. They need Florida transfer DJ Lagway to play like he did as a freshman for the Gators to be a contender. If he is still throwing into double coverage, they can forget a winning season. Mike Locksley, Maryland: Consecutive 4-8 seasons (1-8 both years in the Big Ten) have erased the good will earned by three straight bowl seasons (23-16 record) from 2021-23. The Turtles are predicted to finish 15th in the 18-team Big Ten but the schedule is relatively easy. Anything less than seven wins and Locksley is a goner. Mike Norvell, Florida State: Oh how they would love for Mike Norvell to ride off into the sunset but why should he? He’s got a $51 million buyout which is a nice cushion to fall back on should cash-strapped FSU hold enough bake sales and raffles to raise the necessary cash. Things are so bad at FSU that the QB for next season will be Ashton Daniels, a bust last year at Auburn. Luke Fickell, Wisconsin: Success at Cincinnati (57-18) hasn’t translated into success at Wisconsin where they are asking themselves what the hell were we thinking when we fired Paul Chryst back in 2022. Chryst went 67-26 at Wisconsin. Fickell is 17-21 since taking over with consecutive losing seasons on his resume. He needs seven or eight wins this season to survive. Derek Mason, Middle Tennessee: He got a third year after posting a second straight 3-9 record in 2025. Why? Most likely because MTSU couldn’t afford the buyout money. The Blue Raiders are predicted to bring up the rear in Conference USA, the weakest league in Division I. A winning record in 2026 would be a miracle of healing the ten lepers proportions. Dell McGee, Georgia State: He’s 4-20 at a school that proved it is capable of winning under Shawn Elliott, who went to four bowl games in seven years. It will take an act of God for the Panthers to post a winning season this year. Endangered Species List Shane Beamer, South Carolina: He fired Mike Shula as his offensive coordinator and hired Kendal Briles to resuscitate last year’s stuck in the mud attack. If the offensive line can protect LaNorris Sellers, then the Gamecocks could be respectable. If not it will be a long, long year. South Carolina has four winnable games (Kent State, Towson, Mississippi State and Kentucky) at home in the first five. After that wins will be hard to come by. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama: Poster child for the never follow a legend concept. He has posted consecutive 4-loss seasons at Alabama. Alabama lost only eight games combined in Nick Saban’s last five years and after a 7-6 2007, Nick had only one 3-loss season (2010). Another season with four losses and all bets are off regarding DeBoer’s future. Lincoln Riley, Southern California: The luster has worn off. Southern Cal is 35-18 in Riley’s five seasons on the job. Much more is expected of a coach who’s paid more than $11 million a year. If he doesn’t make the College Football Playoff this year he might not be fired, but certainly will be encouraged to take his dog and pony show elsewhere. Bill O’Brien, Boston College: BC went 2-10 last season and predicted to bottom feed in the 17-team ACC this year. Neither the school nor the ACC is flush with cash, so an improvement to five wins probably buys another year. Jeff Choat, Nevada: The former Florida assistant (linebackers, 2013) is 6-19 in two seasons at Nevada. If the Wolfpack lose to 2025 D1AA national champ Montana State in game two and former D1AA dynasty now Mountain West member North Dakota State on October 17, about the only thing that will save Choat’s job will be getting to a bowl game with six or more wins. Jay Sawvel, Wyoming: The Cowboys improved from 3-9 in 2024 to 4-8 last year. The Mountain West schedule is weaker so expectations are at least six wins in 2026. Anything less and Sawvel will be a goner. Scotty Walden, UTEP: This is a dead end job where winning seasons are as rare as sightings of Haley’s Comet. The Mexican food in El Paso is off the charts good and the steaks at the Great American Land and Cattle Company up on the mountain overlooking the Rio Grande valley are as good as you’ll find anywhere. Food in El Paso, great. Football in El Paso not so great, but Walden will survive if he gets three or more wins. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Florida’s athletic budget will increase by $30.4 million to $235.7 million this year per the reporting of Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel. Fueling the increase is money from revenue sharing as part of the NCAA/House of Representatives settlement that all schools in Division I are supposed to receive. It is a lot of money but even with the influx of cash Florida will rank in the bottom half of the SEC when it comes to athletic spending. Nobody compares with Texas, whose 2024-25 budget was a massive $375.9 million, but even among the mere mortal programs, Florida isn’t anywhere near the top. Per the Daily Texan, here are the SEC schools and their 2024-25 budgets: 1. Texas $375.9 million; 2. Tennessee $288.1 million; 3. Oklahoma 249.4 million; 4. Georgia $240.1 million; 5. Alabama $234.7 million; 6. Texas A&M 228.3 million; 7. LSU $219.6 million; 8. Auburn $203.8 million; 9. South Carolina $203.25 million; 10. FLORIDA $200.99 million; 11. Missouri $191 million; 12. Kentucky $188.5 million; 13. Arkansas $184.09 million; 14. Ole Miss $183.7 million; 15. Mississippi State $164.48 million; 16. Vanderbilt $150.28 million. When it comes to the estimated value of athletic departments nationally, here are the SEC schools, their national ranking and value per the Knight Commission: 2. Texas $1.28 billion; 3. Texas A&M 1.26 billion; 5. Alabama $978 million; 7. Georgia $950 million; 9. Tennessee $940 million; 10. Oklahoma $928 million; 13. LSU $916 million; 14. FLORIDA $865 million; 18. Arkansas $776 million; 19. Kentucky $775 million; 20. Auburn $772 million; 29. Ole Miss $651 million; 30. South Carolina $650 million; 35. Missouri $590 million; 38. Vanderbilt $551 million; 43. Mississippi State $523 million. With a state population of 32.1 million, huge alumni bases and so many multi-millionaire boosters who earned their money in the oil business, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Texas and Texas A&M are so highly valued. They have cash, facilities and so many programs that compete at the highest levels. Texas A&M has an alumni base of 640,000 while Texas has 585,000 living alums. Florida is the third largest state (population 23.5 million), which is more than double that of Georgia, eighth nationally and the third most populous state among the Southeastern Conference. Tennessee (15th) and Missouri (19th) are the only other states in the SEC footprint that rank top 20 in population. Even with the inconsistent nature of the football program it is curious that Florida should rank bottom half of the SEC in terms of athletic spending and at the halfway point among SEC schools when it comes to value of the athletic programs. With the population and alumni base (450,000 living alums) advantages coupled with the success of its teams it would seem that Florida would rank much higher in terms of budget and overall valuation. The Florida athletic department has typically run a tight ship when it comes to fiscal matters but spending on facilities has gone through the roof (Condron Family Ballpark, Heavener Center, O-Dome renovation) and there are plans to spend more than $1.45 billion to renovate Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Scholarship limitations have risen by nearly 200 athletes across the 21 sports UF sponsors. So where is the money coming from to fund all these ventures? Booster money is expected to increase to $46.3 million next year and the SEC money from bowl games, NCAA tournaments and broadcast rights will continue to rise. Football is expected to start winning again, but there are no guarantees. And what happens if the athletic programs endure another year like 2025-26 in which the Gators didn't win a single national championship and will barely squeak into the top ten of the Learfield Director’s Cup? If the Gators are winning at a high level revenues should increase, but what is Plan B if expectations aren’t met? These are legitimate questions and something that should make every Gator go hmmm.

(Photo by Chris Spears) A few thoughts to jump start your Saturday morning: Perhaps Texas A&M basketball coach Bucky McMillan should heed the advice of my grandmother, the late, great Ivey Van Sickle, who warned about criticizing others: “Remember, when you point a finger at someone you’ve got three pointing back at you.” On the podcast “Next Round Live,” Bucky took a shot at Florida for retaining Tommy Haugh. Florida spent a rather hefty chunk of NIL money to convince Haugh to return for his senior season even though he was all but guaranteed to be a lottery pick for the upcoming NBA Draft. Because Haugh is such a cleancut, good looking young man with a bubbly personality, endorsements could push his NIL package to the $10 million range. To that, McMillan said, “Who would’ve ever thought a lottery pick at Florida would come back to college because he has an opportunity to make more, potentially, in college than the NBA? “A lottery pick! Who would have ever thought of that? Like you’ve got to be kidding me that that’s where we are. So, what you’re going to see in the SEC and across college basketball, you’re going to see some incredible basketball, because the players, you’ve got guys that were going to be Top 10 picks going back to college. So you’re going to see some great basketball, but mathematically, I just don’t know how long it can last like this, or places are going to go out of business.” Now, McMillan is right about a couple of things: (1) A lot of exceptional players – Haugh is one of many – have chosen to forego the NBA Draft for a year in college basketball in many instances because they will make more money in college than late first or second round; and (2) mathematically this is unsustainable. Those are undeniable truths and there will come a day of reckoning across the college sports board if something isn’t done in a hurry to bring back a measure of sanity. However, before making statements that are veiled shots at a program that has the money and is willing to spend it to build a championship roster, McMillan should look in the mirror. Texas A&M has signed Bryson Warren, who tried to short circuit the system when he was in high school by taking the money to go play for Overtime Elite in Atlanta. Undrafted by the NBA, Warren went the G-League route where he is a 3-year veteran, most recently playing for the Westchester Knicks where he averaged 18.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game. Because he is 21 years old and never played college basketball, there is a very good chance Warren will be ruled eligible to play, whether by the NCAA or the courts. And, before he makes remarks about the money Florida is spending on basketball, perhaps he should venture over to the football complex where oil gozillionaires are lining up to write checks to lure high school kids and transfers to come play ball for the Aggies. SUMRALL STAYS HOT, ANOTHER BLUE CHIP ADDED Jon Sumrall’s first full recruiting class stands at 23 now with the addition of 4-star linebacker Robert Geathers III (6-2, 215, Charlotte, NC Providence Day School), who chose the Gators over offers from Tennessee, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Southern Cal and LSU among others. Per Jason Higdon of 1standtenflorida.com, the final word when it comes to football recruiting and the Gators, Sumrall is expected to add seven more players. The Gators remain a strong possibility to flip defensive tackle Jalen Brewster (6-3, 313, Cedar Hill, TX) from Texas Tech and wide receiver Easton Royal (5-11, 200, New Orleans, LA Brother Martin) from Texas. In the On3 recruiting rankings, Brewster is the No. 1 player in the country and Royal the No. 4. OREGON STATE PITCHER TRANSFERS TO UFPer Jacob Rudner of Baseball America, the Gators are adding Oregon State righthander Zach Edwards (6-5, 220, SO) to the portal recruiting class. Edwards is the sixth transfer, the second from Oregon State since Rich Dorman left OSU to become Florida’s pitching coach. Earlier in the week, the Gators landed talented OSU lefty Trey Morris (7-0, 1.98 ERA). Edwards throws in the mid-to-high 90s. In two seasons at Oregon State he was 3-0 with a 5.68 ERA and 59 strikeouts in 44-1/3 innings. BINGEWORTHY With the College World Series almost in the books, we hit that six-week period when we scramble for something to occupy us on television. This is the Binge Season for me in which I go back to series that were must see in years past. Here are a few selections. Taxi: Christopher Lloyd as Reverend Jim and Andy Kauffman as Latka Gravas made this must see in the late 1970s. Danny DeVito as the taxi garage manager is the perfect straight man for Reverend Jim and Latka. Cheers: Ted Danson plays the role of former Major League Baseball pitcher Sam Malone now owner of a bar in Boston. Great cast of characters with Nicolas Colasanto in the role of Coach, George Wendt as Norm, Rhea Perlman as Carla, John Ratzenberger as Cliff Clavin, Kelsey Grammar as Frasier, and Shelley Long as Diane Chambers. Best line ever from Cheers by Norm as he enters the bar: “Terrorists, Sam. They’ve taken my stomach hostage and they’re demanding beer for ransom.” Frasier: A spinoff from Cheers with Kelsey Grammar taking a job as a radio show psychiatrist in his home town of Seattle where his father, a disabled policeman, lives with him in a penthouse along with Eddie, a Jack Russell Terrier that constantly gets under Frasier’s skin. The interaction between Frasier’s prissy brother Niles, also a psychiatrist, and Daphne, the caretaker/physical therapist for Frasier’s dad, is outstanding. Boston Legal: Seven seasons of William Shatner Denny Crane and James Spader as Alan Shore, attorneys for Boston’s largest and most prominent law firm. Brilliantly written. Must see in season one when Reverend Al Sharpton makes a cameo by bursting into a court room to save a case for Shore whose client wants to play the role of a black Little Orphan Annie on the touring Broadway show “Annie.” Hunters: A show based on some truth – Nazis escaped Germany at the end of World War II to settle in America as part of the very real Operation Paperclip – and the fiction that Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun got away to live in Argentina. Al Pacino plays the role of Holocaust survivor and New York philanthropist, who was a Nazi who took on the identity of Meyer Offerman in the concentration camps at the end of the war. A small group of Nazi hunters is directed by Offerman, who in reality is covering his own tracks. Two seasons, compelling drama. Goliath: Billy Bob Thornton as a once prominent Los Angeles attorney coerced into taking on a case that involves a huge, corrupt defense contractor in season one. William Hurt is part of the season one cast in a very dark role. Ted Lasso: It's a preposterous idea – a successful American football coach who doesn't know anything about soccer is hired to coach a Premier League team in the UK – but that's why it's so funny. It starts growing on you early on and next thing you know it’s addictive. If you're offended by the F word, then avoid like the plague. If you can get past it you'll laugh. Fourth season coming in the fall. Yellowstone: Five seasons in which Kevin Costner plays the role of John Dutton, owner of the huge Dutton Yellowstone Ranch in Montana. Constant conflict and well written scripts. Show concluded with Dutton assassinated after he was elected governor. Cole Hauser as ranch foreman Rip and Kelly Reilly as Beth Dutton marry and become the foundation of the Yellowstone spinoff Dutton Ranch, which is in season one. Landman seasons one and two: I’m binging on the first two seasons as I wait for season three to debut in November. Billy Bob Thornton as west Texas oilman Tommy Norris. Andy Garcia as a mysterious billionaire tied to the Mexican cartels, Demi Moore as the wife then widow of Monty Miller, Ali Larter as Tommy Norris’ wife, and Sam Elliott, who came on late in season two in the role of Norris’ father. Kayla Wallace as a take no prisoners attorney Rebecca Falcone is outstanding. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: There is no question that something has to be done to reel in college sports which seem intent to create their own version of 1928 when the banks and financial system collapsed. We have reached the point that it’s either do something in a hurry or else college sports as we know them will collapse to the point where entire athletic programs will teeter on the verge of bankruptcy. There aren’t enough fingers to point at who’s to blame for the current situation, even though a good place to begin is the NCAA, which, in its infinite wisdom, continues to compound problems with insanely stupid decisions. In the real world, we would fire the people in charge, but the NCAA doesn’t dwell in the real world. The power behind the organization is college presidents, who, by and large, are clueless when it comes to both sports and business. College sports are big business and the people in charge live in the parallel universe known as academia. Few of them have ever held down a real job and quite a few of them employ coaches who make several times their salaries. You don’t have to be a charter member of Mensa to see the problem there, which is why college sports as we know them hang in a pit and the pendulum balance. Things have gotten so bad that the entirety of the college sports world has turned for answers to the only organization in the country that operates on an equal level of ineptitude – the United States Congress. Now that’s not to say that Congress couldn’t be useful to solve the issues. We need them to do two things: (1) Make it far more difficult to bypass the bylaws for answers in the court system; and (2) provide anti-trust legislation that will allow things such as salary caps. Of course, for the Congress to do these things in a way that would provide lasting guidelines it would take the NCAA presidents ceding control of sports to people who actually know what they are doing. Hence the problem. There is an old joke that could be adapted to both Washington DC and the halls of Congress and Indianapolis, headquarters of the NCAA. It goes something like this: Why wasn’t Jesus born in Washington DC or Indianapolis? Because God couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin. The virginity part is debatable. Three wise men? Not so much. Are there three wise men at one or both of these locales willing to step up and inject a measure of common sense into the current circumstances? We can only hope.

Photo by Chris Spears The junior tailback is poised for a huge season with superstar potential if he gets a better O-Line. Write it down. Everybody loves a quarterback. Always have, always will. It’s the American way — from Spurrier to Tebow to whoever’s next in line to be overhyped, overanalyzed and, if we’re honest, occasionally overmatched. So yes, you’ll hear the names Aaron Philo and Trammel Jones. A lot. They’re The Future. The next big thing. Maybe. But if you’re looking for the player who could quietly change the trajectory of Florida’s offense in 2026, you might want to take your eyes off the quarterbacks for a minute and settle them on a young man who doesn’t mind a little traffic. Jadan Baugh. There’s a name that might have made the rounds outside the Swamp but hasn't been tumpeted nearly enough. It will become louder this season and resonate in the echo chamber with the kind of buzz that normally sells jerseys in June or fuels talk radio in July. Maybe that window has been missed, but sometimes the best stories are the ones that haven’t been properly advertised. Make no mistake: Baugh might have been Florida’s best-kept secret for a minute. But write this down because it has certainly been preached often from this pulpit and I want full credit: He’s about to become a bonafide Gator superstar. Consider the numbers, if you’re into that sort of thing. A freshman season that turned heads, followed by a sophomore campaign that did more than just confirm suspicions — it doubled down on them. Two hundred twenty carries. Over 1,100 yards. Thirty-three catches out of the backfield. Ten touchdowns. That’s not promise. That’s production. And according to the folks who make a living evaluating such things — general managers, scouting directors, the behind-the-curtain crowd — Baugh isn’t just good. He might be the best running back in America entering 2026. Read that again. In a sport where running backs are suddenly worth upwards of $2 million in the transfer marketplace, where rosters flip faster than pancakes at a Sunday brunch, Baugh stayed put and kept working. That says something. Or at least it used to. But here’s where the caution light flickers. We’ve seen this movie before in Gainesville. Talented back. Big expectations. And then — well — a blocking scheme that leaks like an old roof in a summer storm. Potential meets reality, and reality usually wins. Which brings us to the real hinge points of this whole operation: Jon Sumrall and Phil Trautwein. If they can construct something resembling a competent forward wall — not the Great Wall, mind you, just something sturdier than a suggestion — then things could get interesting in a hurry. Because Baugh doesn’t need perfection. He needs a crease. He needs a second. Give him that, and suddenly the Gators aren’t just moving the chains — they’re dictating terms. Play-action opens up. Quarterbacks look better than they are. Defensive coordinators start losing sleep again, which hasn’t been a common side effect when preparing for Florida lately. That’s how an offense sneaks up on people. That’s how you become a problem. And that’s why, while everybody else is debating quarterback depth charts and NIL valuations, the smartest folks in the room might be quietly circling 13 this fall. Because if the pieces come together — and yes, that’s always an “if” in this sport — Florida could be about to weaponize something exceptional. How exceptional ? I asked for counsel. Here’s how our Gator Bait team sees this unfolding— “The projected O-line: LT Emeka Ugoji (Stanford transfer); LG Knijeah Harris; C Harrison Moore (transfer from Georgia Tech); RG TJ Shanahan (transfer from Penn State) RT Caden Jones “The O-line projects to be very mobile in Buster Faulkner’s offensive scheme. The key is center Harrison Moore a very athletic transfer from Georgia Tech who came to GT as a tight end. He’s smart and mobile, the ideal successor to Jake Slaughter. “The staple of Faulkner’s offense is a quick release passing game that spreads the field and forces linebackers into coverage, leaving a 5-on-5 O-line to defensive front situation. There is lots of play action also. The threat of the run and the success of the run with Jadan Baugh should make play action very successful at giving the Gators chances for chunk plays. “There is also the threat of the run at QB. Philo is a very good runner, but Jones has speed and is highly underrated. The threat of the run means a linebacker is going to have to take the QB or else the QB will gain big chunks of yardage. The option is in play here but the key is the ability to get the running backs to the second level with the defense mid spread.” A weapon hiding in plain sight. Not flashy. Not overhyped. Just dangerous. The kind of RB who can take over a game? We’ll see. Depends on the reconstruction of the O-Line. And maybe, just maybe, we’n see the kind of player who reminds you that football games are still won the old-fashioned way — with a running back, a little daylight, and the will to make something out of it. You could do a lot worse than to hitch your wagon to the star of Jaden Baugh.

(UAA Photo) The ending was ever so disappointing. The Gators were hot, the No. 8 seed for the NCAA Tournament and a fast track path to the College World Series in Omaha. Well, somebody forgot to tell Troy that it was supposed to roll over and die. The last team to make the NCAA field of 64 teams, Troy made a mockery of the selection committee by rebounding from a first game loss to Miami by taking the Gainesville Regional, pounding Florida into submission two straight games to advance to a super regional. It is little consolation to Kevin O’Sullivan and the Gators that Troy won the super regional and made a strong showing in Omaha. The Gators finished the 2026 season 41-21 with 15 of those losses to teams that made the NCAA Tournament. Of the teams that made the College World Series, Florida went 2-1 against Oklahoma, which will play North Carolina in the championship series, and 2-1 against No. 3 seed Georgia, which lost to Oklahoma in the semifinals. This was a Jekyll and Hyde type of season for the Gators. When they were good they were very, very good. The Gators swept Florida State, went 3-0 against Miami and 3-0 against Arkansas in Fayette-Nam. When the Gators weren’t on their A-games, they lost two out of three to High Point and midweek games to Jacksonville and Bethune-Cookman. In SEC play, they dropped two-out-of-three weekend series to Auburn, Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Offensively, the Gators were very good but the pitching and defense left plenty to be desired. Other than Aidan King the Gators didn’t have a consistent weekend starter. The bullpen was often hit and miss. Typically one of the elite defensive teams in the country, the Gators fielded at a .972 percentage, which ranked 130th nationally. To solve some of the issues, O’Sullivan made a change in his staff, bringing in Rich Dorman from Oregon State, considered by most experts to be one of the elite pitching coaches in the country. Dorman’s Oregon State staff led the nation with a 3.22 ERA. Florida hasn’t had an ERA that low since the COVID-shortened 2020 season (2.41). Florida will lose some talent to graduation/Major League Baseball Draft such as starting pitcher Liam Peterson (projected first round), left fielder Blake Cyr, center fielder Kyle Jones (could go second or third round) and catcher Karson Bowen. The Gators have lost 10 in the portal but the only player of significance is Cade Kurland, who has transferred to LSU. O’Sullivan returns 18 veterans from the 2026 team including All-Americans King, Caden McDonald and Brendan Lawson along with leading hitter Ethan Surowiec. He’s added five players already from the portal including John Embury from Florida Gulf Coast, considered the best catcher in the portal; Oregon State freshman lefty Trey Morris; Jacksonville State relief specialist Maddox McDougal; and a pair of defensive stalwarts in John Martinez (2B/3B) from Florida Atlantic and Kyle McDaniel (2B) from Utah Tech. Of the 14 incoming freshmen, the Gators could very well lose Kevin Roberts Jr. (OF/RHP), Brady Harris (CF), Brady Snow (RHP) and Cameron Hanes (RHP/1B) in the Major League Baseball Draft, but it is a solid class that addresses the need for lefty pitching, outfielders who can run and hit with power, and infield defense. Here is a look at the way the roster stands on June 19, 2026: RETURNING PLAYERS Pitchers (8) Caden McDonald, RHP/1B/DH, RJR: Second team All-American two-way player. As a pitcher he appeared in 20 games, posting a 5-1 record with one save and a 3.42 ERA. Struck out 48 with just eight walks in 47-1/3 innings. As the plate he hit .319 in 98 at-bats with nine doubles, nine home runs and 28 RBI. Career 9-1 record on the mound, .316 batting average. Aidan King, RHP, JR: All-American and SEC Pitcher of the Year after an 8-2 campaign with a 3.21 ERA. Career 15-4 record with a 2.92 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 160-1/3 innings. Only 42 walks given up. Jackson Barberi, RHP, JR: Made 19 relief appearances in 2026 with a 5-2 record, 3.13 ERA and two saves. Was 2-1 as a freshman with five starts and 20 total appearances. Stuck out 96 in 69-2/3 innings over two seasons. Blaine Rowland, RHP, RSO: Injured in 2026, took a redshirt. As a freshman appeared in eight games with a 1-0 record, 3.21 ERA and 10 strikeouts in 14 innings. Josh Whritenour, RHP, RSO: Became Florida’s closer as a freshman when he was credited with seven saves, a 4-4 record and a 5.40 ERA. Struck out 49 in 36-2/3 innings. Schuyler Sanford, RHP, RSO: Made two starts while pitching in 12 games. Posted a 2-0 record with a 4.90 ERA. Struck out 23 in 20 innings. Jackson Hoyt, LHP, SO: Pitched in seven games as a freshman with a 13.50 ERA. Had eight strikeouts in 7-2/3 innings. Minjae Seo, RHP, RFR: Injured in 2026, took a redshirt. Catchers (1) AJ Malzone, RJR: Juco transfer who played in only one game due to injury. Infielders (5) Landon Stripling, 1B, SR: In 38 games hit .289 with six homers and 17 RBI. Started 34 games at first base. Ethan Surowiec, 3B/1B, JR: The only Gator to play and start every game. Hit .317 with 12 home runs and 63 RBI after transferring to Florida from Ole Miss. Power hitter who gets on base. Not a great fielder at third, might be moved to first next season. Brendan Lawson, SS, JR: Hit .312 with 18 home runs and 49 RBI last season. Career .315, 29 home runs, 109 RBI. All-SEC and second team All-America. Colton Schwarz, 2B/3B, SO: Played in 23 games with 18 starts. Hit .226 with 10 RBI. Nic Partridge, SS, RFR: Didn’t see action in 2026. Outfielders (4) Hayden Yost, SR: Came on strong in the last third of the 2026 season, finishing with a .262 batting average with 10 home runs and 23 RBI. Career .264 with 14 homers and 65 RBI. Plays both right and center field. Jadan Bastian, RJR: Tore an ACL last fall and took a redshirt. The heir apparent to Kyle Jones in center field. In two seasons at JU he hit .288 with 17 homers and 58 RBI. Stole 47 bases and was caught stealing only four times. Cash Strayer, SO: Injuries curtailed his freshman season but in 32 games hit .272 with four home runs and 26 RBI. Jacob Kendall, SO: In 31 games as a freshman hit .190 with two home runs and 12 RBI. INCOMING TRANSFERS (5) Kyle McDaniel, Utah Tech, 2B, JR: Second team All-WAC after a junior season in which he hit .345 with seven home runs, 52 RBI, 17 doubles, 17 stolen bases and 43 walks. Struck out only 27 times. John Embury, Florida Gulf Coast, C, SO: The top catcher transfer in the country after a season in which he hit .364 with 17 homers and 64 RBI. Career numbers .320 with 26 home runs and 93 RBI. Home is Venice, FL. Maddox McDougal, Jacksonville State, RHP, SO: Reliever who pitched in 26 games, compiling a 5-0 record with a 2.76 ERA. In two seasons at Jax State 38 appearances with seven starts, 9-3 record and a 3.79 ERA. From Wesley Chapel, FL. Trey Morris, Oregon State, LHP, FR: Followed new pitching coach Rich Dorman to Florida after a freshman season that he went 7-0 with a 1.89 ERA. In 59 innings struck out 67 batters and walked only 15. John Martinez, Florida Atlantic, 2B/3B, JR: Career .290 hitter who plays both sides of the infield. In 112 games at FAU he hit eight home runs and drove in 69. INCOMING FRESHMEN Kevin Roberts Jr., of/RHP: No. 36 prospect by Baseball America; No. 94 by Yahoo Sports. Just Baseball ranks him as the No. 19 high school prospect in the nation. Hit 10 home runs and drove in 34 while hitting .396 as a senior at Jackson (MS) Prep. Career 9-1 record with 3.05 ERA and 78 strikeouts in 57-1/3 innings. Size (6-5, 220), speed and athleticism (4-sport athlete) make him an almost certain first or second rounder. Brady Harris, OF: Ranked No. 58 prospect by Baseball America; No. 160 by MLB.com; No. 141 by Yahoo Sports. Career .326 hitter with 14 home runs and 69 RBI at Jacksonville Trinity Christian. Center fielder with gap-to-gap speed and a strong enough arm to play right field. Brady Snow, RHP: Ranked No. 168 prospect by MLB.com; No. 30 by Prep Baseball Report; No. 196 by Yahoo Sports. No. 62 high school prospect by Just Baseball. Miami Herald Pitcher of the Year at American Heritage. Throws in the mid-to-high 90s. Colin White, LHP: Mid-90s fast ball but the curve is his out pitch. Grew from lanky 6-3, 170 to 6-4, 210 in the last year. Ranked the No. 6 lefty pitcher in the country by Perfect Game. Keaton Neal, SS/RHP: Ranked as the No. 126 prospect by Baseball America. Belongs on the left side of the infield whether at shortstop or third base. Excellent defender who will develop as a power hitter. Throws low 90s on the mound. From Olathe, Kansas. Long, lean (6-3, 170) frame that will fill out. Lorenzo Laurel, OF: Career .322 hitter for Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, the state’s pre-eminent high school baseball power. Contact hitter with outstanding outfield range and strong throwing arm. Cameron Hanes, RHP/1B: No. 40 prospect by Baseball America out of TNXL Academy in Orange County. Regularly hits 93-94 mph with his fast ball, nice slider, too. Big kid (6-4, 205) who hits for power. Carter Cox, LHP: Led Venice to the state 7A title with a 13-0 record, then two days after the championship game flipped from Florida Atlantic to UF. ERA of 0.49 with 125 strikeouts in 79-2/3 innings. August Backman, OF: Hit .505 for state champ Venice. Line drive hitter with gap power. Very difficult to strike out. Outstanding defensive center fielder with strong throwing arm. Also pitched for Venice. Tyler Ellis, LHP: The No. 21 lefthanded pitcher by Perfect Game. Throws low-to-mid 90s, gets a lot of ground outs with his sinker. At Trinity Christian in Jacksonville posted an 0.62 ERA for state 2A champions. Outstanding defender at first base, also plays outfield. Teammate of UF signees Brady Harris and Ethan Wheeler. Ethan Wheeler, RHP: Big (6-5, 220) righty with an overhand delivery. Consistent in the 90-92 range but projected to throw mid-to-high 90s with some tweaking of his delivery. From Trinity Christian in Jacksonville. Luke Labbe, C: Ranked No. 33 catcher in the nation. Outstanding defender with a strong arm. Line drive contact hitter at Bartram Trail. Brandon Lorenzo, SS: Growth spurt has taken him to 6-2, 165. Outstanding defender with great range and strong arm. Contact hitter whose power is expected to catch up with his growth. Hit .338 at Miami Mater Academy where he was All-Dade as a junior. Brandon Heller, 2B: Contact hitter best known for defense at second base. Reportedly injured so only played 12 games as a senior at Malapan High School in New Jersey. OUTGOING TRANSFERS Cade Kurland, 2B, RJR, to LSU: Could also go in the 2026 MLB Draft. Career .276, 43 homers, 142 RBI at Florida. McCall Biemiller, LHP, RSO, to North Carolina State: Career 5.93 ERA in 13-2/3 innings. Rivers Kurland, LHP, RFR: No stats as a freshman. Cooper Walls, RHP, SO: Went 3-3 with a 7.13 ERA after transferring from Hawaii where he was 3-3 with a 3.73 ERA as a freshman. Kolt Myers, SS/3B, RFR: Hit .185 with three RBI last season. Christian Rodriguez, RHP, RSO: Only three appearances last year with a 20.25 ERA. Pitched in 22 games with a 1-0 record in 2025. Eli Blair, LHP, SO: Nine relief appearances, 0-1 record and a 4.82 ERA as a freshman. Blake Brookins, OF, JR: Redshirt in 2026. Career .188 with two doubles. Matthew Jenkins, RHP, JR: Did not play in 2026; 0-2 in 2025 with a 9.64 ERA. Cooper Moss, RHP, RFR: Did not play in 2026.

(UAA Photo) Tim Walton has spent the last 21 years spoiling Florida softball fans to the point that any season in which the Gators fail to make it to the hallowed ground of Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City for the Women’s College World Series is considered a disappointment. The Gators came up one game short of making it to OKC in 2026, but making it that far with only one truly reliable pitcher is an accomplishment. Florida finished the year 52-12, forced to rely too heavily on Keagan Rothrock after Ava Brown suffered a leg injury in February. With Brown, Walton had a formidable 1-2 punch in the circle. Without her it was Rothrock and prayers. Rothrock returns for her senior season and Brown, who gets double duty at first base and designated player, is expected to be fully recovered. The third starter is expected to be Caroline Stanton, the Gatorade National Player of the Year, who enrolled early at Florida but took a redshirt to rest her arm since Georgia plays its high school softball season in the fall. That should give the Gators an exceptional weekend rotation that keeps arms well rested. From the 2026 Gators Walton loses All-American catcher Jocelyn Erickson and All-SEC shortstop Kenleigh Cahalan. Replacing them (combined 38 home runs, 142 RBI) won’t be easy, but the combination of returning players and an outstanding recruiting class should make the Gators serious contenders to return to OKC for the 14th time in a Walton’s Hall of Fame career. Walton is 1,080-267 at Florida, 1203-331 counting his three seasons at Wichita State. The Gators haven’t lost a single player to the transfer portal and Walton has only brought in one – Duke catcher Kairi Rodriguez, who is expected to be the backup to Ella Wesolowski. Rodriguez might be the only player Walton signs from the portal although there are three or four big names that he would certainly make room for if they wanted to play for the Gators. Here is a look at the anticipated Florida softball roster for next season: Returning starters (6) Keagan Rothrock, RHP, SR: Led the SEC with a 30-7 record (2.57 ERA). First team All-SEC selection. Career 79-23 record with a 2.73 ERA. Ava Brown, RHP/1B/DH, SR: When a leg injury ended her season in the circle, she was 5-0 with a 1.47 ERA. When she returned from the injury she played both first base and DH where she hit .330 with 11 homers and 40 RBI. Career pitching numbers 32-8 with 3.08 ERA. As a hitter, career .280 with 35 home runs and 110 RBI. Cassidy McClellan, RF, SR: Hit .303 with 10 homers and 41 RBI in her first year both injury-free and as a full-time starter. Taylor Shumaker, CF, JR: All-American who hit .445 with 18 homers and 59 RBI. Career .417 hitter with 40 home runs and 145 RBI. Gabi Comia, 2B, JR: Hit .344 with 25 RBI and made second team All-SEC defensive team. Townsen Thomas, LF, RSO: Spectacular defender in left field who hit .374 with six homers and 50 RBI. Returning reserves (8) Olivia Miller, LHP, SR: Made 30 appearances, mostly in relief (3 starts) where she compiled an 8-1 record with a 2.25 ERA. Career 15-1 with a 2.35 ERA. Madison Walker, 1B/3B/DH, SR: Likely moves to first base in 2027. In her first year at UF after transferring from Missouri, hit .336 with 10 home runs and 36 RBI. Played in 57 games with 46 starts. Ella Wesolowski, C/OF, SR: Got 41 starts at catcher and right field where she hit .262 with five homers and 23 RBI. Spent her first two seasons at Mississippi State. Allison Sparkman, RHP, SR: Florida Gulf Coast transfer who pitched in 12 games with one start, 0-0 record and a 2.39 ERA. Katelynn Oxley, RHP, JR: Appeared in 24 games with 10 starts where she was 4-2 with a 4.95 ERA and one save. Career 12-7 record with a 3.55 ERA and four saves. Caroline Stanton, RHP, RFR: No. 1 recruit in the nation; enrolled early and took a redshirt in 2026 because Georgia plays its fast pitch season in the fall. Led Buford to a 64-1 record and two state championships her junior and senior seasons, going 14-0 with an 0.77 ERA, averaging 13 strikeouts per game in 2025. She went 3-0 with an 0.82 ERA as a gold medalist for the USA under-18 national team. Leah Stevens, RHP, SO: Appeared in 22 games as a true freshman, making eight starts with a 5-2 record and a 4.27 ERA. Katie Matsuno, INF, SO: Appeared in 24 games, mostly as a pinch-runner. Went 1-2 in limited appearances at the plate. Incoming freshmen (6) Shayla Bahr, OF, Peachtree Corners, GA Wesleyan School: 4-time first team All-State in Georgia; hit 3 HR in a state playoff game in 2024, two homers in the state championship game in 2025 and had an on-base percentage of better than .600 as a senior while leading Wesleyan to a fifth straight state title. The No. 13 player nationally was named to the USA 18-and-under team. Kennedy Bradley, Melissa, TX, 3B: No. 14 player nationally and the country’s top power hitter. Hit .495 as a senior with 21 HR, 67 RBI, 18 stolen bases and a 1.207 slugging percentage. Hit 26 home runs in 2025. Avery Killian, Metairie, LA Mount Carmel Academy, C: The No. 94 national recruit and the No. 12 catcher. Killian also plays third base. Power hitter, but best known for defense and one of the best throwing arms from behind the plate of any catcher in the country. Brooklyn Gidley, 2B/SS, College Station, TX, A&M Consolidated: She’s a slapper in the Kendra Falby mode. Hit .510 and was 19-19 stealing bases. No. 23 national recruit. Liliana Escobar, RHP, Trabuco Canyon, CA Juniper Serra Catholic: Posted an 18-record with 264 strikeouts in 153 innings. Struck out 239 in 140 innings as a junior. Two-time CIF Southern Division II player of the year. Nina Carcone, SS, Woodstock, GA: From the same home town as Gator legend Skylar Wallace. Carcone is a contact hitter who hits for high average and can steal bases. The No. 11 player nationally, Carcone is considered one of the top two or three defensive shortstops in the country. From the portal (1) Kairi Rodriguez, Duke, C, RSR: Excellent defender with a strong throwing arm. Power hitter (nine homers in each of the last two years) but doesn’t hit for average (career .277 with 21 homers, 80 RBI). 2027 RECRUITING CLASS Taegen Lermann, RHP/INF, Washington, TX Homeschool Christian: Power pitcher who is a contact hitter. She has played every position except catcher. Gold medalist with Team USA at the Under-15 world championships. Hit .576 as a junior with eight HR while posting a 4-0 record in the circle. The No. 21 prospect nationally. Taylor Jennings, 1B, Brentwood, CA Liberty: Lefty hitting first baseman with gap power to all fields. who is very capable of playing left or right field. Hit .393 as a high school junior. The No. 11 national prospect. Niayli “Yelli” Calvo, 3B, Fairfield, CA Vanden: Career .554 hitter who had seven homers and 38 RBI as a junior. Lefty hitter with 19 homers and 96 RBI in her career. The No. 20 prospect nationally. Samantha Nichols, SS, Modesto, CA Central Catholic: Hit .618 with eight home runs and 42 RBI as a junior. Career 23 homers, 123 RBI and a .564 batting average. No. 29 national prospect. Addison Allaire, RHP, Trenton, FL: Florida Gatorade Player of the Year who led Trenton to a third straight state championship with an 18-3 record, 0.83 ERA. She also hit .449 with seven home runs and 28 RBI. Started playing varsity softball as a 7th-grader. Career 55-15 record with a 1.35 ERA. No. 86 national prospect. Josslynn Grimsley, OF, Tampa, FL Catholic: Leadoff hitter with a career .400 average. Outstanding gap-to-gap speed in center field who had an error-less 2026. The No. 96 national prospect. FIVE IN THE PORTAL TO KEEP AN EYE ON Jaysoni Beachum, Florida State, 3B, JR: Thought by some in Tallahassee to be a Florida lean. Career .375 with 37 HR and 180 RBI. Second team All-America. From Tallahassee. Tori Edwards, LSU, OF, RSO: Second team All-American in 2025 when she hit 18 homers and drove in 73 runs. Slumped in 2026 to .284, 12 HR, 45 RBI. From Flower Mound, TX. Kasidi Pickering, Oklahoma, OF, JR: All-American who hit .370 with 20 home runs and 61 RBI. Career .384 hitter with 50 home runs and 161 RBI. From Humble, Texas. Thanks to 5-for-5 rule, she would have two years eligibility. Well worth pursuing. Delainey Everett, Mississippi State, LHP, JR: Mostly a reliever with 19 career saves, 1.15 ERA in 2026 helping MSU to its first ever WCWS appearance. 17-4 career record, 2.55 ERA. From Oakdale, CA. Gigi Ganje, Pennsylvania, CF, SO: Hit .429 with 16 HR, 41 RBI in 44 games. Career .371 hitter. Best player in the Ivy League. From Laguna Niguel, California.

I went to a soccer match in Istanbul between two rival teams and I found myself chanting in Turkish for the home squad By EDDIE GILLEY GatorBaitMedia.com I’m sure there are some Gator fans who are also genuine fans of the other “football.” Soccer for most of us. But once every four years, I find myself drawn to what the rest of the world calls the “beautiful game”. I find myself watching the World Cup. I’ll readily admit that I am not a soccer aficionado. I know the basic rules of the game and thanks to some relationships with college players and other true footies, I’ve picked up a few trinkets of strategy. I can appreciate great play in any sport. However, the reality is that the World Cup comes at just the right time. Usually, Gator sports are done. The seasons are over. The football season is still a couple of months away. There is only so much regular season pro baseball I can watch, and I’m a genuine baseball guy. So, I’ll turn to the World Cup for a summer sports fix. I must admit that there is something to see thousands of fans travel to other countries to support their squads. I’ve witnessed that passion firsthand when I went to a soccer match in Istanbul between two rival teams. I found myself chanting in Turkish for the home squad and even marching in the streets after they won! It’s a worldwide sport with an appeal to almost every country. There is even more reasons to watch this World Cup. The games are in North America. USA, Canada, and Mexico are jointly hosting matches across multiple cities. The USA squad has an off chance to face England on July 3. 250 years after a much different battle, but still, that would be quite the spectacle, wouldn’t it. There are world renown superstars on the pitch. Guys who are known by a single name. Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappe. The USA squad may not have superstars, but they have an entire nation behind them. If they were to pull off the incredible upset and win the World Cup on home turf, those guys would become household names as well! It may not rival the Super Bowl for most fans, but the other football is a worthy summertime distraction. At least once every four years!

(Photo by Chris Spears) A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning: The roster is the deepest and most talented top-to-bottom in the entire country. Todd Golden has 15 very talented players that includes an unmatched starting five and a second unit that could start for all but a handful of teams in any league. This kind of depth and talent is a blessing, but with the blessing comes the dilemma: There are only 40 minutes in a college basketball game. Obviously, when you have depth you can always have fresh players on the floor, but Golden has so many good players and only so many minutes available. How does Golden go about keeping everybody happy? Dean Smith had a similar problem back in the early 1970s at North Carolina. His rosters were loaded and very few teams could match the Tar Heels’ depth. Dean’s solution for finding minutes was to give the bulk of playing time to a rotation of seven or eight players but for short stretches in each half bring in the Blue Team. The Blue Team concept was five reserves who knew they would enter the game in a wave for short stretches in each half. Their job was to create chaos at both ends of the floor. The Blue Team concept worked because players bought into their roles. They understood they were contributing to winning right now but they also understood that they were staying fresh and ready to be the next man up in the event of an injury. Guys like Kim Huband and Steve Previs would have been starters for 95 percent of all the teams in the country but as key members of the Blue team they embraced their role of coming off the bench to spend two, three or four minutes wearing down opponents with their energy. Lefty Driesell, who was building Maryland into a national power, would confide that he dreaded how the Blue Team scrambling and pressing so often left the Terps gasping for air. This concept worked well for Dean Smith, but that was then and this is now. Like those UNC teams of more than 50 years ago, Todd Golden has to find a way to spread out the minutes and keep everybody happy. Some experts are already saying that the only thing that can derail the Gators is too much talent to keep the entire roster happy, but in saying that, they may be under-estimating Todd Golden, whose ability to build teams that embrace the brotherhood of being Gators is one of the key secrets for his success. The perfect example of Golden’s team building is the relationship between Tommy Haugh and CJ Ingram. Haugh is an All-American and a legitimate candidate for national player of the year. When he chose to return to Florida for one more bite of the championship apple, it meant diminished minutes for Ingram, who would be a starter on most teams in the Southeastern Conference. But there is a big brother/little brother relationship between these two. When Haugh made the decision to forego the NBA Draft to return to Florida, one of the first calls he made was to Ingram. Last week when he met with the media, Haugh talked about the conversation he had with Ingram. “I didn't want to take anything away from CJ and stuff like that, but I told him, like, dude, I want you to go out there and be like I was my sophomore year … come off the bench, and just be one of those dogs, you know, come in there, change the game,” Haugh said. “Make sure instead of like when somebody gets subbed out, it [the effort, momentum] goes down. Make sure it goes back up, and I think he's taken on that mindset. Already, in his last couple of just pickup games and stuff I've been watching, like, he's going to be great for us this year, too.” If this is the example of the relationships that Golden cultivates from top to bottom of his roster, then there is no need to be concerned about teammates disgruntled and unhappy about their playing time. Projected starting lineup: Tommy Haugh (6-9, 215, SR); Alex Condon (6-11, 236, SR); Rueben Chinyelu (6-10, 260, SR); Boogie Fland (6-3, 185, JR); Denzel Aberdeen (6-5, 195, SR) The bench: Urban Klavzar (6-1, 190, SR); Isaiah Brown (6-5, 210, JR); AJ Brown (6-4, 210, RJR); CJ Ingram (6-7, 210, SO); Alex Lloyd (6-4, 180, SO); Viktor Mikic (6-11, 260, JR); Alex Kovatchev (6-5, 195, RJR); Arturas Butajevas (6-10, 220, FR); Domen Petrovic (6-8, 220, SR); Jones Lay (7-0, 240, FR) SORSBY DECLARES FOR THE NFL Brendan Sorsby had no fear of going toe-to-toe in court with the NCAA but he backed down Monday when the other 15 members of the Big 12 Conference stood unanimously opposed to him suiting up for Texas Tech in the fall. In his close encounter with the NCAA in a courtroom, Sorsby emerged victorious with an injunction that would have allowed him to play quarterback this fall for Texas Tech. His timing was as impeccable as one of those slant patterns he throws so well because the NCAA was not only beaten in court but forced to scramble and ask for an expedited appeal prior to the start of the 2026 college football season. Given the NCAA’s track record in court cases, there is a very good chance the request for an appeal hearing would have been denied. The wrench in the works for both Texas Tech and Sorsby came in the form of a lawsuit by the Big 12 Conference in Federal Court Monday. The Big 12 took on state of Texas attorney general Ken Paxton as well as Texas Tech prez Lawrence Schonovak, athletic director Kirby Hocutt and a list as long as your leg of people involved who were trying to sugar coat Sorsby’s gambling on ball games. This was nothing short of brilliant legal work by the attorneys of the Sidley Austin firm, who, rather than challenge the legality of the injunction issued by Lubbock County judge Ken Curry, targeted Paxton and Texas Tech for the right to enforce its own rules. Filed in the United States District Court for Northern Texas, the Big 12 sought no damages but asked instead for a declaratory judgment that would allow the conference to enforce its own rules. It was a powerful enough argument, particularly with the unanimous backing of the other 15 Big 12 schools that Sorsby backed down. Monday night he declared for the NFL supplemental draft. Texas Tech mega-booster Cody Campbell, whose fingerprints were all over the lawsuit against the NCAA, released a statement that conceded the win to the Big 12, but again tried to paint Sorsby as a victim: "This decision was made with Brendan and his family and is purely an output of practical analysis of the situation. Brendan and Texas Tech stand on very solid and legitimate legal ground, but he faces a June 22nd deadline to be eligible to enter the NFL's supplemental draft, and there is no practical way to resolve all the various pending legal disputes and ensure his eligibility prior to this date. This is the only viable and fair path for Brendan and his future, as well as for his teammates, and our university." Cody Campbell can choose to spin this any way he wants, but the reality is if Texas Tech had thought for one second that it would win in the Big 12 case, it would have fought on. By capitulating it’s an admission that the Big 12 had both Texas Tech and Sorsby by the short and curlies. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Let’s start with the lingo. In soccer-speak, it is football not soccer, a match and not a game, a tie is a draw and a zero is a nil. So Monday in the World Cup four matches produced four draws, one of which ended nil-nil. Through the first five days of the biggest event in the world, half of the 16 World Cup matches have ended in a draw, six of them with a 1-1 final score, one a 2-2 and the other that nil-nil final between Spain, which is supposed to be one of the favorites to emerge out of this month-long soiree as the champs, and Cape Verde, a nation of fewer than 500,000 citizens located 385 miles off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean. The folks in Cape Verde celebrated the outcome. Diehard fans in Spain contemplated throwing themselves off a roof. Those in the United States who actually watched all 90 minutes were left shaking our heads as Cape Verde got the outcome it wanted – 0-0 or as the announcers are educating us, nil-nil. Cape Verde didn’t even attempt to score. It’s entire strategy was to pack it in around the goal to prevent Spain from scoring. That might sell in Sheboygan but in the rest of the United States it was pure boredom. No risk, no reward. Another draw. Someone once called what is on showcase for the next month “the beautiful game” and most sports fans in the world would agree, even some in the United States where the overwhelming majority of sports fans find something fundamentally un-American about a game in which there is a loose ball and nobody scoops it up and starts running with it. This is the world’s game, not ours and there is nothing wrong with finding scoreless or 1-1 outcomes sufficiently boring. There is also nothing wrong with growing weary of the endless number of flops in which no contact produces someone writhing in agony while holding a leg, trying to convince the referee to hand out a yellow card for a foul. Most of what constitutes as contact is about as violent as one of those Blaine and Antoine cat fights that we used to love on “In Living Color.” There are no Lawrence Wright hit heard ‘round the world moments when Joey Kent was separated from the ball and his voluntary life functions before God, 90,000 faithful at The Swamp and several million fans watching on CBS. The final score of that game was Florida 62, Tennessee 37, which made it a teensy bit more exciting than nil-nil and all the flops in the four tie games – yeah, I said it, tie games and not draws – that were Monday’s World Cup. The late great Dan Jenkins wrote this in his book “You Call It Sports, But I Say It’s a Jungle Out There” – “Take soccer. Please.” I’m willing to absorb the wrath of soccer purists. I agree.