A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning: GATORS HAVE TO DEFEND THE PERIMETER TONIGHT It isn’t a big secret what Alabama coach Nate Oates wants to do. He wants the 15th-ranked Crimson Tide (10-3, 1-0 SEC) to play lockdown defense and when the Tide has the ball, launch a lot of 3-pointers. It is the Alabama 3-point shooting that has to be the biggest concern for Florida coach Mike White when the Gators (9-3, 0-0) open SEC play at the O-Dome (7 p.m., ESPN2/ESPNU). Bama doesn’t shoot the 3-ball very well – just 32.8 percent – but guards Jahvon Quinerly, Keon Ellis and Jaden Shackleford are streaky and they are each capable of lighting it up. Shackleford is the greatest concern. He’s Bama’s leading scorer (16.5 per game) and he hits 39.4 percent of his 3-point attempts. Because Alabama shoots so many threes, there are a lot of long rebounds, which has everything to do with Ellis (6.7 rebounds per game) and Shackleford (6.4) are the leading rebounders. The Gators, who missed their first SEC game against Ole Miss last week due to a COVID outbreak on the team, have been practicing and should be ready. The Gator currently rank 28th in the Kenpom.com analytics and they’re 23rd in the ESPN power rankings. With a gauntlet of games against top teams in the SEC to begin league play, it is imperative for UF to hold serve at home which means getting the job done on the defensive end to slow down Quinerly, Ellis and Shackleford. Brandon McKissic, who was a finalist last season for the Lefty Driesell National Defensive Player of the Year at Missouri-Kansas City, will probably get the opening defensive assignment on Shackleford. The Gators will also have to do a good job of protecting Colin Castleton. At 6-11, he’s the Gators’ only size, and he will be going up against freshman 7-footer Charles Bediako, who had six blocked shots in Bama’s surprising win over 4th-ranked Gonazaga. Noah Gurley, a Furman transfer that the Gators tried to recruit, is coming off a 20-point, 10-rebound game off the bench. He also factors prominently in Florida’s defensive approach. Keys for the Gators: (1) In your face defense on the perimeter; (2) keep Quinerly and JD Davison off the bench from penetrating and getting into the lane; (3) Alabama will try to double the ball so make the extra pass because someone will be open; (4) give Castleton help in the lane by swarming defensively; and (5) a 2-1 turnover-to-assist ratio. SEC Basketball Tuesday’s games: No. 21 LSU (13-1, 1-1 SEC) 65, No. 16 Kentucky (11-3, 1-1) 60; No. 9 Auburn (13-1, 2-0 SEC) 81, South Carolina (9-4, 0-1 SEC) 66; Texas A&M (12-2, 1-0 SEC) 81, Georgia (5-9, 0-1 SEC) 79; Vanderbilt (9-4, 1-0 SEC) 75, Arkansas (10-4, 0-2 SEC) 74 Wednesday’s games: No. 15 Alabama (10-3, 1-0 SEC) at FLORIDA (9-3, 0-0 SEC); Ole Miss (8-4, 0-0 SEC) at No. 18 Tennessee (9-3, 0-1 SEC); Mississippi State (10-3, 1-0 SEC) at Missouri (6-7, 0-1 SEC), Postponed DIABATE TO UTAH Former Florida linebacker Mohamoud Diabate pulled off a shocker when he announced he’s transferring to Pac-12 champion Utah. A native of Auburn, Alabama, it was thought that Diabate would either choose hometown Auburn or stay with the Gators. During his Florida career, Diabate was in on 174 tackles. He had 14 tackles for loss, six sacks and an interception. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining. THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME … Mike Peterson is coming home. The former All-SEC and first team All-America linebacker for Steve Spurrier, is leaving South Carolina to join Billy Napier’s Florida staff as the outside linebackers coach per multiple reports. Peterson, who played quarterback at Santa Fe High School, transitioned to linebacker at UF where he was in on 249 tackles and posted 8.5 sacks. A second round selection of the Indianapolis Colts, Peterson played 14 years in the NFL, earning second team All-Pro honors in 2005. This will be the second time Peterson has worked as a Florida assistant. He worked as a graduate assistant in strength and conditioning before. When Muschamp landed the South Carolina job in 2016, he hired Peterson to coach outside linebackers. Florida assistant coaches as of January 4, 2022: Quarterbacks: Billy Napier Running backs: Jabbar Juluke Wide receivers: Keary Colbert Tight ends: William Peagler Offensive line (expected): Rob Sale Offensive line assistant: Darnell Stapleton Co-defensive coordinator/safeties: Patrick Toney Outside linebackers: Mike Peterson Cornerbacks: Corey Raymond LIFE IN THE TRANSFER PORTAL Montrell Johnson, who ran for 838 yards and 12 touchdowns as a true freshman playing for Billy Napier at Louisiana, put his name in the transfer portal. Johnson made second team All-Sun Belt and was selected Sun Belt Conference freshman of the year. Johnson played prep football at De La Salle in New Orleans. Also in the portal from Louisiana are three-year starting left tackle and two-time All-Sun Belt O’Cyrus Torrence (6-5, 338) and corner Mekhi Garner (6-2, 217), a third-team All-Sun Belt selection. Torrence and has two seasons of eligibility remaining. Garner was in on 58 tackles the last two seasons with three interceptions and 15 pass breakups. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining. Four wide receivers who have entered the portal are Mario Williams (5-9, 186), Winston Wright Jr. (5-9, 180), Shocky Jacques-Louis (6-0, 190) and Kobe Hudson (6-1, 196). Williams, a freshman from Plant City, caught 35 passes for 380 yards and four touchdowns at Oklahoma. Wright, who is from Savannah, has two seasons of eligibility remaining. In 2021 he caught 63 passes for 688 yards and five touchdowns. In his West Virginia career, Wright caught 127 passes for 1,314 yards and seven touchdowns. Jacques-Louis is a native of Fort Myers with one year of eligibility remaining. He has 83 receptions for 1,010 yards and three touchdowns. Hudson was Auburn’s leading receiver with 44 catches for 580 yards and four touchdowns. A native of Pine Mountain, Georgia, Hudson has three seasons of eligibility remaining. Quarterbacks on the move include Grant Wells (6-2, 210), Jarrett Doege (6-2, 208) and John Rhys-Plumlee (6-0, 200). Wells has three years of eligibility remaining. At Marshall he threw for 5,627 yards and 34 touchdowns. Doege threw for 3,048 yards and 19 touchdowns in 2021 at WVU. For his career, which began at Bowling Green, Doege threw for 10,494 yards and 79 touchdowns. He will be a sixth year senior. Plumlee led all SEC quarterbacks in rushing in 2019 at Ole Miss with 1,023 yards and 12 TDs, but he spent most of the last two seasons at wide receiver while Matt Corral took the snaps. Plumlee reportedly has narrowed his choices to UCF and Indiana. In addition to Johnson, running backs worth mentioning are Ky Thomas (5-11, 205), Christopher Beal-Smith (5-11, 200) and Dylan McDuffie (6-0, 207). As a true freshman at Minnesota in 2021, Thomas ran for 824 yards and six touchdowns. Beal Smith ran for 604 yards and seven TDs in 2021, 1,871 yards and 14 TDs in his career. He has one year of eligibility remaining. In his first year as a starter in 2021, McDuffie ran for 1,049 yards and 11 touchdowns. He has one year of remaining eligibility. On the D-line, Tulsa is losing two-time All-American Athletic Conference tackle Jaxson Player (6-0, 294), who has 126 tackles in his career including 31.5 tackles for loss and eight sacks. He has one year of eligibility remaining. Linebackers joining the portal are Cam Bright (6-0, 220), Tatum Bethune (6-1, 215) and Jackson Sirmon (6-3, 230). Bright is a Montgomery, Alabama native who has 186 tackles including 23 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks. He has one year of eligibility. Bethune led UCF with 108 tackles in 2021. A Miami native with two years of eligibility remaining, Bethune has 185 career tackles with 13 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks and two interceptions. Sirmon led Washington with 92 tackles in 2021. He has 148 tackles in his career and two seasons of eligibility. In the secondary are Northwestern safety Brandon Joseph (6-1, 192), Central Michigan’s Devonni Reed (6-0, 195) and Coastal Carolina’s Enock Makonzo (5-11, 195). Joseph is a College Station, Texas native who was in on 92 tackles in 2021 to go with three interceptions. For his career he has 148 tackles and nine interceptions. Detroit native Reed has 286 career tackles and three interceptions in his career. Makonzo has two seasons of eligibility remaining and 150 career tackles. SEC FOOTBALL Alabama (13-1): Greg McElroy, a former Alabama quarterback turned ESPN TV analyst and host of a morning ESPN radio show, says there is no question who he’s picking for next Monday’s national championship game between Alabama and Georgia. McElroy said, “I cannot pick Georgia in this game. I’ll make my pick now. I’m picking Alabama. I don’t know how you can pick Georgia. I understand why people might be able to see through that, but man, I’ve also witnessed Bama beat Georgia convincingly a few times. I just can’t go that far. I understand it. I get it, but I can’t make that decision.” … Adam Rittenburg of ESPN says that if Jim Harbaugh leaves Michigan for a head coaching jog in the NFL that Alabama offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien will be prominent on the Michigan radar. Auburn: Former Texas A&M starting quarterback Zac Calzada will be making a visit to Auburn this weekend. Calzada threw for 2,185 yards and 17 touchdowns in 2021. Georgia: All-America tight end Brock Bowers will be playing in the national championship game despite a nagging shoulder injury. Kentucky: Tight ends coach Vince Marrow got a 3-year contract extension and a raise that will elevate his salary to more than $1 million per year. LSU: The Tigers dressed only 39 scholarship players for their Texas Bowl loss to Kansas State. The starting QB was former wide receiver Jontre Kirkland. Mississippi State: Wide receiver Makai Polk, who made 105 catches for 1,046 yards and nine touchdowns in 2021, has declared for the NFL Draft. Missouri: Former Oklahoma State defensive lineman Jayden Jernigan, who had 11 quarterback hurries and a sack in 2021, is transferring to Missouri. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining. Ole Miss: Former 5-star running back Zac Evans is expected to transfer to Ole Miss, per Matt Zenitz of On3. He ran for 648 yards and five touchdowns in 2021. South Carolina: Corner Jaylan Foster, who led the SEC with five interceptions and made first team All-SEC as well as first team Walter Camp All-America, has declared for the NFL. Tennessee: Corner Trevon Flowers, who was in on 79 tackles in 2021, has elected to return to Tennessee for the 2022 season. Texas A&M: Jimbo Fisher is trying to lure Ole Miss defensive coordinator DJ Durkin to Texas A&M. Durkin was Florida’s defensive coordinator from 2013-14 and was the winning coach as Florida’s interim in the 2014 Birmingham Bowl. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: The 10 Division I commissioners and Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick are meeting to discuss expansion of the College Football Playoff, and once again the “alliance” is trying to be a power player. That caused Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby to remark that he would be “very pleasantly surprised” if this week’s meetings come up with a workable model moving forward, adding “there’s not much spirit of doing what’s best for the game.” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said, “The reality is if we don’t make a decision now, the same issues being identified are going to be present, whether it’s 12, 18 or 24 months from now when we approach the conclusion of a 12-year cycle … and we’re going to have to come to trips with decision-making in the future.” I am of the opinion that if George Kliavkoff (Pac-12), Jim Phillips (ACC) and Kevin Warren (Big Ten) actually had functioning brains they would take them out of their skulls and play with them.

A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning: “To be the man, you gotta beat the man!” – Richard Morgan Fliehr, AKA Ric Flair We’re getting a rematch of the SEC Championship Game in one week in Indianapolis, which is a rather weird place to hold a national championship game in that it’s (a) Alabama and Georgia from the SEC; and (b) Indy is a great place for the national championship in basketball, but football? The last time a football team from the state of Indiana was relevant was Notre Dame in 1988. Oh sure, Notre Dame makes the College Football Playoff every so often but goes home with a loss and a participation trophy. Indianapolis is the heart of Big Ten country. The Big Ten is about as relevant as Notre Dame when it comes to the playoff. Alabama and Georgia are the two best teams in the country which is why they’ll play again. Alabama blew the doors off Georgia back on December 4. Somehow that didn’t convince enough people that Nick Saban has his team in beast mode, which he always does this time of year, because Georgia is favored to win the national championship game. Go figure on that one. Nick will call it rat poison. Count on it. Alabama got to the championship game by turning Cincinnati’s previously perfect season into another ho-hum semifinal, the kind of which we always see when the southern teams play the northern teams in the playoff. The southern teams dominate the line of scrimmage, which is what Alabama did to Cincinnati, crushing the hopes of everyone who either believes in Cinderella stories or that a Group of Five team will one day dream the impossible dream and play for a real national championship, not the kind they dreamed up down at UCF. Later in the evening, Georgia’s O-line, manhandled by Alabama three weeks earlier, manhandled Michigan on both lines of scrimmage. Jim Harbaugh can put a necktie on those Michigan Men but they’re still just pigs from the Big Ten wearing a cool necktie. Isn’t that always the case for the Big Ten? Lots of hype, but when it comes down to crunch time, my friends in Texas would say, “All hat, no cattle.” The semifinals were on New Year’s Eve. If we’re going to have a national championship game a week to 10 days after the semifinals, then at least have the decency to play the games on New Year’s Day. That way, at least we could watch the traditional bowl games with a sense of anticipation for the usual semifinal blowouts later in the day. Because the bowls mean less and less, the playoff does need expanding to 12 teams. We might always wind up with two teams from the SEC or one from the SEC and Clemson in the championship game but at least there will be a chance in the first round for a Cincinnati or a team from the Fun Belt to get a win over one of their Power Five brethren to inject a measure of hope that for one year, at least, the clock may not strike midnight. An expanded playoff is one of the bigger reasons why Texas and Oklahoma are bolting the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference. It has been 16 years since the last Big 12 team (Texas, 2005) won a national championship. Since the advent of a four-team playoff, no Big 12 team has made it to the championship game and only four times in eight years as a Big 12 team even made the final four. The SEC, meanwhile, has had at least one team in the final four all eight years, two teams in the final four twice (2017, 2021), at least one team in the national championship game seven times and two teams in the national championship game twice (2017, 2021). Since Alabama and Georgia are in this year’s national championship game, it means the SEC will have had five of the eight national champs since the playoff system replaced the BCS. Under the four-team playoff format, Texas and Oklahoma are aware that the only assurance they have of making the playoff from the Big 12 is to go unbeaten. When the playoff expands, teams with two losses will have a chance to make it in. There are better odds for multiple two-loss teams from the SEC than two-loss teams from the Big 12 although this year would have proven the exception if the playoff had been 12 teams. The four-team format favors the SEC, which is guaranteed to have its 12th national champion in the last 16 years and the third in a row. As Stewart Mandel of The Athletic pointed out, either an SEC or ACC team (FSU 2013, Clemson 2016 and 2018) has won the national championship every year since 2006, the only exception 2014 when Ohio State beat Oregon in the first College Football Playoff championship game. Digest that for a moment and then you can start connecting a few dots. Now you know why ESPN is willing to pay six times what CBS has been paying for exclusive rights to the Southeastern Conference following the 2023 football season. At $63 million per team per year, the SEC will be the tall hog at the college sports trough, but when Texas and Oklahoma join the league the lowball estimates are that every team in the league will get another $9 million while most economists say the impact will be $80 million. Per team. Per year. Texas and Oklahoma add value to the ESPN television package which is why the network is likely to collaborate with the SEC, Notre Dame and the Big 12 for a deal that will send Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC as early as 2023 in exchange for support that will ensure the Big 12 will remain in business as a Power Five conference with an ESPN exclusive TV deal. There is a ripple effect to all this, which is to snuff out the attempt by the so-called “alliance” to roadblock playoff expansion. The “alliance” is the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC, whose commissioners don’t like it that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has been, is and will always be the smartest guy in the room. They’ve stonewalled the playoff expansion process, but the only thing they have accomplished is to prove why Sankey is perfectly fine if the playoff remains at four teams. The two best teams are in the SEC and they’ll play for the national championship. Michigan was wiped out by Georgia and the Pac-12 and ACC were excluded. They would have made a lot more money this year in a 12-team playoff in which five of their teams would have been in the bracket. If there had been a 12-team playoff this year it would have looked like this: Six highest ranked conference champions: 1. Alabama (SEC), 2. Michigan (Big Ten), 4. Cincinnati (American), 7. Baylor (Big 12), 11. Utah (Pac-12) and 12. Pittsburgh (ACC) Six highest ranked at-large teams: 3. Georgia (SEC); 5. Notre Dame (Independent); 6. Ohio State (Big Ten); 8. Ole Miss (SEC); 9. Oklahoma State (Big 12) and 10. Michigan State (Big Ten) The breakdown would be: SEC (3), Big Ten (3), Big 12 (2), American (1), Independent (1), Pac-12 (1) and ACC (1). As it stands, the SEC will make a lot of money off the playoff this year. The Big Ten will get one semifinalist share and the Pac-12 and ACC will get shut out. The Big Ten, ACC and Pac-12 need a 12-team playoff in the worst way. The silly boys in the “alliance” should also take a look at the recruiting rankings. The SEC dominates because it’s the best conference and the league can be counted on to produce national champions. If the “alliance” wants to catch up to the SEC and be THE MAN then it needs to beat the man and the place for that to begin is to (a) expand the playoffs to make their schools more attractive and (b) recruit at the level of the SEC. Maybe they’ll figure that out someday. HOW WILL COVID AFFECT UF IN BASKETBALL THIS WEEK? A COVID-19 outbreak at UF forced the postponement of the Gators’ SEC opener at Ole Miss last week. The Gators (9-3, 0-0) are scheduled to host 19th-ranked Alabama (10-3, 1-0 SEC) Wednesday night at the O-Dome, but there has been no update from the Florida camp since the postponement. Has the entire team been cleared to play and practice? If not the entire team, how many will be able to dress out and play Wednesday? And, how many practice days were affected by the outbreak? Alabama is coming off a huge win over then No. 14 Tennessee plus the Crimson Tide has an earlier win over Gonzaga. A Florida team at less than full strength or one that hasn’t gotten in enough practice days will be at a serious disadvantage. SEC BASKETBALL Tuesday’s games: No. 11 Auburn (12-1, 1-0 SEC) at South Carolina (9-3, 0-0 SEC); No. 18 Kentucky (11-2, 1-0 SEC) at No. 16 LSU (12-1, 0-1 SEC); Texas A&M (11-2, 0-0 SEC) at Georgia 5-8, 0-0 SEC); Vanderbilt (8-4, 0-0 SEC) at Arkansas (10-3, 0-1 SEC) Wednesday’s games: No. 19 Alabama (10-3, 1-0 SEC) at FLORIDA (9-3, 0-0 SEC); Ole Miss (8-4, 0-0 SEC) at No. 14 Tennessee (9-3, 0-1 SEC); Mississippi State (10-3, 1-0 SEC) at Missouri (6-7, 0-1 SEC) ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: If you grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, then you probably remember that commercial whose theme was “It’s what’s up front that counts.” Well, that can be applied to Alabama and Georgia. If you watched the College Football Playoff semifinal games, then you saw how Alabama pushed Cincinnati around on both lines of scrimmage and how Georgia turned Michigan’s vaunted D-line into non-factors. Seeing how Alabama and Georgia dominated the lines of scrimmage only showed the enormity of the job facing Billy Napier. I am convinced Florida will have good enough people at the skill positions to win next year. Napier scored big when he got Ohio State transfer QB Jack Miller III to come in and compete with Anthony Richardson. I think the Gators have good talent at running back and need to add a little more speed at the receiver positions but overall they will rank in the top third of the SEC at the skill positions. What concerns me is who will block for them and on the other side of the ball, who will stop the other team from imposing its will on the Gators? Going back to 2010, the Gators haven’t had a single season with a truly physically dominant offensive line. Will Muschamp recruited the defensive line extremely well but when his recruits all moved on to the NFL, Jim McElwain didn’t replace them and Dan Mullen’s recruiting was always deficient when it came to bringing in the people who could neutralize an opponent’s offensive line. Napier has his work cut out for him. I’m convinced the offensive line will be upgraded in the coaching department with Rob Sale and Darnell Stapleton but can they elevate the talent that is already on hand to play at a high enough level? I’m convinced UF will bring in good high school talent but that takes awhile to develop. Are there good enough people in the transfer portal and can Napier convince them to come to Gainesville? Good coaching will help the D-line, but so can the transfer portal if there are enough wide bodies with talent who want to transfer to Florida. I’m the eternal optimist but I am also a realist. Billy Napier is the right man for this job but until UF loads up on talented, big guys who can dominate the line of scrimmage, the Gators will be playing from behind.

A few thoughts to jump start your New Year’s Eve: THINKING OUT LOUD It’s New Year’s Eve and Florida’s football season is already in the books. Not only that, it was a losing season and for the third time since 2014, we’re breaking in a new coach. This isn’t what I expected. Back in September, I really believed the Gators had a chance to play in their second straight SEC Championship Game. After the Gators lost in heartbreaking fashion to Alabama I believed that if UF could simply get past Georgia, the rematch would be Florida’s to win. Well, I was wrong. I think most of us were. Looking back, I see how Dan Mullen’s ability to scheme up an offense that would work against just about any defense out there was fool’s gold. At some point, you have to block and tackle and recruit. At some point, you have to motivate your players so well that they’re always ready to play at the highest levels on game day. At some point, close calls aren’t good enough. At some point, the head coach has to evaluate all the reasons why he keeps coming up short in big games and then make the necessary changes, no matter how painful they may be. When the head coach finally makes the changes reluctantly and way too late to make a difference, you have meltdown. I hate meltdown but what else can we call what happened from October 1 onward? I keep rehashing the season to come up with answers, not that it will change anything but because I’m naturally curious to figure out how a coach who went 29-6 in his first 35 games could lose his grip on things so quickly. I keep going back to the Alabama game. Todd Grantham’s defense sucked in the first quarter but stuck it to the Crimson Tide for all but one drive in the second half. John Hevesy’s offensive line, which struggled in the first quarter, dominated Alabama’s front seven in quarters two through four. The same Emory Jones who couldn’t read a defense spelled CAT if you spotted him the C, the A and the T in the first quarter sliced and diced Bama in the last three quarters whether it was throwing the ball or tucking and running. Dan Mullen had the Gators so close to knocking off the number one team in the nation. A play here or a play there. An extra point. The zebras calling a facemask on Jace McClellan or an illegal pick on John Metchie III. I could go on and on. So close to winning, but there are no participation trophies in the SEC. I can’t shake the feeling that the last four years are nothing more than a participation trophy because close calls are how we will end up defining the Dan Mullen era. The meltdown wasn’t fun to watch. Mullen is a nice guy, maybe too nice. Maybe that’s why he didn’t make hard choices about his assistant coaches when he had to know this really wasn’t going to work out. We all know that after the 2020 season he could have told Grantham, Hevesy and some of the other coaches who needed to go that it would be a great idea if they found gainful employment elsewhere. We all know that by waiting until November to jettison Grantham and Hevesy it was too little too late. By then the Gators had fallen off the cliff, Mullen was in freefall and his firing was inevitable. So here we are, New Year’s Eve, no big bowl game this year and back to square one once again. Yogi Berra would say “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Urban Meyer left the program with a lot of talent but shoes almost too big to fill. Will Muschamp couldn’t fill them. Jim McElwain certainly couldn’t. Dan Mullen owed his climb up the coaching ladder to Meyer, but he never recruited the way Meyer did and he never surrounded himself with the kind of assistant coaches that could turn each position group into the best coached in the SEC. So now it’s up to Billy Napier to put it all together. It just feels different with Napier than it did with the previous three coaches. Maybe the best analogy I can give is building a house. You wouldn’t build a house without first putting in a strong foundation before putting up the walls and the roof. In the 26 days since he was introduced as Florida’s head coach, he’s focused on putting in a strong foundation so that this house won’t crumble but instead will stand strong. This is all part of Billy Napier’s people plan. He understands that it all begins with surrounding yourself with the right kind of people. We never got the feeling that Muschamp, McElwain or Mullen had enough competent people in place to get the job done. With Napier, it feels different. So even though this is rather strange New Year’s Eve, I’m feeling confident that the Gators have the right guy at the right time. If we’re patient and give Napier a chance to implement his plan, I think we’ll see a championship-level football program. It’s been way too long since we had one. FOOTBALL IN THE SEC No. 1 Alabama (12-1) vs. No. 4 Cincinnati (13-0): Alabama is a 13.5-point favorite to put an end to Cincinnati’s dream season and for good reason. The College Football Playoff semifinal is nothing new for Alabama, but it’s uncharted territory for the Bearcats, the first Group of Five team to ever crash the playoff party. There are two big questions that have to be answered – (1) Can Luke Fickell convince the Bearcats that they belong in the playoff and have nothing to fear from Big Bad Bama; and (2) can Nick Saban convince the Crimson Tide that they need to play their best game of the season to avoid the embarrassment of losing to a novice to this playoff thing? I’m of the opinion that Cincinnati would have stood a better chance at springing the upset if the Bearcats had played Alabama a week or 10 days after they won the American Athletic Conference Championship Game. I’m equally of the opinion that even though Alabama will be playing without wide receiver John Metchie III, the 27 days since the Georgia beatdown has allowed running back Brian Robinson to heal. That’s important because Robinson is as good as it gets in picking up blitzes and he’s an extraordinary receiver out of the backfield. I don’t think Cincinnati can cause problems for Heisman Trophy QB Brice Young without the blitz and I’m not sure the Bearcats linebackers can cover Robinson in the passing game. I also wonder how Cincinnati is going to protect quarterback Desmond Ridder from Will Anderson coming off the edge. Brice Young may have won the Heisman Trophy, but the best player on that Alabama team is Anderson, who leads the nation in sacks. Alabama 31, Cincinnati 14 No. 2 Michigan (12-1) vs. No. 3 Georgia (12-1): In so many ways, these two teams mirror each other. Both have exceptional defensive lines and active linebackers. Both have outstanding running backs. If their quarterbacks were racehorses, we would call them pluggers. Both have coaches who won’t hear the end of it if they can’t deliver a win. Georgia is supposed to be here although nearly everyone had the Bulldogs coming in unbeaten and the No. 1 seed, that is before stuck it to them in the SEC Championship Game. This was supposed to be the year Kirby Smart finally beat Nick Saban. If he beats Michigan and then loses to Alabama – if Alabama gets there – in the championship game, the Kirby doubters will be relentless. Michigan was supposed to lose to Ohio State but the Wolverines put the kibosh on the Buckeyes to finally get that 800-pound gorilla off Jim Harbaugh’s back. So now that he’s beaten Ohio State to get to the playoff for the first time, can Harbaugh get over this next hurdle. He accepted a paycut (from $8 million to $4 million) to keep coaching the Wolverines. If he loses, Michigan Men everywhere will be saying Harbaugh is still paid too much. Forget the coaches for a moment. Can Georgia’s offensive tackles block Michigan’s defensive ends, both of whom are expected to go in the first 10 picks in the NFL Draft? Can Michigan run the football on Georgia’s defense, which is really stout against the ground game? Can either of the quarterbacks make enough quality throws to keep a defense honest? Michigan 20, Georgia 17 The SEC vs. The World: This hasn’t exactly been a write home to mom bowl season for the SEC, which is now 1-5. Who in his right mind would have thought that South Carolina (7-6) would be carrying a torch that is flickering for the SEC? That the Gamecocks even made a bowl game was a shock to the system. That they hosed North Carolina (6-7) 38-21 was an even bigger shock since the QB of record in this game was Dakereon Joyner, who played wide receiver all year and who hadn’t thrown a pass since 2019. Joyner was the MVP, hitting 9-9 of his passes for 160 yards and a TD while running for 64 on 10 carries. Kevin Harris, who spent nearly the whole year in the training room, ran for 182. Tennessee (7-6) outgained Purdue (9-4) 666-627 but lost to the Boilermakers in overtime when the zebras ruled that Jaylen Wright’s forward momentum was stopped before he stretched the ball over the goal line. That’s what Vol fans will swear until the day they die. Actually, Tennessee’s defense lost the game. Even though the Vols picked off Purdue’s Aiden O’Connell three times they gave up 534 passing yards and five TDPs. If we’re going to be perfectly honest here, this is not a best foot forward year for the SEC. In reality, there are three exceptional teams – Alabama, Georgia and Ole Miss (10-2) – and a couple of good ones – Kentucky (9-3) and Arkansas (8-4). Everybody else is not all that good. We can defend the SEC by saying the teams beat up on each other or by saying we had too many good players opt out, but that doesn’t change the fact that other than a handful of teams, the league wasn’t very good. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Matt Corral will play in the Sugar Bowl Saturday when Ole Miss (10-2) faces Big 12 champion Baylor (11-2). Corral is expected to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft and could be the first quarterback selected. Thursday, Corral explained why he didn’t join players like Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett (Playing with its No. 3 QB, Pitt lost its Peach Bowl game to Michigan State) in opting out, using the excuse of prepping for the draft. “I mean it was just my teammates … I never questioned it,” Corral said. “If I was them [teammates] in their shoes and they had a quarterback in the same position, I just couldn’t live with what they would think of me, like just leaving and just being like ‘alright that was the last game’ and nobody knowing that was the last game. The only reason I say this is because nobody really understands how close we really are. It just would’ve been the wrong thing to do, just no playing and just holding out on them.” Corral is a standup guy who understands agent money will be there for him once the Sugar Bowl is played. If you really want to know why players opt out of bowl games, it has very little to do with fear of getting hurt and everything to do with signing with an agent. If they sign with an agent, they’re ineligible to play in the bowl game. So it’s easier to just say they’re prepping for the draft. How convenient.

I'm on vacation but was planning to write a Happy New Year’s column with an uplifting theme. I took sick here in Wyomissing, Pa. for the past four days. (No Covid, thankfully, but a bad, bad cold.) After I read this beautiful piece with great envy and loving its message, I thought, "Could I write anything half as good?" Of course not! So I decided to borrow words from The Wordmaster Himself, The Great Writing Coach/Author Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Media Institute. And it's not just for Gator fans, even though they could use likely it more.--BUDDY MARTIN "As I stared up at the tiger swallowtail, I flipped my baseball glove in the air in a kind of boyish tribute, like a military jet flying over a stadium. The glove hit the butterfly. The beautiful creature fell to the ground." By ROY PETER CLARK They say regret is the most corrosive emotion, and that seems right to me. It tends to hit me when I least expect it, a memory about a stupid thing I did or said, or a hurtful experience from the past. Such a moment was triggered by the sight of a monarch butterfly, fluttering in our grass. This was no surprise in itself. We have two small trees in the front yard, one that produces orange honeysuckle flowers; and a cassia tree that showed up on its own not long ago. It is bursting with bright yellow blossoms. Butterflies — yellow or orange — show up as if they know that their vibrant colors will match the trees. I have read reports that monarch butterflies were becoming endangered from a variety of human and environmental factors. It startled me to realize that the one in our grass, fluttering in the wind, was dead. I picked it up, oh so gently, and held it in the palm of my hand, hoping — since butterflies emerging from their cocoons were ancient symbols of resurrection — that it was sleeping and would be startled from slumber and just fly away. In that moment of hope, I was taken by its wondrous beauty, the sunlight shining through its orange, yellow and white segments like godlight through the stained-glass windows of a cathedral. I don’t want to misrepresent myself here. I am no sentimentalist when it comes to insects, and — with no regret — have killed my share of houseflies, mosquitoes, roaches and spiders. But the butterfly moves me in a different way, and as I laid the body of the monarch in the shrubs beneath the trees, I was transported to a moment in my past. It is probably 1960. Picture me as a 12-year-old in the backyard of a suburban house near the North Shore of Long Island, about 20 miles from Manhattan. I am wearing a New York Yankees cap and, on my left hand, a Rawlings baseball glove. In my right hand I have a pink rubber ball, a Spalding, its good bounce perfect for playing neighborhood games with other baby boomers, such as stickball, running bases, box ball and, my favorite, stoop ball. The idea was to throw the ball against the stoop to see how far it would go. If you caught the edge of the concrete steps to the house, it would really fly, sometimes over the head of the fielder. On this day, I was practicing on my own, throwing the ball from a distance and fielding fly balls and grounders. I caught sight of something over my head. I looked up and there it was against the sky, the largest, most beautiful butterfly I had ever seen. I even knew the type because it had the coolest name. It was a tiger swallowtail, a name it got from its dramatic black stripes against brilliant yellow wings. I knew this because I hung out with the Masterson brothers — two of three who became Eagle Scouts. They knew something about everything, and I was an eager learner: boy adventure books, Civil War history, short-wave radios and lepidoptery. I had seen exotic butterflies pinned in displays in the Museum of Natural History, and my pals had put together their own collections from the local varieties fluttering in nearby yards, ball fields and woods. As I stared up at the tiger swallowtail, I flipped my baseball glove in the air in a kind of boyish tribute, like a military jet flying over a stadium. The glove hit the butterfly. The beautiful creature fell to the ground. I have no idea what my mom and dad thought when I burst through the back door into the kitchen wailing. I was not a stoic child. I cried when a neighborhood kid hit me on the side of the face with a rock. But that was external pain. What I felt now was a sense of guilt that I had destroyed something beautiful. It left me — in spite of the comforting efforts of my mom — inconsolable. My dad, a tough but sentimental man of action, stepped into the backyard. I have no sense of how long he was out there. He came inside to find me still weeping. He said something like this: “Son, you didn’t kill the butterfly. It is just stunned. I put it gently on top of the bushes. It was fluttering and looked like it was trying to fly. Let’s go take a look.” He walked me down the back steps, between two sycamore trees, and toward the line of bushes that marked the back edge of our property. No butterfly anywhere in sight. “Son, it must have flown away. It’s OK. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I always knew that it was possible — maybe probable — that I had killed the beautiful creature and that my dad had disposed of it to salve my feelings. If so, he may have proved at that moment to be the best actor in the family — and we have a lot of them. I told this story to my wife at the coffee shop. She had never heard if before. (How can you be married for 50 years and still have stories left?) As I got to the end, I was surprised to hear emotion creeping into my voice and something wet in my eyes. It was not, I knew, lingering regret over a butterfly. It was gratitude at the tenderness of my dad, who did his best to lift me up. Maybe there’s a lesson here for the new year. Let’s lift each other up.

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning: THINKING OUT LOUD ON A THURSDAY 1. All quiet on the UF transfer front: It has been a week since the Gators lost to UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl and other than Jacob Copeland announcing that he’s going to go to Maryland, it has been eerily quiet on the transfer front. Emory Jones announced that he was going to transfer prior to the bowl game, but he hasn’t put his name in the portal yet but neither have any other Gators. I’m of the opinion that once we get past the bowl games, the transfer portal is going to heat up nationally and locally. I am sticking with my expectation that at least 10-12 more Gators will enter the transfer portal and believe nationally there will be somewhere close to 2,000 when all is said and done. 2. Three possible landing spots for Emory Jones: I have no idea where Emory is thinking to transfer but I think he’s a very good fit for the offensive schemes at UCF, Liberty and Appalachian State. Now, none of them are power schools with monstrous stadiums, but they are all successful programs whose coaches and schemes favor a quarterback who can run the ball. Gus Malzahn recruited Emory very hard when he was at Auburn. His returning QB at UCF is Mikey Keen, who netted -36 yards in 2021. The best offenses Gus had at Auburn (2010, 2013, 2014) all had outstanding runners for QBs. When Malik Willis left Auburn, the knock on him was he was an inconsistent passer but a great runner. Two years with Hugh Freeze and Willis might be a first round draft pick. The App State offense functioned best with Zac Thomas as a dual threat. The Mountaineers need a QB desperately with non-runner Chase Brice graduating so EJ might be just what they need. 3. LOOK FOR A DEAL THAT WILL BRING TEXAS AND OKLAHOMA TO THE SEC SOON: Texas and Oklahoma are under contract with the Big 12 until the 2025 season concludes but there are plenty of folks whispering that they will be in the SEC as soon as the 2023 season. The stumbling blocks to early entry in the SEC are complications of the buyouts and CBS but ESPN can solve those problems with a bit of collaboration from Greg Sankey. The buyout for Texas and Oklahoma is about $80 million apiece, but if ESPN and the SEC were to kick in about $80 million, that would ease the buyout for both schools. CBS pays the SEC $53 million a year for broadcast rights and it’s not going to increase the money or revise its broadcasting schedule for a 16-team SEC. Solution: ESPN buys out the last year of the contract. Finally, ESPN offers a broadcasting deal to the new Big 12. It won’t pay out what the league currently distributes (about $38 million), but it would be better than waiting it out until 2025 and not having any kind of contract. Sankey and Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick can assure Bob Bowlsby that they will ensure the Big 12 remains a Power Five conference. All this is complicated, but very do-able. 4. WILL THE BIG TEN EXPAND?: If you notice, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren has been rather silent lately, allowing fellow “alliance” commissioners George Kliavkoff (Pac-12) and Jim Phillips (ACC) to do all the talking. Warren needs Notre Dame in the worst way, but the Irish aren’t about to give up their independent status. He can keep the Big Ten status quo, or he can raid the Big 12 for Kansas and Iowa State, who both make sense on several fronts. Kansas is a football doormat but it gets basketball ratings even on weekdays that are better than ESPN’s Saturday night football broadcasts. Iowa State is a decent football program and the Cyclones are unbeaten and ranked in the top 10 in basketball. The Big Ten distributed more than $50 million to each school last year and that has to be enticing to both Kansas and Iowa State. Meanwhile Phillips and Kliavkoff are going to be stuck. The ACC’s rotten contract with ESPN runs through 2036 and ESPN doesn’t seem willing to renegotiate. The Pac-12’s media rights deal with ESPN and Fox expires in 2023 and no one wants to renegotiate. 5. BOWLING FOR DOLLARS: Two quick notes from Wednesday. Clemson (10-3) held on to beat Iowa State, 20-13, in the Cheez-It Bowl in Orlando Wednesday night and Oklahoma (11-2) whacked Oregon (10-4), 47-32. For Clemson it was the 11th straight season with at least 10 wins. Only Alabama (14) has a longer streak in college football history. Clemson started the season 2-2 but won its last seven games. Reports of Dabo’s demise might be a teensy bit exaggerated. As for Oklahoma, Bob Stoops came off the golf course to coach one last game when Lincoln Riley left for Southern Cal, earning win No. 191 in a Hall of Fame career made more special when son Drake Stoops caught a TDP in the second quarter. OVER, UNDER, AROUND AND THROUGH THE SEC (FOOTBALL) Alabama (12-1): In part because of the new COVID variant but also because they wish to eliminate the outside influences on their focus on Cincinnati, Alabama’s players voted to stay isolated in the team hotel ahead of the College Football Playoff semifinal. That obviously pleased Nick Saban, who said, “You’re not gonna remember what you did on Tuesday night in Dallas three weeks from now or three years from now, but you’ll remember for the rest of your life … Sometimes it’s what you’re willing to ignore, how you played in the last game, how you performed all season long, what the media says, who’s going to win, what conference a team plays in. None of those things really matter. Those are the things that you should choose to ignore.” Arkansas (8-4): Speaking about opt-outs for bowl teams, HBC Sam Pittman said, “Until we get more teams in the playoff you’re going to play a different team. It’s going to have the same logo on there but it’s not the same team that you had in the regular season.” Auburn (6-7): Sophomore defensive tackle Colby Wooden announced that he will return to Auburn in 2022. Georgia (12-1): Ahead of Georgia’s College Football Playoff semifinal with Michigan, offensive coordinator Todd Monken defended the decision to start Stetson Bennett at quarterback, saying, “The reason Stetson Bennett plays is we think he gives us the best chance to win. That’s really the answer to that question. There is no doubt in my mind we can win the national championship and there is no doubt in my mind we can win the national championship with Stetson Bennett.” Kentucky (9-3): The passing game could be an adventure for the Wildcats. Top two receivers Wan’Dale Robinson and Josh Ali won’t play in the Citrus Bowl game with Iowa due to injuries suffered in an auto accident last week. Now third leading receiver Isaiah Epps has entered the NCAA transfer portal. LSU (6-6): Brian Kelly has hired Robert Steeples, who is the special teams coach for the Minnesota Vikings … Wide receiver Kayshon Boutte, who missed the last few games of 2021 with a leg injury, says he will return to LSU for 2022. Mississippi State (7-6): Placekicker Brandon Ruiz, who made only 5-9 on his field goal attempts in 2021, is declaring for the NFL Draft … Commenting on Mississippi State’s 34-7 defeat at the hands of Texas Tech in the Liberty Bowl, ESPN’s Greg McElroy said, “Mississippi State’s performance last night was inexcusably bad.” Missouri (6-7): Wide receiver/punt returner D’ionte “Boo” Smith is declaring for the NFL Draft. Smith had eight catches for 195 yards and a TD in 2021, plus he returned 11 punts for 55 yards. Ole Miss (10-2): Charlie Weis Jr., who worked for Lane Kiffin as an analyst at Alabama in 2015-16 and as offensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic in 2018-19, is expected to be hired as Kiffin’s offensive coordinator at Ole Miss, replacing Jeff Lebby, who will be the OC at Oklahoma next year. South Carolina (6-6): Linebacker Sherrod Green, who broke his ankle against Georgia in game three, announced he will be returning for the 2021 season. Tennessee: Right tackle Cade Mays’ ankle injury will prevent him from playing against Purdue in the Music City Bowl … Offensive analyst Matt Merritt is leaving to take over the running backs job with Georgia Southern. Texas A&M (8-4): Defensive analyst Harland Bower is leaving to coach defensive ends at Duke for former Aggie defensive coordinator Mike Elko. Vanderbilt (2-10): Clark Lea hired Larry Black to coach his D-line and former Virginia defensive coordinator Nick Howell to coach the secondary. UF-OLE MISS HOOPS POSTPONED A COVID outbreak force the Gators to postpone their SEC opener at Ole Miss Wednesday night. The SEC will do its best to reschedule the game but if it cannot be rescheduled, it will be declared no contest. The way the SEC schedule works, it would take the Gators and Ole Miss willing to play three games in a single week to get the game. It’s doubtful that either team will be challenging for the SEC regular season championship, but the game could weigh heavily into seeding for the SEC Tournament so expect every effort to get the game in the books. Florida’s SEC opener will be next Wednesday at the O-Dome when No. 19 Alabama (10-3, 1-0 SEC) comes to Gainesville. SEC Basketball Wednesday’s scores: FLORIDA (9-3) at Ole Miss (8-4), POSTPONED; No. 11 Auburn (12-1, 1-0 SEC) 70, No. 16 LSU (12-1, 0-1 SEC) 55; No. 18 Kentucky (10-2, 1-0 SEC) 83, Missouri (6-7, 0-1 SEC) 56; Mississippi State (10-3, 1-0 SEC) 81, Arkansas (10-3, 0-1 SEC) 68; Gardner-Webb (6-7) 77, Georgia (5-8) 60; South Carolina State (7-8) at South Carolina (9-3), POSTPONED; Texas A&M (11-2) 85, Central Arkansas (2-10) 59; No. 19 Alabama (10-3, 1-0 SEC) 73, No. 14 Tennessee (9-3, 0-1 SEC) 68 Friday’s game: High Point (6-7) at No. 18 Kentucky (10-2) ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: John Madden made NFL football fun even for people who weren’t NFL fans. The biggest reason is because he never stopped being John Madden. He was the same Madden as the coach of the Oakland Raiders as he was Pat Summerall’s long time sidekick in the CBS and Fox broadcast booths. He was a player’s coach with the Raiders, where he won a Super Bowl and retired from coaching with a 103-32-7 record. As an analyst in the booth, he never made the game too complicated for the football novice. There is a great story about how Madden, eating breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago was approached by an Englishman who explained that it was rare when more than one NFL game per week was broadcast in the UK. Before walking away, the Englishman said, “I only watch the games you do, John.” Madden had no idea who the Englishman was, but discovered after he was out of earshot that it was Elton John. I think most of us loved that he refused to fly and took the train to games until he borrowed Dolly Parton’s bus for a trip to a game. The Madden Cruiser was born. Only John Madden could pull that off. I also loved his turducken on Thanksgiving, the New Orleans concoction of turkey stuffed with duck and chicken. The back story of the turducken was that the New Orleans restaurant owner only sold about 200 turduckens a year until Madden came along. He started shipping 6,000 a year all over the world. John Madden was larger than life but an everyman that people related to. I can’t imagine there will ever be anyone in the sports TV booth with that kind of presence.

A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning: THE BILLY NAPIER PEOPLE PLAN Despite the embarrassing loss to UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl, the Florida football program hasn’t sunk. Not yet, anyway, but let’s be real here, it has been taking on water at an alarming rate. It’s enough that some have questioned if new coach Billy Napier is having second thoughts about stepping into a program that has to be rebuilt from the ground up. The answer to that question is a big flat no. Napier knew what he was getting into, but he also knows what can be done at Florida. Charley Pell had to raise the program from an 0-10-1 rock bottom in 1979 to put it on a firm foundation. The program isn’t in nearly the shape it was then. The boosters are well organized (Charley got that going). Facility deficiencies that have plagued the program the last 30 years, are finally being addressed. And now, Napier arrives with a plan to resurrect the Gators and keep them at a sustainable level of excellence. Speaking to ESPN sideline reporter Taylor Davis at the Gasparilla Bowl, Napier pointed out the advantages he sees with Florida. “Well, I think we’ve got to focus on the things we can control,” he said. “It’s going to be a team effort. I think we’ve got to work together, right? We’ve got an incredible history, a great alumni base and a talented team, so we’ve got to pull the rope in the right direction and we’ll have success.” Pulling in the right direction starts with his “people plan” that is a combination of all the things he’s learned on the road to Gainesville and the things he learned first hand about dealing with people that he observed growing up with a father who was a high school coaching legend. “We’re going to use my approach to people,” he said. “I think the combination of those two things can position us to have success. A lot of the times when people ask me about the head coaches that I’ve worked for, one thing that gets overlooked is the number of assistant coaches and some of the best support staff members in the entire country that we’ve had an opportunity to work with.” He’s worked as an assistant for Dabo Swinney (2 national championships at Clemson) and Nick Saban (6 national championships since 2009), the two coaches who have dominated the last 12 years of college football. At Alabama, for example, he worked with these assistant coaches/analysts before they became part of the Nick Saban head coaching tree – Mario Cristobal, Kirby Smart, Mel Tucker, Lane Kiffin, Jeremy Pruitt, Mike Locksley and Steve Sarkisian. Some of the assistants who have never become head coaches have also been influential in his path to success – Bo Davis, Scott Cochran, Karl Dunbar, Burton Burns, Tosh Lupoi and Brent Key. “That network of people has been critical. It’s allowed us to have success in the past. We’re all a product of the experiences we’ve had and the people we’ve been exposed to. I’m certainly no different. I’m a product of my environment.” PITTS IN THE RECORD BOOK Former Gator All-American tight end Kyle Pitts, who made the Pro Bowl and who has 64 catches for 949 yards through 15 games, has surpassed Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez for the most receiving yards by a tight end in Atlanta Falcons history. With two games remaining, Pitts has a chance to break Mike Ditka’s NFL record of 1,076 receiving yards by a rookie tight end. THE SEC DID UF BASKETBALL NO FAVORS The Gators (9-3) will open the SEC portion of their schedule Wednesday night in Oxford against an Ole Miss team that lost its last outing to Samford when former Gators Ques Glover drained a winning 3-pointer at the buzzer. Glover, by the way, is averaging 19.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game for Samford and it hitting 37.5 percent of his three pointers. The Samford loss is the only loss the Rebels have suffered playing at The Pavilion at Ole Miss, so the Gators can expect a very difficult conference opener. The Ole Miss game is part of a four-game gauntlet the Gators face to open SEC play and it could have a defining affect on the remainder of the season. Following Ole Miss, the Gators will play host to 19th-ranked Alabama (9-3), then hit the road to face 11th-ranked Auburn (11-1). After that it’s back home to face 16th-ranked and unbeaten LSU (12-0). As if that’s not bad enough, the Gators’ next two games will be on the road at South Carolina (9-3) then home against Mississippi State (9-3). There are 19 games remaining on the UF schedule – 18 SEC and Oklahoma State in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge – and the only team the Gators face that has a losing record is Georgia (5-7), which the Gators face home-and-home. The Gators continue to hold at No. 30 nationally in the Kenpom.com ratings. The Gators rank 44th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency ratings and 31st in adjusted defensive efficiency. SEC Basketball Wednesday’s games: FLORIDA (9-3) at Ole Miss (8-4); No. 16 LSU (12-0) at No. 11 Auburn (11-1); Missouri (6-6) at No. 18 Kentucky (9-2); Gardner-Webb (5-7) at Georgia (5-7); Central Arkansas (2-9) at Texas A&M (9-2); No. 14 Tennessee (9-2) at No. 19 Alabama (9-3); Arkansas (10-2) at Mississippi State (9-3); South Carolina State (7-8) at South Carolina (9-3) POSTPONED The Associated Press Top 25 poll: 1. Baylor 11-0; 2. Duke 11-1; 3. Purdue 11-1; 4. Gonzaga 10-2; 5. UCLA 8-1; 6. Kansas 9-1; 7. Southern Cal 12-0; 8. Iowa State 12-0; 9. Arizona 11-1; 10. Michigan State 10-2; 11. Auburn 11-1; 12. Houston 11-2; 13. Ohio State 8-2; 14. Tennessee 9-2; 15. Seton Hall 9-1; 16. LSU 12-0; 17. Texas 9-2; 18. Kentucky 9-2; 19. Alabama 9-3; 20. Colorado State 10-0; 21. Providence 11-1; 22. Villanova 8-4; 23. Xavier 11-2; 24. Wisconsin 9-2; 25. Texas Tech 9-2 The Coaches Top 25 poll: 1. Baylor 11-0; 2. Duke 11-1; 3. Purdue 11-1; 4. Gonzaga 10-2; 5. UCLA 8-1; 6. Kansas 9-1; 7. Arizona 11-1; 8. Iowa State 12-0; 9. Southern Cal 9-0; 10. Michigan State 10-2; 11. Auburn 11-1; 12. Ohio State 8-2; 13. Seton Hall 9-1; 14. Houston 11-2; 15. Tennessee 9-2; 16. LSU 12-0; 17. Kentucky 9-2; 18. Texas 9-2; 19. Alabama 9-3; 20. Colorado State 10-0; 21. Providence 11-1; 22. Villanova 8-4; 23. Wisconsin 9-2; 24. Xavier 11-2; 25. Texas Tech 9-2 SEC FOOTBALL Alabama: Asked Monday what he thinks about the fan criticism of his coaching, defensive coordinator Pete Golding replied, “Well, their name ain’t on my paycheck, so I really don’t listen to it … I don’t listen to the outside noise, to be honest with you. I think if you’re a football coach and you do that, I think you get out of this profession pretty quick. You start selling insurance and playing golf.” It should be noted that Alabama’s defense ranks eighth nationally in total defense (306.1 yards per game) and fourth against the run (82.77 yards per game, 2.51 per carry). Arkansas: The Razorbacks may be without star wide receiver Treylon Burks for the Outback Bowl game, but opponent Penn State will be without first team All-Big Ten wide receiver Jahan Dotson and starting DB Jaquan Brisker. All three have opted out to prepare for the NFL Draft. Auburn: Leading tackler LB Zakoby McClain has joined All-American corner and OL Broadarius Hamm in opting out of the Tigers’ Birmingham Bowl matchup with Houston. Georgia: Apparently, quarterback JT Daniels and wide receiver George Pickens have passed the COVID protocols. Both players made the trip with the rest of the team to Miami where the Bulldogs will face Michigan in the College Football Semifinal matchup Friday night ... If Georgia loses to Michigan, you can bet Kirby Smart will be blowtorched with criticism for allowing Dan Lanning to juggle duties as the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator/play caller with head coaching duties that he has assumed at Oregon. Kentucky: The Wildcats are in Orlando for final preparations for their Citrus Bowl game with Iowa. HBC Mark Stoops says the Wildcats are “doing the best we can” when it comes to dealing with COVID protocols. LSU: With Max Johnson already departed for Texas A&M, freshman Garrett Nussmeier is the scheduled starter for the Tigers’ Texas Bowl matchup with Kansas State. If anything happens to Nussmeier senior wide receiver Jontre Kirklin would step in. Kirklin is a former dual threat QB from Lutcher, Louisiana who has caught 20 passes in his LSU career for three touchdowns but has never thrown a pass in a game. Mississippi State: It’s a juicy Liberty Bowl matchup for Mississippi State because it pits Mike Leach against Texas Tech, which fired him after the 2009 season. Leach fired a wrongful termination suit against Texas Tech which hasn’t been resolved. Monday, Leach said he plays to fight Texas Tech for as long as it will take to win. “I don’t have anything to lose,” Leach said. “I mean, they cheated me out of $2.6 million plus four years remaining on my contract.” It should be noted that Leach never had a losing season and went 84-43 as Texas Tech’s head coach. In the years since he was fired, Texas Tech has had exactly four winning seasons. Ole Miss: Names being mentioned prominently to replace offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, who left for Oklahoma, are Arkansas OC Kendal Briles and South Florida offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., both of whom worked for Lane Kiffin when he was the head coach at Florida Atlantic. South Carolina: Four players will miss South Carolina’s game with North Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte but none of them for COVID. Three non-starters are suspended and one player will miss the game to spend with a family member who is seriously ill. Tennessee: James Carvin says he and the other starters on the Tennessee offensive line are trying to convince right tackle Cade Mays to come back for another year rather than declare for the NFL Draft. If Mays were to come back, the Vols would return all five starters to go with returning QB Hendon Hooker and top wide receiver Cedric Tillman. FOOTBALL IN THE MINOR LEAGUES Former Troy head coach Chip Lindsey is heading to UCF as Gus Malzahn’s offensive coordinator. Lindsey worked for Malzahn at Auburn in 2013 when the Tigers nearly won the national championship and again in 2017 when they beat Alabama and won the SEC West. Boise State has had to withdraw from the Arizona Bowl because of COVID. Central Michigan, which was supposed to play Boise, is now headed to the Sun Bowl to play Washington State. It’s a big step up for Jim McElwain and the Chippewas, who not only play a Power Five opponent in the bowl game but will have a significant payout boost. The Arizona Bowl would have paid the Fighting Chips $350,000. The Chips (and the Mid-America Conference) will get a payout of somewhere around $2.25 million. Atlanta Falcons running backs coach Desmond Kitchens, who at one time was thought to be a lock for Billy Napier’s Florida staff, is expected to be named offensive coordinator for Tony Elliott at Virginia. If you check the box score of Florida’s 41-14 national championship game win over Ohio State in 2006, you’ll notice the Buckeyes’ leading tackler was Marcus Freeman (16 stops). That’s the same Marcus Freeman who is the former Cincinnati and Notre Dame defensive coordinator who is now the head coach at Notre Dame. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Monday the Center for Disease Control issued a new guidance for dealing with COVID-19, particularly the omicron variant that is running rampant through the US. Instead of a 10-day isolation/quarantine, the CDC is now recommending five days for people who test positive and if they are asymptomatic after five days, they should wear a mask for five days. That’s good news for the general population. I have to wonder if this new guidance had been in place a week ago if Texas A&M and some other teams could have played in their bowl games.

A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning: THE NEXT FEW DAYS ARE GOING TO BE VERY INTERESTING Andrew Carnegie once suggested that his tombstone should be engraved with this epitaph: “Here lies a man who was able to surround himself with men far cleverer than himself.” Carnegie even suggested that you could take away all his money but as long as he could surround himself with good people, he could rebuild everything. Watching Billy Napier go about the business of filling in the blanks of his plan to succeed as Florida’s head football coach is like watching a football version of Andrew Carnegie. Napier is brilliantly efficient and it’s obvious that he believes it takes an entire staff of excellent people to bring a sustainable championship football culture to the University of Florida. Rob Sale, by all accounts, is a done deal to leave the New York Giants to coach the UF offensive line. There are plenty of reports that Karl Scott will leave the Minnesota Vikings to become Florida’s co-defensive coordinator. Scott, it must be noted, is a devotee of Ron Roberts’ creeper defense (he worked for Roberts in 2012-13) as is Patrick Toney, who came with Napier from Louisiana back on December 5. Chris Rumph (Chicago Bears) and Eric Henderson (Los Angeles Rams) seem to be likely additions. Rumph has worked at Florida before while Henderson has drawn rave reviews for his work with Aaron Donald the last three years. He played his high school football at Edna Karr in New Orleans. If that sounds familiar it’s because UF running backs coach Jabbar Juluke was the head coach at Edna Karr for nine years. When complete, this will be an extraordinary coaching staff and personnel department. Napier has been given a large budget to transform the Florida staff and he’s committed to bringing in the best possible people who understand that surrounding yourself with good people means upgrading the roster whether with new recruits or transfers. It’s going to be interesting to see how many players from the 2021 roster hit the transfer portal in the next 10 days. Based on what we saw in the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa last week, there are several players who gave half-hearted efforts and probably would be better served to look elsewhere. If they think Napier is the type to beg them to stay, they are going to be unpleasantly surprised. He wants kids who want to be Gators and that means kids who give 100 percent 100 percent of the time, pure and simple. Attrition normally claims 5-7 players every year. I’m of the opinion that the demands of a new coaching staff will equate to somewhere between 10-15 players transferring out. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. If unmotivated players who aren’t willing to do what the new coaching staff wants, then they shouldn’t let the screen door hit them on the way out. The transfer portal is just heating up. There are expectations that somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 players will opt out of their current situation to find new digs. It’s obvious from the way Mel Tucker (Michigan State) and Josh Heupel (Tennessee) used the transfer portal to upgrade their rosters and exceed 2021 expectations that there is no shortage of talent out there. It just takes careful evaluation to find the right fits. If we’ve learned anything about Napier in less than one month on the job, he’s got a systematic approach to everything and that should allow him to bring in highly motivated transfers. Napier got news to build on the transfer to Florida of Ohio State quarterback Jack Miller III over the weekend when linebacker Ventrell Miller III and wide receiver Justin Shorter committed to come back. Miller’s injury in game two proved devastating as Florida didn’t have an adequate replacement in the middle. Shorter finished the year with 41 catches for 550 yards and three touchdowns. If UF quarterbacks had paid attention, they would have noticed he ran free in the secondary all year and would have come close to doubling his production if they had looked his way more frequently. At his initial press conference, Napier preached patience but we’re getting mixed signals on that end. In one respect, he is patiently going about filling out his coaching staff, but he’s going gangbusters when it comes to his personnel department. The next few days are going to be very, very interesting. WHAT WENT SIDEWAYS FOR MULLEN This will be the last I’ll post for quite some time about the old regime. It’s time to put the past behind us, but there is one thing I think that needs to be posted. I’m going to use two very good examples to set the stage for one of the biggest reasons Dan Mullen is looking for gainful employment somewhere else (Yes, I know he’s got $12 million to ease the pain and we should all be that lucky but indulge me). The first one is Florida 2010 and the second is Alabama ongoing. The Gators went 13-1 in both 2008 and 2009. They won the national championship in 2008, then lost in the SEC Championship Game to eventual national champion Alabama in 2009. In 2010, Tim Tebow, Maurkice Pouncey, Joe Haden and Brandon Spikes had moved on to the NFL. There should have been and was a dropoff, but from 13-1 to 8-5? I have been convinced for years that the biggest reason the Gators failed to reload had everything to do with losing six coaches from that 2008 staff and the choices Urban Meyer made for replacements. Dan Mullen and John Hevesey departed for Mississippi State after the 2008 season. Urban turned the offensive coordinator/play calling job over to Steve Addazio and the Gators went from wide open explosive to highly predictable. Following the 2009 season, Charlie Strong became the head coach at Louisville, taking with him Vance Bedford and Kenny Carter. Billy Gonzales left to become the wide receivers coach at LSU. Meyer hired Teryl Austin from the NFL to replace Strong. Players considered him aloof and hard to approach, unlike Strong, who was like a second father. Zach Azzanni was hired to coach the wide receivers. When a few of the freshmen from the No. 1 recruiting class skipped out of practice in August of 2010 because they thought some of the upperclassmen like Mike Pouncey lectured them about their sense of entitlement. Azzanni was sent to fetch them and that didn’t go over well. Meyer should have punished the freshmen for disrespecting his coach, but he didn’t do that, perhaps realizing that he had a weakling on his hands and perhaps a revolt brewing. Meyer twice made bad choices when he had to name replacements and it showed, first in the predictability of the 2009 team that Alabama so easily defended in the SEC Championship Game, but then with the slide all the way back to a 7-5 regular season that included blowout losses at the hands of Alabama, South Carolina and Florida State. It took an Outback Bowl win over Penn State to get to eight wins in Meyer’s last game as the UF head coach. Alabama. Nobody has more coaching staff turnover than Nick Saban. It is a revolving door but Alabama continues to win and recruit at a high level. Saban has won national championships with five different offensive coordinators and three different defensive coordinators. Lane Kiffin was the OC for a 2015 national championship team that had Jacob Coker at QB and only four returning starters … and to think Meyer couldn’t win a 2009 national championship with Tebow at QB. So, back to Mullen. He didn’t exactly bring a great staff with him when he was hired in 2018 and when he had chances to upgrade, he didn’t do it. He needed better recruiters. He needed better on the field coaches. Realistically speaking, he had four top grade assistants TOTAL – Billy Gonzales (WR all four years), Brian Johnson (QB first three years), Larry Scott (TE first two years) and Tim Brewster (TE last two years). What happened at the end of 2020 should have told Mullen (a) he needed to upgrade his staff and (b) if he brought in better assistants and recruiters, he might start winning those one- possession games instead of losing them. He should have replaced defensive coordinator Todd Grantham after the 2020 debacle but didn’t, which was the shock heard all around the college football coaching world. The 2021 Gators still missed a ton of tackles, lost three games when they gave up at least 280 rushing yards and gave up 19 TDPs. When Brian Johnson left for the NFL, Mullen replaced his QB coach with Garrick McGee. Johnson is doing a miracle worker job in Philadelphia where he is transforming Jalen Hurts into very good NFL QB, something experts said couldn’t be done. McGee’s work with Emory Jones is forgettable. We’ll always wonder what Johnson could have done with Jones. Mullen replaced bad coaches in the secondary with Wesley McGriff and Jules Montinar. The secondary was only minimally improved. They still missed tackles and blew assignments. Hevesy? How can your line dominate Alabama like Georgia couldn’t and then two weeks later set a world record for false starts and blown assignments at Kentucky? Dan Mullen is out of a job today in large part because he didn’t hire good assistant coaches. Lots of head coaches aren’t great recruiters, but they’re smart enough to hire assistants who understand the key to getting that coordinator or head coaching job is to make a name as a recruiter. Not every assistant Nick Saban hires is a great recruiter but all of them are outstanding position coaches. The moral of the story: If you have a job like Florida and you intend to keep it, HIRE OUTSTANDING ASSISTANT COACHES. Not good, mind you. OUTSTANDING. Urban Meyer’s last year at Florida and even his abbreviated year as the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars is marred by poor choices for assistant coaches. Nick Saban on the other hand keeps making one good hire after another because he won’t settle for mediocre. Dan Mullen settled for mediocre when he should have taken what happened to Meyer to heart and paid attention to why Nick Saban keeps the train rolling in Tuscaloosa. A FEW COLLEGE FOOTBALL NOTES Alabama offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien and O-line coach Doug Marrone are in isolation after testing positive for COVID although they’re expected to join the team in Dallas before Friday. Meanwhile Joe Pendry is coaching the O-line. He has been retired since the 2010 season but he’s the best O-line coach of the last 40 years in the SEC. The Sun Bowl is on hold because of a COVID outbreak with Miami and the Fenway Bowl is on hold because of COVID with Virginia. Why not just have SMU go to the Sun Bowl to play Washington State? SMU is from Texas (Sun Bowl is in El Paso) and has been practicing. Doesn’t seem like that’s a tough call. Alabama is a 13.5-point favorite to beat Cincinnati Friday in the first College Football Playoff semifinal while Georgia is a 7.5-point favorite to beat Michigan. I’ve got Alabama and Michigan winning. ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated, one of the truly outstanding reporters about college football spoke to Jeff Dugas, an orthopedic surgeon who is Troy’s team doctor and the Sun Belt Conference’s COVID -19 advisory panel chairman. Speaking to Dellenger about the omicron variant of COVID, Dugas said, “The question that needs to be asked is, if the risk of severe illness – hospitalization, death, dying – is not there, if we’re not seeing that, how is this different than the common cold? Do we need to be freaking out just because it is a variant of COVID-19? Do we need to apply the same rules or changes the rules?” Dellenger went on to report that multiple physicians and college administrators are questioning the long quarantines and cancelling athletic contests because, “Vaccinated young people are showing either no symptoms or very mild symptoms, and their symptoms are subsiding within two to three days.” I’m no doctor and certainly no medical expert, but if we’re not seeing death and long term hospitalization with people on ventilators, I, like Dr. Dugas, have to ask if the sports world is overreacting?

While waiting for football season there are things to do in the great white north. Like waiting for the next 7.1 magnitude earthquake to shake me out of bed like the one at 8:29am Nov. 30, 2018. (Matter of fact as this story is being edited we just had a 6.0 nearby.) There are also plenty of other more pleasant things to do in Alaska, too. Me and a fish. (Linderman family photo) By JANE (Linderman) OF THE NORTH The Northernmost Gator KENAI, Alaska -- I took a wrong turn off I-75 and Archer Road and wound up in Alaska. A Siberian Husky sled dog team has pulled in the front yard of the igloo. There is a foot of snow on the ground, air temperature is 8 degrees Fahrenheit, just right for these huskies. It has been colder than usual with blizzards but the mail from the lower 48 has arrived in Kenai. This is how I found out the University of Florida Gator football team has a new coach, Billy Napier. "Hey Manny, looks like I'm not in Florida anymore!” (Linderman Family photo) I looked at Billy’s photo and there is a resemblance to Bruce Willis. Strong, confident, intense eyes, set jaw and the wheels are turning in his head. There’s a job to be done to bring the University of Florida back to winning SEC and National championships. Coach Billy Napier is the man in charge now. Word has reached us by Siberian husky that this is our new coach. (Chris Spears photo) The Gators had a 6-6 regular football season in 2021. But the bad news is at the Gasparilla Bowl they were upset by the University of Central Florida in Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium. The good news was the full Gator Band, more than 400 marchers, were there filling the stadium with great music. I was a member of the Gator Band and am an unfaltering Gator fan 3,000 miles from my hometown of Sarasota. Coach Napier’s Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns looked sharp in their win over the Appalachian State Mountaineers 24-16 to win the 2021 Sun Belt Conference Championship. Clean passes, strong tackles and athletes that looked exuberant. The Gators new coach also was named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the year in 2021. I’m excited for the 2022 football season to start. While waiting for football season there are things to do in the great white north. Like waiting for the next 7.1 magnitude earthquake to shake me out of bed like the one at 8:29am November 30, 2018. Oops! This is what the damage looked like after the earthquake. (Linderman family photo) I was fast asleep when a boom sound came from below the igloo and it felt like a wrecking ball had hit my upstairs bedroom wall. Then the shaking started, then rolling. A frantic shout from Mr. (Manny) Linderman on the first floor “Janie, you better come down here!” Down the stairs I went holding on to the rails. Pictures on the wall swayed like Ben Hill Griffin Stadium during the end of the third quarter when fans lock arms and sing “We Are the Boys from Old Florida.” There were aftershocks all day. The highway to Kenai town was cracked open across both lanes. This was quickly filled with sand and patched so we could make Friday night dinner with the Kaknu Kruzers, a car appreciation club. At Louie’s restaurant that night there was a steak special with a free chocolate or vanilla “shake.” The beauty of wildlife is everywhere in Alaska and it can take your breath away. (Photo by Scott Rooker) When the rivers thaw in spring I’ll join the Kenai chapter members of Gold Prospectors of America Association and prospect for nuggets. There is gold on the beach in Kenai and in most rivers on the peninsula. Just south of Anchorage Girdwood has a world class ski resort, Alyeska. Nearby is Crow Creek Mine where I have nice gold nugget found there that hangs on a chain. The 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympic downhill gold medal winner Tommy Moe trained at Alyeska. When I get tired of finding gold, I can go lake, river or ocean fishing. Chinkook, Sockeye and CoHo Salmon, Arctic Char, Rainbow Trout and halibut abound. When you fish for halibut in Cook Inlet I guarantee it will be the prettiest fishing hole you’ve ever been on. Volcanic snowcapped mountains surround the inlet. Winter is the best time of year. All eyes are on the North Pole. It’s a real town near the Arctic Circle where Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus have a red and green stable with reindeer and a toy shop busy with elves. The streetlights of the town are striped like candy canes and the firetrucks are Christmas red. Sometimes we see this guy around checking his mail. (Photo Courtesy of Santa Claus) The post office is busy in the North Pole where hundreds of thousands of letters are addressed to 1 Santa Claus Lane, North Pole, Alaska. When Santa’s sleigh is loaded with presents on Christmas Eve and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and his reindeer friends are harnessed I hear sleigh bells from the igloo. I go outside and look for the North Star. I am one of the first people in the world to see Santa fly across the sky. Soon brand new footballs will be placed underneath a palm tree outside a football stadium. Statues of Heisman winners Steve Spurrier, Danny Wuerffel and Tim Tebow look on approvingly from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Coach Billy Napier’s Christmas wish list to Santa Claus has been filled. Merry Christmas! Go Gators! Jane Linderman (jane.gator@gmail.com) PO BOX 2242 Kenai AK 99611 Some days are not so good for biking. (Lindeman Family Photo)

A Christmas story to jump start your Christmas Day: Thoughts of the Day: December 25, 2021 Do you remember when you knew in your heart of hearts that you were helplessly, hopelessly a Gator for life? Do you remember when you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Florida Gators were the only team that would actually matter for the rest of your life? That moment for me was December 25, 1964. Two months earlier my life had been turned upside down when I was uprooted from the good life in Gainesville and exiled to McComb, Mississippi. I say exiled because everything I held sacred was in Gainesville. I could walk to Florida Field from my home in 10 minutes. I played center on Mr. Red Dulaney’s Hughes Supply football team. A year before I had played left tackle (Tom Petty was the right tackle) for Mr. Dulaney in the 100-pound weight league and we had gone undefeated to win the county championship. As a 13-year-old I moved up to the 120-pound weight league and because I could snap a spiral (we ran single wing, and of course, there were times we had to punt) I became the center. Before I could move up to the 13-year-old team, I had to teach Mike Sloan (Norm’s kid) how to snap, however. At Westwood, I had made some very good friends and I made good grades. Mr. Hayes, my history teacher, was my favorite. Fuzzy Fratella was my phys ed teacher. On Saturday’s, Sarge Squires knew me, so I had my choice of selling Cokes or hot dogs. I chose Cokes because I had a regular clientele of Jacksonville lawyers who bought from me. My job was to arrive 90 minutes before the game and make sure they didn’t run out of Cokes. They were great guys, and a couple always had me drink most of their Coke because they wanted about half Bourbon and half Coke. Life was good. On a good Saturday I pocketed about $6, a rather hefty sum for a 13-year-old during the 1960s when we could still buy a Coke out of the machine for 10 cents and I could get a cheeseburger, large Coke and fries at Chandler’s on 13th Street for 50 cents. All that was interrupted when the Altamil Corporation bought out Adkins Manufacturing, where my dad was the general manager/CFO. My dad was transferred immediately to McComb in September. Six weeks later, our home sold in Gainesville. I had to quit Mr. Dulaney’s team (we were in second place), say good-bye to friends at Westwood and we moved into a new brick house at 202 Westview Circle in McComb that had central air conditioning (I was impressed). It was life among the heathens in McComb. I was the only Gator fan in the whole place. Everyone else was either Ole Miss, Mississippi State and LSU. Oh, a bunch of folks went to Southern Miss over in Hattiesburg, but they were Rebels, Bulldogs and Tigers first. Fortunately, there was a 50,000-watt radio station in Pensacola that was my lifeline. I listened to Otis Boggs describe those high, lazy spirals and turn three-yard gains by Jack Harper into adventures, but it wasn’t the same as being there. I did get to go the Florida-LSU game in Baton Rouge (COLD that night) on December 5 because my dad’s boss, Mr. Crosby was an LSU grad and he had tickets. The Gators won 20-6. Spurrier was unbelievable and Mrs. Crosby had to put a Florida pennant on their front door for a week because she lost a bet with me. Christmas Eve we packed up the car and drove all night to Gainesville where my mom’s parents lived at 313 NW 11th Street. We arrived sometime around dawn and my sister (living with my grandparents and a freshman at UF) Donna was the first one out the door. Then came my grandparents and after the hugs and kisses, I had luggage duty, after which I went to sleep for what seemed like 10 minutes. I woke to the smell of bacon. Nobody on this planet ever did bacon like Ivey Van Sickle. After breakfast it was time to open presents. My sister gave me a pair of white Levis, which were sure to make me the envy of the small circle of friends I had already made in McComb. I highly doubted Denman-Alford had them in stock yet. After opening all my presents, my grandfather handed me one more. He said he had overlooked this one. Must have fallen back behind the tree he told me. I ripped it open and found a white University of Florida football jersey complete with the orange and blue UCLA stripes on the shoulder and a blue No. 11, Spurrier’s number! He had it custom made for me at Jimmy Hughes Sporting Goods. The jersey went on immediately. I asked if I could run down to the stadium and I was waved out the door. They knew where I was going, straight to Florida Field. I raced over to 13th street, turning south at Captain Louie’s and west when I got to University Avenue where there was a fresh coat of paint on the SAE lion. As a seventh grader at Westwood, rumor had it that Coleman Stipanovich once poured a can of paint on the lion. I don’t know if it was true, but since Coleman had a rather fearsome persona, it seemed believable for a seventh grader. Once I got to Florida Field, the gates were locked in the north end zone but I remembered the gate was rarely locked in the southeast corner so I ran down there. Lucky for me, the gate was unlocked and I ran out on the field where I was transformed into Steve Spurrier. I threw passes to Charlie Casey. I handed off to Jack Harper. I avenged Florida’s 17-14 loss to Alabama. I don’t even remember what the final score was against Georgia, but I threw at least 11 touchdown passes to match the number on my jersey. In about 20 or 30 minutes the Gators had gone unbeaten and won their first SEC championship. Oh, it was wonderful. It was all in my 13-year-old mind, but because I was wearing that jersey, it seemed so real. I looked up at empty stands but in my mind they were full (capacity was about 48,000 in those days) and the fans were on their feet screaming for more. That was my Gator moment. Right then and right there, standing in the north end zone, I knew that nothing would ever take the place of being a Florida Gator. I loved the Baltimore Orioles back in those days, but eventually Frank and Brooks retired and Jim Palmer’s fast ball lost its steam. I loved the Reds, but the Big Red Machine threw a rod. I loved the Celtics but Bill Russell and Havlicek retired. I loved the Baltimore Colts but they traded Johnny Unitas and moved to Indianapolis. But the Gators were always in Gainesville and win or lose, they were always my team. To this day, they are the only team in my life that truly matters. I’m 70 years old now, but the Florida Gators were, are and always will be my team. I walked back to my grandparents home that morning. Dirty Dan the bicycle man was out fixing a bike. I think he rolls over in his grave now that apartments are going up at the place where he used to always have a soft heart and a cheap bike for a student with a sad story. Dan remembered me (he knew my grandfather well) and asked where I had been. I told him Mississippi. He just shook his head, then reached out a greasy hand that I shook although I was careful not to touch my jersey until I got home. When I got back to my grandparents home nobody really had to ask where I had been or what I had been doing. They knew. My smile told them. I wore the jersey all weekend and every chance I got when we got back to Mississippi. I kept wearing it even when it didn’t fit anymore. It became threadbare and I had to toss it finally, but it will always be my favorite Christmas present of all time. So where where you and what were you doing when you realized that there was room for only one team in your life and it was the Florida Gators? Merry Christmas everyone. God bless you.

Goodbye and thanks Emory, but it's time to turn the page. (Chris Spears photo) So where do we go from here and how does new coach Billy Napier negotiate this early speed bump? I didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about the Gasparilla Bowl, before or after. First, I never knew it existed. And had I known about it, no doubt it would have conjured up memories of the old Cigar Bowl, from the same city that gave us the Tampa Smokers of the Florida State League a million years ago. The only thing I remember about the Cigar Bowl was that I believe it was played at University of Tampa (20,000 temporary bleachers) and featured such powerhouses as Lenoir Rhyne, Valparaiso, and Rollins. Later I learned it was also the site of the first bowl appearance for FSU and Tampa. That’s the only relevance I can find to Tampa hosting a post-season game back before there was a “Bay” in it — and before it became the scene of the crime for UCF’s assassination of Florida, putting the finishing touches on the remnants of Dan Mullen’s exorcism. Other than that, give me the Outback Bowl for $200 Alex or Ken or whomever. As for the 7-point underdogs’ upset, it was bound to eventually happen someday -- as it usually does when state schools keep playing each other. Just as it first did in 1964 when Florida ran into the high-flying, pass-happy Seminoles with quarterback Steve Tensi and gifted wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff. The ‘Noles handed Florida and sophomore Steve Spurrier (he only played the second half) their first loss in the series, 16-7. Just as a reminder, however, that loss did not set off an upheaval of stellar recruits fleeing to Tallahassee. Eventually, just 20 years later, FSU caught up and passed the Gators in recruiting while Florida was on probation, which Bobby Bowden rode to a crest of a national championship. This year’s sold-out Gasparilla Bowl was a setup for UCF and Gus Malzahn knocked it out of the sky like a fat wounded duck with a bullseye taped to its butt and a governor on it. It was a layup. Almost the equivalency of a shooting fish in a coffee cup. So don’t go hanging up any “State Champion” banners next to that fake “National Champion” one. Go back in the line that says “Group of Five” and we’ll be in touch. So where do we go from here and how does new coach Billy Napier negotiate this early speed bump? I say forget about it and move forward. In the end Dan Mullen quit on his team, choosing not to coach them anymore and deserting the players who carried him on their shoulders for almost three full seasons. Gator fans will always be grateful to Dameon Pierce and a few others who gave so much at the office. Minus those who opted out, the remaining players gave it a shot for pride in a meaningless game until they kept blowing it chance after chance and eventually succumbed to the Knights. As for Emory Jones, bless him for his loyalty and effort, but we can see now why he should never have been the starting quarterback. His inability to see the field and connect on long passes was never more evident. And the same shameful stupid mental mistakes by the rest of the team never went away. I don’t think Napier will stand for such foolishness, which is reason for hope as we turn the page on a new era and New Year. Get thee behind us Gasparilla Bowl and 2021!

Brenton Cox sacks UCF's Mike Keene (Gator Bait photo by Chris Spears) TAMPA – We’ve seen this movie way too many times. We didn’t really need a re-run but that’s what the Florida Gators gave us Wednesday night at Raymond James Stadium. The Gators came into this game with plenty to play for, which in itself is as difficult to comprehend as the fact that they were playing in the Gasparilla Bowl against UCF. The Gasparilla Bowl is low hanging fruit on a branch of the bowl tree. UCF has been here so many times it’s almost the winter home. For Florida, this game ranks lower than the Birmingham Bowl. You know how that one goes. Win and you get to go home. Lose and you have to spend another week in Birmingham. Yet, the Gasparilla Bowl is even lower. It’s almost incomprehensible that a team that had Alabama on the ropes not only had to settle for the Gasparilla Bowl but needed a win to assure itself of avoiding its third losing season in the last nine years. The Gators played like they didn’t want to be here. UCF? This was the Knights’ Super Bowl. In many respects, this was far more important than UCF’s Peach Bowl win over Auburn in 2017. You remember that one. UCF beat a crippled Auburn team to finish unbeaten, after which its athletic director proclaimed the Knights national champions, a never-ending source of ridicule in the five years since. Everybody knows the national title is illegitimate but by beating the Gators, 29-17, the Knights can lay a legitimate claim to the state championship in Florida. After all, they beat the Gators, who beat Florida State, which beat Miami. You can bet the farm a State Champions 2021 sign has already been crafted, ready to hang just below that ridiculous national championship 2017 sign. What was clear from the outset Wednesday was UCF coach Gus Malzahn, ironically the losing head coach when UCF beat Auburn to win the Peach Bowl in 2017, had the Knights ready to play. UCF played hard enough, smart enough and with sustained effort. The Knights played like a team that relished the idea of being there, and especially savored the idea of beating big brother. If you’re grading UCF give the Knights an A for preparation, an A for execution and an A+ for coaching. The Gators? Is there such a thing as an F minus? From a purely talent perspective, the Gators (6-7) had it all over UCF (9-4), but if the 2021 season has taught us anything about this Florida football team rarely plays to its talent level and quite often plays down to or below the talent level of the opponent. Florida lost seven football games this year. Despite the well-documented recruiting deficiencies of the last four years under Dan Mullen, only Alabama and Georgia had more talent than UF. That was two of the seven losses. In the other five – Kentucky, LSU, South Carolina, Missouri and UCF – the Gators had as much or more talent and yet they still lost. Why did they lose? For the exact same reason the Gators lost to UCF. There are only so many times you can shoot yourself in the foot before you’ve blown it off completely. Interim head coach Greg Knox knew this was nothing more than a repeat performance of what will define the 2021 season. Speaking to the media post game, Knox said, “It’s been a lot of different things. Personal foul penalties, jumping offsides penalties, holding penalties. Tonight, all of it. All of it came into play again. You can’t win big ball games when you make those amount of mistakes.” It was more than just the penalties. You would need a calculator to keep up with all of Florida’s mistakes. There is no such thing as a perfect team nor is there such a thing as a perfect game, but good teams – winning teams that compete for championships – have a habit of identifying mistakes and eliminating them to the point that by season’s end they’ve been minimalized. The same mistakes the Gators were making all too frequently in September they were making against UCF, nearly four months since the season opener. Too many mistakes by a team that never seemed to care if it got better is pretty much the story of the season and it’s as big a reason as any that Dan Mullen was dismissed as Florida’s football coach after the Missouri loss. This is precisely why Billy Napier has been hired. He is the designated fixer and there is so much to fix that it is almost like he has a blank canvas to work with. We already know he can recruit, which is a necessity, and we know he can win. His four-year head coaching history at Louisiana also tells us he’s all about discipline and Lord knows the Gators could use a healthy dose of discipline. Disciplined teams don’t commit an abundance of stupid penalties at the most inopportune times. Disciplined teams don’t routinely blow assignments, miss tackles and miss critical field goals. Disciplined teams convert on third down (UF was 2-13) and generally speaking, complete a reasonable number of passes when there are receivers running wide open. All the talent in the world can’t compensate a lack of discipline. When surveying the damage from the Gasparilla Bowl disaster, it’s too easy to rag on Emory Jones. There is no getting around the fact he had a bad game, maybe the worst one he’s played. He completed 14-36 passes for 171 yards and he ran 10 times for 67. He held the ball too long too many times, locked in on one receiver when there was someone else open if he had just turned his head a teensy bit and missed several big plays if he only had put a little more air under some deep throws. There were at least four touchdowns that could have been had with a little more touch. UCF put a lot of pressure on Jones, but it’s not like the Knights cleverly disguised their blitzes. Some of the throws under duress are the result of Jones making poor reads, but not all. Some of the bad reads were the fault of Florida’s offensive line that had more than a few snaps when they did a dandy impersonation of a sieve. It should also be noted that Garrick McGee, Florida’s quarterback coach and the play caller in Mullen’s absence, had what can only be described as a baffling day. Quite obviously McGee saw something in the way the UCF secondary covered that made him think big plays could be had throwing the ball, but when the passing game lacks consistency and the other team’s defense can’t stop the run, you shift your focus to running the damn football. UCF had all sorts of problems stopping Florida’s running game, which netted 205 yards and averaged 6.8 yards per carry. On those rare occasions when McGee called an option, the Gators picked up big yardage, yet there was no commitment to exploiting the UCF defense running the ball on the perimeter. Perhaps the passing game would have worked a lot better if McGee had decided to let Jones use his legs and option skills on the perimeter, forcing the safeties to cheat toward the line of scrimmage. McGee shouldn’t have abandoned the pass altogether, but ground and pound with option would have worked a whole lot better. So the bad game isn’t all on Emory Jones’ shoulders. Garrick McGee pretty much set his quarterback up to fail by the way he called the plays. It’s kind of like baseball. When your pitcher can’t get the curve ball over for a strike, you go with something else that works. In this case Jones couldn’t throw strikes but he darn sure showed he could run the option. It should have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the brains must have been left in the hotel safe or in the locker room. Defense? Florida fans spent three-and-a-half years blaming Todd Grantham and demanding Mullen to replace him. Mullen fired him after the South Carolina game, but really, what changed? Christian Robinson is a bright young coach who nearly everyone says has a bright future in the game, but as the interim defensive coordinator, he pretty much called the game the same way Grantham did. With Grantham, the Gators missed too many tackles, consistently overran plays and blew assignments. Nothing really changed with Robinson. UCF ran for 288 yards on the Gators and had two backs each gain more than 100. The defensive line wore down as the game went on but too often they did their job only to have the linebackers overrun the play or miss the tackle. We’ve been humming that tune since September. Give the secondary credit for shutting down the UCF passing game. With the exception of one long TDP pass late in the fourth quarter, they kept the UCF passing game in check. Take away that one play and UCF’s passing game was good for 4.0 yards per attempt. You’ll take that every day of the week. Special teams? The lack of a scholarship kicker who could consistently get the job done came back to haunt the Gators just as it did in the loss to Alabama. Chris Howard badly missed field goals of 51 and 45 yards. Punter Jeremy Crawshaw averaged 44.7 yards on six punts, but he shanked one that barely crossed midfield. One play later, UCF broke open a 19-17 game with a 54-yard TDP from Mikey Keen to Ryan O’Keefe and that pretty much was the ball game. Knox summed it up. “You can’t make the mistakes we made,” he said. “There’s a lot of guys [in the media] who have covered us. A lot of you guys in here that have covered us this year and you’ve seen us make mistakes. You can’t make those mistakes and expect to win games. We just made too many again tonight.” Yes, there were way too many mistakes but that’s the same story it has been for an entire season. The Gators never came close to putting it all together on offense, defense and special teams. Always there was something missing and even in the wins there were way too many mistakes that we waited to be corrected. There weren’t enough fingers to plug the holes in the dike. Plug one hole and there was another crack from which water poured. We kept waiting for this team to mature. Eventually, we figured they would get past the silliness and stupidity. Well, we were wrong. It never happened. This was at best a Humpty-Dumpty existence. The Gators kept breaking until finally, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put them back together again. Now, it’s up to Billy Napier to survey the damage, make however many changes are necessary and devise a systematic plan to put this football program back together again. It is not going to be an easy job and if we’re realists, we have to know that it might take more than one season to do it. That is sure to evoke groans from Florida fans who want the football program fixed yesterday. They have heard “Patience, Grasshopper” four times since 2011. Will Muschamp spent four years but couldn’t fix the program that Urban Meyer said was broken. Jim McElwain promised an offense to go with the NFL defense Muschamp left him, but he couldn’t get it done and then compounded matters with that phony death threats story. Dan Mullen had three good years and then everything fell apart in year four. It might take hours on Dr. Phil’s couch to get to the root of what and how it all went wrong. Now, it’s Billy Napier’s opportunity to step in and fix what is wrong. He’s been on the job less than a month, but he says all the right things. So far he’s done all the right things and the people he’s hiring all seem to be an upgrade over the people who are departing. Every bit as important, athletic director Scott Stricklin seems to have no problem whatsoever stroking the check to give Napier the tools he needs to make it all work. So far he seems like the guy who can produce a brand new movie, one that has a happy ending. This old movie we've been watching over and over again needs to be burned.

By Franz Beard GatorBait Senior Columnist Perhaps it was inevitable that someday Jack Miller III would be a Florida Gator. His dad, Jack Jr., the general manager of the 5-star Fairmont Scottsdale Princess Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. He’s also a huge Gator fan dating back to when he was growing up in Cocoa Beach. When Tim Tebow played in the Arizona Fall League during his minor league baseball days with the Mets, Jack Miller Jr. reached out to the former UF Heisman Trophy winner through a pastor who was a mutual friend. Tebow ended up staying with the Millers during his time in Arizona and that’s where a fast friendship began with then 11-year-old Jack Miller III. Young Jack wanted to be a star quarterback so naturally he asked Tebow for advice and from there a bond was formed that remains to this day. Miller still considers Tebow his mentor and close confidant about all things quarterback and life. While Miller was a record-setting quarterback at Scottsdale Christian Academy and Chaparral High School he set Arizona state records for throwing 53 touchdown passes in a single season and 115 career touchdown passes. In 38 high school games, he threw for more than 10,000 yards and was responsible (running and throwing) for 130 touchdowns, another state record. A consensus 4-star quarterback , Miller was the MVP at the Los Angeles Opening Regional which got him invited to the Elite 11 event. A back injury prevented him from participating at Elite 11. Later that year he suffered a shoulder surgery 11 games into his high school senior season. Miller had offers from nearly every school in the SEC including Alabama, Auburn, LSU and Texas A&M, but stuck with the commit he made to Ohio State (July 2018) when Urban Meyer was the head coach. Ryan Day, the former grad assistant for Meyer at Florida, now the Ohio State coach, continued to recruit Miller after Meyer retired and signed him with a 2020 class that included C.J. Stroud. After a redshirt season in 2020, Stroud won the starting job and was a Heisman Trophy finalist. During the 2021 season, Miller played in four Ohio State blowouts, completing 7-14 passes for 101 yards. He was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated in November, and though he was reinstated to the team after pleading to reduced charges of reckless driving, he didn’t play in another game. Ironically, Miller entered the NCAA transfer portal on the day Billy Napier was named Florida’s football coach. In the weeks since, all signs have pointed to Miller joining Napier at UF, particularly with Emory Jones declaring his intent to transfer after the bowl game and Anthony Richardson unable to play after undergoing a procedure for a knee that he first injured as a senior at Gainesville’s Eastside High School. We don't know exactly how much influence Tim Tebow had in Miller committing to the Gators, but with Tebow's statue prominent outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, it's safe to assume there was some sort of a connection. So, what are the Gators getting in Jack Miller III? Miller is a pro-style pocket passer with a big arm. He has good mobility although he’s not exactly what you would call a dual threat type. Think of him as an opportunistic runner who can make something out of nothing when the pocket breaks down and someone who can pick up 5-10 yards if he sees an opening. He’s not going to wow you with his footspeed or dazzling moves. He stands tall in the pocket yet throws the ball well when he’s on the move. He has excellent accuracy with the 14-17 yard passes in the seam and on the 15-yard out, the two passes that are the staple of any downfield throwing offense, plus he’s shown nice touch on the deep ball. Because 2020 was a COVID year that doesn’t count against eligibility and he only played in four games in 2021, Miller has four years of eligibility remaining. So with Miller joining the Gators, what does the 2022 quarterback room look like as of December 21? Anthony Richardson (6-4, 240, SO): Richardson has absolutely electric skills. He has a powerful arm and once he leaves the pocket there aren’t many defensive backs in the Southeastern Conference that can run him down if he gets a couple of steps. He showed in the first two games of 2021 what he’s capable of doing when he had seven carries for 160 yards including a 73-yard TD run against Florida Atlantic, then a week later went 3-3 for 152 yards and two touchdowns passing against South Florida while running for 115 yards and a TD on four carries. In that South Florida game his touchdown passes were for 75 and 41 yards and his TD run was an 80-yarder. That was the good Anthony Richardson. He messed up a hamstring in that game and didn’t see much playing time again until the LSU game (Florida lost 49-42) when he threw three touchdown passes but was intercepted twice. Two weeks later, he got the start against Georgia and in one three-minute disastrous stretch at the end of the first half turned the ball over three times (two interceptions, one fumble) that allowed Georgia to break open a 3-3 tie for a 24-3 halftime lead. He got hurt again in the Georgia game and didn’t play much until the season ending win over Florida State when he threw a TDP. Richardson’s stats for 2021 are 38-64 passing for 529 yards with six TDs and five INTs plus 51-401 rushing for three TDs. Richardson is a hometown kid with an unbelievable skill set but he was injury prone in high school and was sidelined on three different occasions with injuries in 2021. He is missing the Gasparilla Bowl game having undergone a procedure on the knee he injured his senior season at Eastside. Can he stay healthy? Can he grow out of his habit of trusting his arm too much and throwing into coverage? And, can Napier harness that talent enough to turn Richardson into the disciplined quarterback that he demands? Jack Miller III (6-4, 210, RFR): This is a fresh start for Miller, but it’s not like there aren’t some injury concerns with him, also. He had knee surgery in high school, had back issues and separated his shoulder. Healthy, he has the skill set and pocket presence that Napier wants. It’s a sure sign that Napier intends to run a pro-style offense that is a far cry from the RPO type of offense that Dan Mullen ran in 2021. He doesn’t have Richardson’s wheels, but who does? Is he good enough in the pocket to find passing lanes? Does he read the defenses well enough to understand when the blitz is coming and when it’s necessary to throw the ball away? He is a transfer. Can he step in and show the leadership skills it’s going to take to get the team to follow him? There is no question that job number one for Miller will be to win the team over? To do that he will have to get a quick grasp of the offense and assert himself without coming across as too cocky. Teammates will respect confidence. Cockiness from a transfer might be a bit tough to take. Carlos Del Rio-Wilson (6-2, 225, RFR): Del Rio-Wilson was a 4-star dual threat QB coming out of high school. He throws an excellent deep ball and he’s a strong runner. With Richardson sidelined, he’s the backup quarterback to Emory Jones at the Gasparilla Bowl. If anything happens to Jones, Del Rio-Wilson will see his first quarterback action as a Gator in a bowl game against UCF. What we don’t know about him is if he is more runner than thrower? If he is, then you can figure it won’t take him long to put his name in the transfer portal. But, if he can be disciplined enough to stand in the pocket, make the right reads and good throws, his added dimension of good wheels might add an unexpected element of competition at the quarterback position in the spring. There is no question Del Rio-Wilson has the talent and skill set to be a good Division I quarterback, but will he be a good fit in this offense? Jalen Kitna (6-4, 210, SO): Kitna must be elated that Napier’s quarterback signee is a pocket passer because that’s exactly where his skills are. He’s the son of former NFL QB Jon Kitna. He has a power arm and strong pocket presence. He can move around well in the pocket, but he’s not much of a threat to run the football, which could actually work in his favor if Napier wants a pure pocket guy as his quarterback. Kitna was essentially sent to UF by his dad to work with Mullen, so with Mullen gone will he still have the same interest in staying or will he have one foot out the door when the bowl game ends Thursday night. Finally, Napier was actively recruiting Robbie Roper of Roswell, Georgia when he had a bad reaction to anesthesia Tuesday after undergoing what seemed to be routine surgery on his left (non-throwing) shoulder. Roper was in serious condition Tuesday night. If he pulls through, it could be awhile before we know if there are any long term effects that could prevent him from playing college football. (Editor’s Note: Sadly, Robbie did not survive and passed away on Wednesday.)