I’m ‘All in on Mullen.' Except Christmas lights, maybe. Three games into Urban Meyer’s tenure at Florida, back in 2005, I told my radio broadcasting partner Brady Ackerman: “I’m all in on Urban Meyer.” He looked at me like I was nuts. It took me three years to finally say this now, but: “I’m all in on Dan Mullen.” Let the record show from the start I heartily endorsed Scott Stricklin’s hiring of Mullen. Thought it. Said it. Wrote it. I felt certain Mullen was the right hire at the right time – no divine wisdom here -- but it wasn’t hard to visualize. I probably underestimated him, as did most people. Now he’s 34 games into that deal and 28-6, a game away from clinching the SEC East. “Did you just decide to go ‘all in’ after Coach Mullen won his 28th game and passed Coach Spurrier and Coach Meyer?” asked my fellow talk show host Shane Matthews, referring to the fact that Mullen’s 28th came one game earlier than the two legends. Well, yes and no. Anytime you are in same sentence with Spurrier and Meyer it’s a good thing. Remember, though that Urban won a national championship in his second season at Florida and the HBC landed his first SEC title in his year two. Still, very impressively, Mullen has brought national respect back to the UF program. Just how far he can go remains to be seen, but right now the wind beneath his wings has him ascending and the next corridor is Knoxville. On the once-sacred ground where immortals like Spurrier and Meyer etched their legacies in forever, Mullen has evolved into the perfect descendant to inherit the crown jewels. Part Spurrier. Part Meyer. If Steve and Urban had a football clone together, it would definitely be Dan. And the only reason it has taken a moment to elevate his prospects is because of the difficulty of following in the footsteps of two legends. How could he ever match their feats? Three years later, looking in the rearview mirror, Scott Stricklin must feel like he hit the football coaching lottery. At the same time, members of the Gator Nation are collectively breathing a huge sigh of relief that Florida wasn’t able to hire Chip Kelly. I will go to my grave believing he was first or second choice. We know for sure the Gator brass made that stealth flight November 2017 (as first reported by sources on our show) to the northeast for a clandestine meeting with contract in hand with intention Kelly would sign it. He took the UCLA gig. A week after that Mullen signed a six-year, $36.6M contract with Florida. Just so I’m not accused of being a bandwagon jumper – and please don’t mistake my belated-but-total endorsement for a kiss-up – the only difference now is I can see Mullen’s pathway for a championship. He will definitely win multiple SEC East titles, an SEC championship or two and be in the hunt for a national – maybe win one. If he stays. And lord knows Gator fans don’t want to go the Temp route again, like they did with Muschamp and McElwain. Not after the big tracks left by Spurrier and Meyer. Look around, Gator fans. There’s smoke in Knoxville, TN, Columbia, S.C., Happy Valley, PA and Ann Arbor, MI where the dumpster fires are burning. And count your blessing. Mullen has carved out an amazing body of work in this challenging year where mere survival is worthy of a participation trophy. That night in late November when my old radio colleague and former coach Max Howell introduced the idea that “the first phone call should be to Dan Mullen,” I knew he was right. But I didn’t realize HOW right. On my nightly streaming Buddy Martin Show/podcast and in my GatorBait column, I have consistently defended Mullen against critics who constantly complained about Mullen’s “poor” recruiting, his choice of assistant coaches and, in general, whined that he’d never beat Georgia, let alone win a championship. I remember a few nights in December 2017 when doomsayers were running amok, that Brenden Martin mandated the formation of the “Gator Nation Kingdom” as an act of sovereignty. (It now has more than 6,000 members.) Some of the downtroddens had been bemoaning that a pox was about to fall on the Gators’ house and would result in the demise of football as we know it in Gainesville. Instead, it proved to be a renaissance. Voices of optimism began to emerge. Then one day we became “homers” on the show. So much so, others online sometimes tagged me and my compadre Franz Beard as “Sunshine Pumpers.” I find that term amusing, given my onetime reputation as hard-hitting columnist who didn’t always play nice. I sometimes fought hammer and tong with certain coaches, supported the “radical” thoughts of my friend Carlos Alvarez, was labeled a “liar” by a certain university president because I wrote UF was under NCAA investigation (it was) and might have once been considered an enemy of the state. Sunshine pumper? OK, I’ll take that as a badge of honor because I find it a lot more fun and interesting covering a team with a fighting chance of being in contention. It has not been without hiccups. Naturally the emotional strain of a pandemic will take its toll. Football is already tough enough this time of the season when battle fatigue can set in, especially when you’re up against yet another SEC opponent every game. Aside from the obvious health concerns and some defensive deficiencies, plus the helter-skelter pace of rapidly changing routines at a moment’s notice, there is high expectation of being a coach where almost unreasonable demands are placed on a program. Mullen, his coaches and players have shown an amazing capacity for adaptability. Among other hiccups have been the sideline optics of Mullen getting in the face of Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham over a call which allowed Kentucky a long gain for a first down. I’d stop short of saying it was a “meltdown,” and we know sideline spats are common among competitive people, but it looked ugly and quite contentious. They appeared to gotten pasta in 48 hours later, displaying impressive resiliency. Later in their press conferences the following week, Mullen and Grantham both played it off as a routine tiff at the office, using Mullen’s bogus infraction for “premature Christmas decorations” as an excuse. If it weren’t for the untimely lapses that Grantham’s defense already was drawing fire about -- like sleepwalking into their position or failing to wrap-up tackles -- maybe it would have been funnier. OK, with that out of the way, let me get to this point: We don’t always agree with Dan Mullen’s decisions. For instance, I think he could occasionally participate in the support of Kyle Trask as a very worthy Heisman Trophy contender, if nothing more than just mentioning his name in the same sentence of Tim Tebow or Danny Wuerffel – or even Mac Jones. Not stumping for him, just an awareness campaign. I get it. He says he’s not a “pat-on-the-head guy.” That’s not Mullen’s style. I’d say that style has worked well. And for a guy who’s already admitted he was “all-in,” I will stop short of telling him how to run his business. But if he needs some advice on his Christmas lights, I’ll send my wife Joni over, because I am pretty sure she invented the Christmas Rulebook.

There are questions just as there are every new basketball seasons. The last one ended abruptly back in March due to the Covid-19 virus that shut down all college sports. At that point in time we were fairly certain the Gators would get into the NCAA Tournament field, although we had no clue where they would be seeded or if they were capable of making it past the first weekend. Their win over then 4th-ranked Auburn in January convinced us they could play with anybody in the country but there were too many losses like the one at Ole Miss that raised far too many questions. So, when the season came crashing down not only for the Gators but everyone else in the country, we were left with an empty feeling and far too many questions. Here we are months later in December and the virus hasn’t gone away. Although college sports have cranked up again, things are far from the same. There are precautions that have to be taken in the effort to protect the health of the athletes, coaches and support staff as well as fans that would like to attend games and yet all the care in the world can’t offer up blanket protection. Schedules are altered on an almost daily basis. Players have to go in quarantine whether for testing positive or coming in contact with someone who has. Nobody is safe it seems. The virus shut down Florida’s basketball operations for 10 critical days and forced cancellation of the first three games, creating a need to schedule on the fly. Army and Boston College weren’t on the original schedule, but they were hastily arranged inserts that allowed the Gators to finally get on the floor for a two-game road trip to Mohegan Sun Resort in Connecticut. Just getting on the floor the first time had to be a relief for Mike White and his entire team but this is just the beginning of a season that might be as strange as any we’ve ever seen. What we saw in Florida’s 76-69 game one win over a previously unbeaten Army team probably rehashed several of the questions that lingered when the previous season shut down. The Gators went through stretches when they couldn’t make a shot, couldn’t defend anyone, committed too many silly fouls and turned the ball over way too much. The first half was a grim reminder of too many games last season but then came a second half in which the Gators looked like a totally different team. They were a Jekyll and Hyde team a year ago. Come to think of it, that’s the way they’ve been for the past five years. The turnaround from one half to another felt eerily like last year’s norm when the Gators could play brilliantly as they did when they blew the doors off then 4th-ranked Auburn at the O-Dome only to follow that up with three consecutive confounding losses. A year ago we wondered if the Gators could ever find a consistent rhythm and the ability to close out games. It seems we never knew which Florida team was going to show up. One game into the new season we’re asking those same questions. It is a pivotal season for White, now 109-65 as his sixth season on the job in Gainesville begins. White has taken the Gators to three straight NCAA Tournaments (2017-19) and almost certainly would have made it four in a row when the virus shut things down back in March. Ask the Florida fan base and a majority might tell you they believe the Gators have under-achieved even though they were two bad minutes at the end of an Elite Eight game in 2017 from advancing to the Final Four. The fact that White succeeded a legend in Billy Donovan, who turned Florida into the kind of place where championships could be won, has worked against him when it comes to perceptions. By the time Donovan had completed four years at UF he had already taken the Gators to a Final Four. While it’s true White came close back in 2017, fans tend to point out that he did it with players left over from Donovan’s last couple of Florida teams. The 2019-20 season was supposed to be White’s breakthrough season, the one in which he took the Gators to the Final Four. The roster was one he had recruited top to bottom and was bolstered by the grad transfer everybody in the country wanted in Kerry Blackshear Jr. Every preseason magazine had the Gators ranked among the top eight teams and Blackshear as the SEC Player of the Year. Every preseason magazine concluded that the Gators should make it at least to the Elite Eight. Once you get to the last eight teams standing, it’s always a crapshoot to advance to the Final Four but it seemed the Gators had everything it takes to make it. The breakthrough never happened because the Gators never found a comfort zone. If the offense was clicking it seemed the defense couldn’t get stops. On those nights when the defense was playing up to White’s very high standards, the Gators couldn’t hit a shot. There were only a few games that could be considered complete – good at both ends of the floor. And so it seemed against Army in the season opener but after stumbling through the first half, the Gators found a missing rhythm and intensity at both ends of the court. After trailing 39-31 at the half, the Gators outscored Army 45-30 in the second half. They got stops. They got rebounds. They hit shots. They got to the rim. They went 9-10 from the foul line in the final 2:30. They did everything a team is supposed to do to win a basketball game and that raises the question: Is the Army game what Yogi Berra would call déjà vu all over again – a sign that the inconsistencies of the past are still with us – or merely first game rust from a lack of practices and games due to the virus? That we won’t know for at least a few more games. White has better talent from top to bottom of his roster than he had a year ago when preseason expectations were through the roof. A year ago he could have used Tyree Appleby and Anthony Duruji, experienced transfers who had to sit out the season due to NCAA rules. The added experience and depth would have come in handy in games that White had to go long into a bench dominated by freshmen. This year, Appleby and Duruji are eligible, last year’s freshmen are experienced sophomores (Tre Mann, Scottie Lewis, Omar Payne, Ques Glover, Jason Jitoboh), and holdovers Keyontae Johnson and Noah Locke have been joined by immediately eligible Michigan transfer Colin Castleton, juco transfer Osayi Osifo and freshmen Samson Ruzhentsev and Neils Lane. Johnson (6-5, 231) is the preseason SEC Player of the Year, so he’s rock solid in the starting lineup and versatile enough to play either the high post or on the wing. After a season in which he averaged 14 points and 7.1 rebounds per game, Johnson is the closest thing the Gators have to irreplaceable. He’s at his best defending the high post or the wing, but he’s proven he can defend anywhere on the floor. He’s not afraid to mix it up on the paint and he thrives doing the dirty work that nobody else wants to do. If there is a surprise to his game it’s the way he’s developed as an outside shooter (38% on three-pointers last year). Beyond Johnson, there are a lot of interchangeable parts. That might be White’s biggest problem, finding the right rotations and fits for the other 12 players, all of whom can play. When the Gators opened with Army, the lineup had Tre Mann (6-5) at the point with Lewis (8 points, 2 rebounds, 2 steals, 1 blocked shot) and Locke (7 points, 3 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 blocked shot) on the wings, Johnson (16 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals) at power forward and Castleton (9 points, 8 rebounds, 1 blocked shot) in the middle. Mann had a career high 19 points to go with six rebounds, five steals and four assists but he also spent a portion of the game interchanging with Appleby (6-1) at the wing and point. Appleby was a real spark in the second half when his 15 points represented all but two of Florida’s points off the bench. From an offensive standpoint, having Mann and Appleby in the lineup at the same time might be the best option especially on those games when Locke goes into a shooter’s coma and can’t miss. Having those three and Johnson in the lineup might prove to be Florida’s most lethal offensive lineup. White wants an improved offensive team this year, one that moves the ball better and plays at a faster tempo than any time since he’s been Florida’s head coach. That is the style he played when he was the head coach at Louisiana Tech prior to Florida, but the personnel hasn’t matched up well enough to go up tempo at Florida. That issue has been solved with good recruiting so the players are in place for up tempo offense, but can this team play full court defense as well? To play a full court game on defense, White’s best lineup would have Lewis and Payne in the game. Lewis is probably Florida’s best on ball defender. Despite being only 6-4, he led the Gators in blocked shots last year. Payne is limited as an offensive player but at the other end of the floor he can erase and he makes a great safety in the press game. A year ago, Payne (6-10) wanted to block every shot, not untypical of freshman big guys but the hope is the offseason and experience have added the maturity he needs. Duruji might also be an option for full court pressing defense. He may only be 6-7 but his vertical is said to be 48 inches so he will play taller than his height. He could also be the eraser/safety when the Gators go full court. If the Gators can put the virus behind them and White can involve all 13 players on his roster in practice and games, we’ll get a far better idea of the Gators’ capability of playing the style White prefers. Offensively, they figure to be better. Most of the questions will have to do with a defense that was the most inconsistent of White’s five years on the job. Can they get stops? Can they take opponents out of their game with pressure whether full court or half court. Can they play faster? Can they dictate tempo at both ends of the court? Offensively, can they make shots and avoid those lengthy dead periods when they can’t put the ball in the hole? Can they continue to make free throws to close out games? Perhaps the biggest question of all, can they make it all the way through a season without a number of players missing portions of the schedule due to the virus? Florida football was forced into a rescheduling at midseason due to an outbreak of the virus. Fortunately for the Gators, they came out of the break better than they were before. Will Florida basketball have the same success if the virus causes a shutdown that lasts a week or even two? Starting a season with a lot of questions isn’t unusual but starting a basketball season in the midst of a pandemic is. Add pandemic-related questions to those that have to be asked and answered at the beginning of any season and this promises to be a year like none we’ve ever experienced. Because of the pandemic, White or any other coach probably shouldn’t be judged as if all things were normal, but he will be. Like it or not. If there is a break to be caught it will be that expectations are lower so if the Gators play better than anyone predicts or expects, perceptions may change. There are plenty of variables in this equation that is Florida’s 2020-21 basketball season but like any equation, there is always that X or unknown factor. In this case the unknown is Covid-19. From what we know the Gators have more than adequate talent to have an outstanding season. What we don’t know is how the virus is going to alter things. It’s possible the Gators could have a championship caliber season. It is also possible that the virus will wreak havoc with all plans and just getting through the season will require tremendous patience and expectations that are ever-changing. It promises to be a season like no other.

A few thoughts to jump start your Friday morning: Remember when Florida-Tennessee was always the game you circled for September because it was always the best game of the month in college football? Well, that was then, way back in the 1990s. It isn’t much of a rivalry anymore. Florida has gone 14-1 against the Vols since 2005. Shortly after 2005, the Vols (2-5 this year) began their descent into the college football wilderness, a place they may wander for another 25 or so. Florida, meanwhile, after eight years of purgatory (2010-17) has found itself a regular Moses in Dan Mullen. The 6th-ranked Gators (7-1) are three years out of the wilderness and perhaps three games away from the promised land of the College Football Playoff. Because they’ve lost five in a row and the fans are all over Tennessee athletic director Phat Phil for hiring Jeremy Pruitt in the first place, Fulmer felt the need to compare Pruitt with Johnny Majors Thursday. Phattus Maximus was all too happy to point out that Majors was 14-15-1 in his first 30 games on the Tennessee job and Pruitt is 15-15. “I really think we’re a better football team than our record has shown,” Phat Phil said. To that, one Vol fan tweeted this response: “Is that the same Johnny Majors that @phillipfulmer stabbed in the back?” Indeed it is. Over the same period of time as Pruitt has been doing his quasi-impersonation of a football coach, Mullen is 27-6. This season the Gators have scored 38 or more points in seven games and a mere 34 in the other. Mullen has built a team that might be the only one in college football that is capable of matching Alabama touchdown for touchdown. We’ll find out soon enough if that is true because, barring a miracle of manna from heaven proportions, the Gators and Bama will be facing off in the SEC Championship Game. The Sayer Says Sooth: A year ago in his first start since he was a 9th-grader, Kyle Trask threw for 293 yards and a pair of touchdowns to lead the Gators to a 34-3 win over Tennessee in The Swamp. This year the game is in Knoxville but it won’t matter. Trask is much better and so are the Gators. Tennessee was actually better last year when the Vols went 5-7. A year ago, Kyle Pitts caught four Trask passes for 62 yards and a TD. Pitts is better, too. So is Kadarius Toney. Florida’s defense isn’t as good as last year’s but it won’t matter because the Gators are going to score points in bunches. Florida 42, Tennessee 14 FLORIDA BASKETBALL IMPROVES TO 2-0 WITH BLOWOUT OF BC The final score Thursday night read Florida 90, Boston College 70. It wasn’t that close. Once the game clock dipped below 10:00 in the second half, the Gators played bored the rest of the way. Bored or motivated they were still a much better team than BC of the Atlantic Coast Conference. For the second straight game, it was the combination of Keyontae Johnson and Tre Mann leading the way for UF. Johnson went 10-13 from the field, scored 24 points and snagged 12 rebounds. Mann followed up his 19-point game on Wednesday against Army with 17 points and six assists with only one turnover. Also in double figures for the Gators were Scottie Lewis (14), Noah Locke (12) and Omar Payne (10). For the game, the Gators shot 56.5% (35-62) and 33.3% from the 3-point line on 8-24 shooting. The Gators forced 21 BC turnovers and turned them into 21 points. Florida’s next action is Sunday against Stetson (0-1), coached by former UF assistant Donnie Jones. THE SEC SOOTHSAYER #1 ALABAMA (8-0) at LSU (3-4): Last year’s game of the year is this year’s potential blowout of the century. Alabama comes into this one a 29.5-point favorite and it will be surprising if it’s that close, particularly since LSU will be starting a true freshman QB against an Alabama defense that has been the best in the country since the second half of the Georgia game. The LSU defense, which is giving up 30.3 points and 443.3 yards per game, has to stop an Alabama offense that goes for 48.5 points and 535.6 yards per game. Lots of luck there. The Sayer Says Sooth: Nick Saban has been cleared to travel to Baton Rouge but the outcome of this one doesn’t depend the least on Saban coaching. Alabama could win this if the entire coaching staff stayed in Tuscaloosa and left the team leadership to Mac Jones, who will play long enough Saturday to pad his Heisman candidacy stats (23 TDPs, 12.0 yards per pass attempt) while throwing to likely Biletnikoff winner Devonta Smith (72-1,074 receiving for 12 TDs) and handing off to likely Doak Walker winner Najee Harris (893 rushing yards, 17 TDs). Alabama 54, LSU 14 #5 TEXAS A&M (6-1) at AUBURN (5-3): If this game were played at Kyle Field, the Aggies would be favored to win by two or three touchdowns. They’re so much better at home while Auburn is roadkill. However, since it’s played on The Plains, it’s a perfect opportunity for the Gus Bus to quiet the folks who want him gone. The Aggies are 6.5-point favorites and they have the SEC’s best defense to go against the wildly erratic Bo Nix, but like his Auburn teammates, Nix is so much better at Jordan-Hare than he is on the road. Nix better be good throwing the ball because the Aggies are one of the best teams in the nation at stopping the run. Kelln Mond was rotten last week. He may not be much better this week although he better be. If he isn’t the Aggies’ chances of making the College Football Playoff as a wild card will die. The Sayer Says Sooth: Jimbo Fisher has fond memories of Auburn from his days as the QB coach for The Little Dweeb, Terry Bowden, back in the 1990s. He might not have such a fond memory if Auburn saves the Gus Bus with an upset over the nation’s 5th-ranked team. Bo Nix needs to play well and Auburn needs Kellen Mond to leave his game back in College Station, but it just may happen. Auburn 24, Texas A&M 21 VANDERBILT (0-8) at #8 GEORGIA (6-2): The post-Derek Mason era begins at Vandy with a beatdown by Georgia. Oh, sure, on any given Saturday. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. There are two chances Vandy wins this game – No way and no how. Vanderbilt’s goal will probably be to get close enough (her range is 20 yards) to get Sarah Fuller a field goal attempt or perhaps the unthinkable – score a touchdown so she can attempt an extra point. This one will be so bad that maybe Kirby Smart will let Stetson Bennett IV see the field one last time. The Sayer Says Sooth: This will get ugly early. Vandy won’t do anything to upset its run at a reverse perfect season and Georgia will score at will. After this is over, Poodle fans will be proclaiming JT Daniels is as great as the only UGa QB to make the College Football Hall of Fame – Francis Asbury Tarkenton. They tend to forget it’s Vandy and not a real football team. Vandy needs to hire a new head coach quickly, but the Commodores will do what they always do and that’s take their time, which isn’t exactly the brightest thing to do. There is a reason why Vandy is every SEC team’s favorite homecoming opponent. Georgia 49, Vanderbilt 7 ARKANSAS (3-5) at MISSOURI (4-3): With a win, Missouri guarantees a break- even season. If Arkansas wins, the Hogs keep hope alive that they can break even. Who would have thought that back in August? Missouri is a 3-point favorite, largely because the Tigers have all sorts of troubles defending the pass and they’ll be going against Feleipe Franks (2,017 passing yards, 17 TDPs; 229 rushing yards, 1 TD), who is a feel-good story the way he has come back from that horrendous ankle injury last year when he was a Florida Gator. Adding to the drama of this one is Arkansas defensive coordinator Barry Odom, last year’s head ball coach at Missouri. Franks is good enough to get a bunch of points on the board for Arkansas. Is Odom’s defense good enough to stop Mizzou running back Larry Rountree III (650 yards, 8 TDs), who has run for 3,398 yards and 34 touchdowns in his career. The Sayer Says Sooth: If Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz is smart he’ll try to shorten the game by pounding between the tackles with Rountree. That will keep the ball out of Franks’ hands and keep the game out of the hands of a Mizzou secondary that has given up more than 300 yards to every decent quarterback faced this year. This one goes to the Fighting Feleipes. Arkansas 31, Missouri 24 SOUTH CAROLINA (2-7) at KENTUCKY (3-6): The season comes to a merciful end for both South Carolina and Kentucky. The Wildcats are favored by 11.5 points but they’ve been beaten down the last two weeks by a combined 94 points and they may show up in body only. There is, after all, only so much pride to go around when your QB is Terry Wilson and your offense was last seen thumbing a ride to Hazard. For South Carolina, it’s a chance for Kevin Harris (928 yards, 14 touchdowns) to crack the 1,000-yard mark and for Gamecock fans to question out loud why interim coach Mike Bobo, who is also the offensive coordinator, stuck with Collin Hill such a long time rather than play Luke Doty or Ryan Hilinski. The Sayer Says Sooth: There is every good chance that South Carolina will be naming Shane Beamer as the new head ball coach within 24 hours after this one is over so there is something to look forward to for Gamecock fans. With any luck the first thing on his head coach agenda will be to fire Bobo and the entire offensive staff. As for Kentucky, Mark Stoops isn’t going anywhere but UK fans hope he’s got it in him to fire offensive coordinator Eddie Gran. Kentucky 21, South Carolina 14 TACKLE FOOTBALL NEWS, NOT NECESSARILY FROM THE SEC The Knight Commission has come to the conclusion that it’s time for Division I football to break away from the NCAA. We’ve known for a long, long time that needs to happen, but give the Knight Commission credit, they finally woke and smelled the coffee. There will be a break from the NCAA, that much is certain. It’s not an if but a when. The only question is whether all 130 of the football schools of Division I break as one or if there are two groups with their own television contracts and national championships – the 65 Power Five and the 65 from the Group of Five. What makes most sense is two divisions while allowing the Power Five to play Group of Five teams. Something else that would make sense is to allow spring football games against teams from D1AA. That would assure paycheck games that would help keep the D1AA teams afloat financially. Because of a Covid-19 outbreak at Liberty (8-1), the road trip to unbeaten Coastal Carolina (9-0) was canceled. Instead of that awaited matchup, we might end up with a better one as unbeaten and 13th-ranked BYU (9-0) will face the 18th-ranked Chanticleers on the teal turf in Conway, South Carolina. The winner of this game is likely to move up some notches in the College Football Playoff Poll. BYU has been established as 10-point favorites. Footballscoop.com is reporting that former Florida and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer met with the University of Texas president and athletic director last weekend in Los Angeles and then in Napa Valley following Meyer’s weekly gig on Fox Sports. Is it possible? Yes. Is it probable. Somehow I doubt it, particularly since it would entail Meyer replacing one of his former assistants (current UT head coach Tom Herman). If he’s going to coach – which I don’t think will happen this year – my belief is it would be at Southern Cal. That would depend on Southern Cal (3-0 and ranked 20th in the College Football Playoff Poll) to fire Clay Helton. Helton has USC on the way toward a Pac-12 South Division championship and a potential league title. Would the school fire Helton if he wins a championship? Maybe for Meyer but otherwise probably not. END OF THE WEEK PITHY COMMENT: The Los Angeles Lakers have committed something like $79 million next year to pay LeBron James and Anthony Davis. That’s a lot of money if the fans don’t come back to the arenas in droves next year and there is a good chance they won’t.

My younger brother Chase and I went to the Orange and Blue Debut every spring. And right after the game, we’d head straight to the Steak ‘n Shake on US 441. It was clock work. And in 2016, after sneaking around the stadium to catch glimpses of the team as they left the locker room (rest assured, i wasn’t a student at UF, let alone a reporter at the time of my sneakiness), we finally made our way to our trusty eatery for a spread of burgers, fries and milkshakes. Just as we were wrapping up our meal, in walked Eddy Pineiro. I can remember Chase and I frantically looking at each other as if our maker had walked through the doors with the intention of ordering a steak burger. But instead, it was Florida’s kicker. A kicker! You see, more times than not, a football team’s special teams players go unnoticed and are under appreciated. Have you any idea of what’s beneath the face masks of Evan McPherson and Jacob Finn? Would you recognize them if they walked into Steak ‘n Shake wearing street clothes? Expecting fans to recognize the faces of special teams players is a lot to ask. However, recognizing the importance of the role they play shouldn’t be. Especially after watching Florida’s specialists change the course of the game against Kentucky on Saturday. Getting the Gators going in the first half of Saturday’s SEC East matchup was like trying to start up a winterized diesel engine. The patience needed couldn’t be understated. Florida’s defense struggled to find its way off of the playing field, while the Gators’ offense sputtered around in a rare showing. Fortunately, Florida’s special teams unit, made up of the same guys that are first to make their plates during team meals, shouldered the team and helped Florida out of a lackadaisical opening half. Though the Gators’ offense scored on its opening drive, surely if not for a gutsy special teams play call from Dan Mullen, Florida would have punted the football away and relied on its defense to get the ball back. Instead, Mullen just wanted to make it look like that’s what the Gators were doing. On fourth and two from Florida’s own 25-yard line, Jacob Finn and the rest of the Gators’ punt team jogged onto the field to seemingly boot the ball away to the Cats. However, with the use of a direct snap, Dameon Pierce rushed ahead for a first down in the shape of a 15-yard rush. “One of the things we talked with those guys: ‘Be ready for that moment and execute.’,” Florida head coach Dan Mullen said following Florida’s win on Saturday. “You practice the fake punts, you practice them, you practice them… You get into a situation where we want to call it and then you’ve got to execute. I thought our guys came out, executed that very well.” Ironically, one could make the statement that the punt team executed better than Florida’s offense on Saturday. Pierce’s 15-yard run during the fake punt stood as the longest run on the day up until the start of the fourth quarter when Pierce surged ahead for a 38-yard gain. The specialists’ outstanding first half continued as Florida punter Jacob Finn pinned the Wildcats deep inside their own territory with back-to-back punts that were downed inside the 10-yard line. Finn’s first punt of the day was hauled in at the Kentucky 8-yard line, where Kentucky’s Josh Ali signaled for a fair catch. And after the Wildcats settled for a 22-yard field goal and Kyle Trask and the Florida offense stalled at midfield, the redshirt senior punter jogged out to the field with another opportunity back the Wildcats’ heels into their own end zone. And with a 49-yard punt that could’ve been a poster child for the old saying “coffin corner”, Finn not only had the Wildcats backed up to their own goal line, he had Kentucky’s backfield starting well into its own end zone. “You practice pooch punts all the time,” Mullen explained. “We practice it a bunch. We come out there, we execute extremely well.” And while both Pierce and Finn’s special teams efforts collectively helped Florida get by with just enough to stay afloat in the first half, it was Kadarius Toney’s return efforts that really flipped the game’s momentum on its head. With a word that I had never heard of, ESPN nailed it on the head. “Florida dekes Kentucky for punt return TD,” the video title read. What the video didn’t show was the research that had went into the Gators’ punt return scheme. In scouting Kentucky punter Max Duffy, the Aussie who won the Ray Guy Award in 2019, the Gators learned that Duffy would roll out to punt, before kicking it in the opposite direction. To counteract this, Mullen and the Gators fielded two players back deep -- Toney and Xzavier Henderson. When Duffy, who was backed up into his own end zone, sent a punt flying to the right hand side, Henderson faked as though he was corralling the punt, which drew a majority of the Wildcats his direction. Meanwhile, Toney actually hauled in the punt at midfield and made two Kentucky defenders miss en route to a 50-yard punt return touchdown, which helped Toney to be recognized as the SEC's Co-Special Teams Player of the week. Toney shared the honor with Vanderbilt's Sarah Fuller, who became the first female to suit up for a Power 5 football game. “I think a lot of people use two returners to figure out where he is going to punt,” Mullen elaborated. “We wanted to use two returners to take advantage of that situation that they were in and see if he made a mistake. If he was supposed to punt it left and punted it right, you know, we thought, ‘OK, (Toney) is going to be all by himself.’ Or if he is supposed to punt it right, then Xzavier is going to be by himself.” Mullen has always had a knack for placing an emphasis on special teams. Since his arrival in 2018, the efficiency of Florida’s special teams has improved exponentially. And while that partly has to do with Mullen’s mastermindedness, it ultimately comes down to the attention to detail. The fact that Mullen and his staff scouted Kentucky’s punt scheme to that depth, says a lot to Mullen’s understanding of how special teams can impact a football game. And on Saturday, that game might not have been won if not for the most underappreciated position group in football. To finish the story about Eddy Pineiro and Steak ‘n Shake, as Chase and I’s heart rates finally got back to a normal level, we scribbled onto a napkin something along the lines of, “Thanks for choosing Florida. We’re happy to call you our kicker.” We then grabbed our waitress’ attention and told her to tack on a chocolate milkshake to our bill but to deliver it to the table where Pineiro was sitting. This was before I had a better understanding of NCAA violations. (Eddy, if the NCAA comes after you, I think the milkshake was like $3. You can make the check payable to me.) To conclude, I understand Eddy Pineiro was different in terms of a specialist. Never have I seen a kicker get his name chanted any time he took the field. But specialists deserve the credit. Saturday proved that. Buy them a milkshake.

There have been times, like the early November game against the Vanderbilt Commodores, that Florida Gators Offensive Coordinator Brian Johnson watches from the coaches box as his play call unfolds below him…and experiences mild anxiety for the briefest of moments. “There were a couple of throws [that] Saturday where it was like, ‘Oh, no. Yes, yes, yes.’ You get a little different perspective from up in the box. But, everything always looks different through his eyes when you’re at field level.” The he being quarterback of the No. 6 Florida Gators and current Heisman Trophy favorite, Kyle Trask. The story and journey of Trask has been told and retold and used as a coaching tip and Sunday School lessons and countless ESPN nuggets to this point so we won’t meander with preamble and retell the entire thing here. Instead of focusing on who Trask was and what’s he become, let’s examine who he currently is in terms of quarterbacks: an expert decision maker with just as much guts as intelligence. Despite Trask’s tendency to throw into a window so tight that Brian Johnson might briefly consider jumping though his to stop his quarterback, the Gators—who own the second best passing offense in college football and the best among Power 5 teams with 369.6 yards per game—are finding success more often than not behind Trask’s decisions and pinpoint accuracy. “If I’m throwing it to someone, it definitely seems like a good idea in the moment,” jokes Trask. “That kinda comes from just the trust that I have in my receivers, because pretty much all our receivers we have, I’ve been able to throw to them for at least a couple years now. If not almost a whole year with the whole guys. There’s a lot of chemistry that’s built up in terms of just being on the same page. Finding those open windows, especially when a team’s dropping a lot in zone coverage, just to have that chemistry like I said to be on the same page and trust each other and the timing and things like that.” He won’t get labeled a gunslinger, because he’s more apt to throw a six yard slant than a 45-yard bomb; although he has thrown a first down pass of 25 yards or more 30 times thus far this season (three more than Alabama quarterback Mac Jones for comparison). Coupled with his 71.4% completion rate and 34-3 touchdown to interception ratio, Trask can’t even be labeled a risk taker…nothing he does seems to be a risk. With only three interceptions all season—and against all SEC defenses mind you—Trask has proven capable of consistently putting together those good ideas in the moment. He’s done very little to waver his confidence that if he makes a throw, it will go well. It’s trust in his pass catchers–13 of whom have made a reception this season—that begets that trust in himself. “I would say a little bit of trust and timing, really. If you don’t have that timing, then you might throw it and that window’s going to close before the ball gets to your receiver’s hands. It just comes from practice and just repetition,” explains Trask. Adds Johnson, “I think [Kyle] has a good feel for where people are and he plays with great anticipation, so he can see stuff happening a little bit early. I think that allows him to play with a great feeling.” It helps, having guys like tight end Kyle Pitts who can win any 50/50 ball that any mere mortal dares to battle him for; or Kadarius Toney who can contort himself into any shape needed to reach the ball that Trask puts in his area; or Tre Grimes who has the length to outbox any defender and make tight windows seems wide open; and the list goes on and on. Kyle Trask is a special talent and don’t let that get lost in the shuffle of this prose; but it’s more than just repetition, as Trask alluded to—or guts or confidence or luck or any other number of factors that create a quarterback Johnson and Head Coach Dan Mullen can trust. It’s the intelligence and wherewithal when the bullets are flying that has developed Kyle Trask into that trustworthy passer and Heisman contender. Dan Mullen dropped the timbre of his voice when diving into his explanation. His ever present sarcasm bringing an element of humbleness to his answer, Mullen attempted to summarize how a "quarterback whisperer” goes about creating a guy like Kyle Trask. “I’ve got to whisper when I do this, right. Whisper or something like that,” he jokingly says in hushed tones. Recruiting is a big part of the equation according to the coach. But Mullen didn’t recruit Trask. That would typically mean doubling down on the second part of the equation, as the staff did with Feleipe Franks. However Trask having a year and a half as the backup in the offense meant he had more time to grow. “You spend your time making sure they understand all the important things,” explains Mullen. “The first thing we always teach all the quarterbacks is you better understand protection, that’s self-preservation right there. You better know every protection, how we are going to protect you, where are your hots, where are your sites, how to check protections.” The Gators offensive line has given up eight sacks for a loss of 49 yards on Trask this season through eight games. Understanding the aforementioned protections is what Johnson credit’s to Trask’s ability to move the pocket. That in turn creates more time for a window to open, proving the entire process works hand in hand. Referencing again the Vanderbilt win, Johnson says, “I thought the receivers did a great job of not stacking behind defenders and Kyle maneuvering and sliding in the pocket to give those guys times to come free. When you’re watching on the film, the windows were not as tight as you would have initially thought watching from the press box.” But that’s just the beginning, as Mullen continues. “A lot of people understand – I’ll give you this one, on what to do – a lot of people just coach guys what to do. Well, that’s not going to develop a quarterback. That may get them to a limited extent. If you’re just coaching what to do and then you kind of coach them a little bit on how to do it, but it’s the why we do it is really how you develop a quarterback. “They need to understand exactly why we’re doing what we’re doing and if when they do that, then they have a grasp of how the offense is supposed to work and what we’re trying to accomplish within the play. And then you set up your practice schedule and installation of everything you do around quarterback development. “And then, I think Brian does an unbelievable job of coaching them. I coach them well and, I don’t know, I think we do a pretty good job of coaching those guys. Within each game plan, within the big picture of the offense with understanding of how to attack defenses, and then how to use a specific game plan to attack defenses, then we set up practice to maximize their development. That’s it like in 30 seconds.” The explanation encompassing an entire offensive philosophy may be brief but it’s payoff is vast…and it slows down time each moment the ball leaves Kyle Trask hands, seeing a window open only to him.

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning: MANN SCORES 19 TO LEAD GATORS TO SEASON-OPENING WIN As season openers go, Florida’s 76-69 win over Army (3-1) was an aesthetic disaster. The Gators (1-0) looked every bit the team that had its first three games cancelled and spent 10 days in Covid-19 protocols, particularly in a first half that saw them trail by as many as 12 points on two occasions. There were way too many first half turnovers, too many missed wide open shots, way too much one-on-one, bad spacing, matador defense and silly fouls that resulted in a 39-31 halftime deficit. That’s not to say the second half was perfect because it wasn’t, but the Gators found some rhythm to their game and started making plays. They found an offensive spark in Cleveland State transfer Tyree Applebee, who scored all 15 of his point in the second half, and sophomore Tre Mann had the best game of his career, finishing with 19 points, six rebounds, five steals and four assists. Despite battling foul trouble (three in the first half), preseason SEC Player of the Year Keyontae Johnson finished with 16. Michigan transfer Colin Castleton, who got the start over Omar Payne, was solid with nine points and eight rebounds. After a first half that produced only seven Army turnovers, the Gators ramped up the effort in the second half to force 13 from which UF concerted into 17 points. The Gators were only 7-13 from the foul line in the first half, but went 17-23 in the second half including 9-10 in the final 2:23. Hitting free throws with the game on the line bodes well for the future. Next up for the Gators is Boston College (1-2) of the ACC, which lost to St. John’s 97-93 in its last outing. GATORS MAY FACE TRUE FRESHMAN QB SATURDAY IN KNOXVILLE Florida’s improving defense might be facing true freshman QB Harrison Bailey Saturday afternoon in Knoxville. Although he stopped short of naming Bailey as his starter, UT coach Jeremy Pruitt did say Wednesday that Bailey “will definitely play Saturday.” Starting Bailey could be a sign that the Vols are going to try to slug it out on the ground against 6th-ranked Florida (7-1). Bailey is a dual threat who has only thrown 23 passes this season for 175 yards and two interceptions. He doesn’t have the experience or the arm of senior Jarrett Guarantano, who has started all seven games with six TDPs and four interceptions. There are currently at least 16 Vols in Covid-19 protocols and while some have speculated that Guarantano is one who will miss the game, there has been no confirmation. In all probability, Bailey would represent a limited pass option for the Tennessee offense, meaning an attempt to ground and pound similar to what Kentucky tried last week. The Vols have two very good running backs in Eric Gray (659 yards, four touchdowns) and Ty Chandler (315 yards, two TDs). Gray has run for 296 yards in the last two outings (Arkansas and Auburn, both losses). A week ago, Kentucky tried the grind it out approach behind its big, experienced offensive line and the strategy worked for a half in which the Wildcats ran for 126 yards. But the Gators adjusted in the second half, stacked the box and dared UK to throw, holding the Wildcats to 33 rushing yards and 13 passing yards as part of a 221-yard effort that produced a single offensive touchdown. RUMBLING, STUMBLING, BUMBLING IN THE SEC #1 ALABAMA (8-0): It’s still unclear if Nick Saban will be coaching Saturday night when Alabama goes to LSU. Saban went into quarantine last Wednesday so the earliest he could be cleared is Saturday, but that would mean he had to be 10 days symptom free. ARKANSAS 3-5): With Rakeem Boyd done for the year (opted out), the Arkansas running game will fall on the shoulders of Trelon Smith and T.J. Hammonds. Smith has run for 469 yards (5.27 per carry) and two touchdowns while Hammonds has three carries for 24 yards. AUBURN (5-3): Auburn has managed a combined 285 rushing yards in the last two games, in part because stud freshman Tank Bigsby has been limited to 14 carries and 63 yards due to nagging injuries. Saturday, Auburn will be going against a Texas A&M run defense that is allowing only 87.14 yards per game, which ranks fifth nationally. #8 GEORGIA (6-2): All-American safety Richard LeCounte hasn’t played since October 31 but he’s practicing now, although he hasn’t resumed contact. KENTUCKY (3-5): On his weekly radio show, HBC Mark Stoops addressed the Wildcats’ lack of offensive production. “Believe me, it’s alarming to me,” Stoops said. The Wildcats rank dead last in the SEC and 121stnationally in total offense (291.8 yards per game), which is why an increasing number of UK fans are calling for coordinator Eddie Gran to be gone or demoted. LSU (3-4): On his Wednesday radio show, Coach O said he plans to start TJ Finley at quarterback against #1 Alabama but Max Johnson will also play in the game. Finley has thrown for 797 yards with four TDPs and five INTs while Johnson has thrown for 285 with two TDPs and no INTs. MISSISSIPPI STATE (2-6): The 18.3 points Mississippi State is averaging per game is the worst for a Mike Leach-coached team since his second year at Washington State, when the Cougars averaged only 20.4 per game. MISSOURI (4-3): Although he hasn’t publicly declared that he will be leaving early for the NFL, linebacker Nick Bolton is expected to announce very soon. Bolton leads the team and ranks fifth in the SEC with 76 tackles (10.86 per game). OLE MISS (4-4): Lanke Kiffin says QB Matt Corral, who has thrown for 2,744 yards (10.8 per attempt) and 24 touchdowns, told him recently, “I’m a thousand percent coming back. I need another year here.” Corral is a third-year sophomore who is eligible to leave for the NFL. If Corral elects to stay expect John Rhys Plumlee to enter his name in the NCAA transfer portal. SOUTH CAROLINA (2-7): More and more it’s looking like South Carolina will hire Oklahoma associate head coach/special teams coordinator Shane Beamer as the new head coach although there is also some speculation that school prez Lt. General Bob Caslen is pushing for Army coach Jeff Monken. TENNESSEE (2-5): On his Wednesday night radio show, HBC Jeremy Pruitt was asked by a caller, “When are you going to admit you’re not a ball coach and go back to Alabama?” #5 TEXAS A&M (6-1): The Aggies head to Auburn on the heels of their worst offensive game of the season. In their 20-7 win over LSU, the Aggies managed a season-low 267 yards and averaged only 3.76 yards per snap. VANDERBILT (0-8): Despite rumors to the contrary, Charlotte coach Will Healy, a native of Chattanooga and the former HBC at Austin Peay, says he has had no contact with the Vanderbilt administration regarding their vacant coaching job. SEC MEN IN SHORTS The big news Wednesday was an 83-75 win by Missouri (2-0) over 21st-ranked Oregon as five players scored in double figures, led by Xavier Pinson with 22. Arkansas (3-0) knocked off Texas-Arlington 72-60 behind 24 points and nine rebounds by Moses Moody. Former Texas A&M and Kentucky head coach Billy Gillispie got a standing ovation from Aggie fans in attendance Wednesday night before his Tarleton State team lost 73-66 to A&M. Alabama (3-1) scored an 88-71 win over Big East foe Providence (2-2) as five players scored in double figures. Georgia (2-0) got an easy 84-62 win over DII North Georgia as Sahvir Wheeler had 17 points and 10 assists. IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM, THEN DON’T PLAY THE GAME On the day that its game with Maryland was postponed, Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel went off on Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN, who earlier in the week insinuated that Michigan might opt out of its season-ending game with Ohio State to avoid a beatdown and to keep the Buckeyes from playing the league-mandated six games to make the Big Ten (Plus Four) Championship Game. With great indignance, Manuel said, “I have to pause my words, the anger, I was infuriated by the insinuation that Michigan would do anything other than play a football game. We’ve been playing this game since 1879. We’re the winningest program for a reason, because we play whoever’s in front of us. And the only way we want to keep anybody from moving on is to beat them on the fields of play. To insinuate that, to say something other than that, is a statement by a fool.” Later on Wednesday, the Maryland game was postponed due to Covid-19 issues at Michigan. All football activities were also put on pause, which means the earliest Michigan can begin practicing and preparing for the December 12 game with Ohio State is Monday. So if the Ohio State game is cancelled because of the virus, it won’t necessarily be because Michigan wanted to avoid a beatdown. It will be quite interesting to see how the Big Ten (Plus Four) deals with Ohio State if the Buckeyes can’t play six games. It will be even more interesting to see how the College Football Playoff Committee deals with Ohio State. Is it fair to allow Ohio State in the playoff if the Buckeyes manage to play only five or six games while Florida, Alabama, Clemson and Notre Dame – and others in the hunt – play ten or more? MORE TACKLE FOOTBALL STUFF FROM SOME PLACE OTHER THAN THE SEC The Atlantic Coast Conference elected to eliminate December 12 games for Clemson and Notre Dame. The move clinched a spot in the ACC title game for 2nd-ranked Notre Dame. Third-ranked Clemson needs only to beat Virginia Tech to get in. The Tigers are a 22-point favorite. No indication what the ACC will do in the event Virginia Tech springs an upset Saturday. Notre Dame plays Syracuse. Donkeys might fly before the Orange knock off Notre Dame. The new football coach at Southern Miss is Tulane offensive coordinator Will Hall. With one game to go in the regular season, the Green Wave are averaging 35.4 points and 394.1 yards per game. The Las Vegas Bowl has been cancelled, bringing to nine the number of post season games that have been eliminated. Former Notre Dame (and William and Mary, North Carolina State, New York Jets, Arkansas, Minnesota and South Carolina) head coach Lou Holtz will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Trump. FEELING PITHY ON THURSDAY: With the signing of a contract extension, LeBron James will have been paid in the neighborhood of $435 million during his career by the time the 2022-23 season is complete. I’m not saying he hasn’t been worth it to the teams he’s played for, but it does make me wonder how much Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell would have been paid if the economics of their time were the same as the ones now. LeBron is a great player but having seen all three in person, I’ll take Wilt and/or Russell every day of the week if all things are considered the same.

A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning: GATORS STILL SIXTH IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF POLL The College Football Playoff Committee has voted once again and for a second straight week the Florida Gators (7-1) are ranked sixth, one spot behind Texas A&M, which is exactly where the two teams were when the Associated Press voted on Sunday. While Gator fans may think of this as a sign of disrespect, take this into consideration: Florida has complete control over its playoff hopes. The Aggies do not. With a win Saturday against Tennessee (2-5) in Knoxville, the Gators make it to Atlanta for the Southeastern Conference Championship Game where they will face #1 Alabama (8-0). Even with a loss to Tennessee (Gators are favored by 17.5 points), the Gators still make it to Atlanta if they beat LSU in Gainesville December 12. All Alabama has to do to clinch a spot in the game is beat LSU (3-4) in Baton Route Saturday night. As of 11 p.m. Tuesday, Bama was a 29.5-point favorite to clobber LSU. Should the unthinkable happen Saturday, Bama could still get to Atlanta with a win over Arkansas on December 12. The only way the Aggies get to Atlanta is if Alabama loses two games and that just isn’t going to happen. Florida wins the next two, then beats Alabama in Atlanta and the Gators make the playoff. If Alabama wins out in the regular season but loses to Florida, the Crimson Tide will still get in as a wild card. Count on it. As for the Aggies, they have to win at Auburn (5-3) Saturday, then beat Tennessee (2-5) in Knoxville December 12 and Ole Miss (4-4) on December 19. The Aggies are going to smoke the Vols. Beating Auburn and Ole Miss will be dicey. Lose any one of those three and they have no playoff shot. Win all three and they still need Florida to lose to Alabama in Atlanta and for Clemson or Notre Dame to score a blowout win in the ACC Championship Game. Even then, there is that remote possibility the committee could decide Cincinnati deserves to get in if the Bearcats finish the season unbeaten. The Gators only have to help themselves with three straight wins. Do that and there is absolutely nothing the Aggies can do. COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF TOP 25: (1) Alabama 8-0; (2) Notre Dame 9-0; (3) Clemson 8-1; (4) Ohio State 4-0; (5) Texas A&M 6-1; (6) FLORIDA 7-1: (7) Cincinnati 8-0; (8) Georgia 6-2; (9) Iowa State 7-2; (10) Miami 7-1; (11) Oklahoma 6-2; (12) Indiana 5-1; (13) BYU 9-0; (14) Northwestern 5-1; (15) Oklahoma State 6-2; (16) Wisconsin 2-1; (17) North Carolina 6-3; (18) Coastal Carolina 9-0; (20) Southern Cal 3-0; (21) Marshall 7-0; (22) Washington 3-0; (23) Oregon 3-1; (24) Tulsa 5-1; (25) Louisiana 8-1 TOO MUCH RESPECT FOR OHIO STATE AND THE BIG TEN (PLUS FOUR) Ohio State has scored at least 38 points in every game so far against the likes of Nebraska (1-4), Penn State (1-5), Rutgers (2-4) and 12th-ranked Indiana (5-1). The Buckeyes beat Indiana by a touchdown on November 21. Two of their last three games have been cancelled because of the virus and there is every good chance their game with Michigan State on Saturday will also be postponed. Indiana’s wins have come over Penn State, Rutgers, Michigan (2-4) and Michigan State (2-3). Northwestern (5-1) is ranked 14th but just got whacked by Michigan State, which would have trouble beating Vanderbilt. Wisconsin is 2-1 with three postponed games and a can’t pass the eye test loss to Northwestern yet the Badgers are ranked 16th. Because Ohio State has (a) played only four games, (b) might not play another regular season game and (c) hasn’t beaten a decent team, the Buckeyes have no business being ranked in the top eight. Even if they finish the regular season unbeaten they won’t really have a signature win over a decent team. They’re overrated and so is the entire Big Ten (Plus Four). From what I’ve seen Ohio State is the only team in the league that would have a chance at a break even season in the SEC. That’s not SEC bias, either. All you have to do is watch for yourself. Neither the Buckeyes nor the Big Ten (Plus Four) pass the eye test no matter what Kirk Herbstreit tries to tell us. NOT NEARLY ENOUGH RESPECT FOR #13 BYU The Cougars haven’t played a decent team. That much is true but if you’ve watched them more than once then you’re aware just how much they look like a Power Five team. They’re big, strong, mobile on both lines of scrimmage. They hit like a ton defensively and they have a QB in Zach Wilson who probably goes in the first five picks when the NFL drafts. When everyone on the Left Coast followed the (rather stupid) lead of the Pac-12 and cancelled football, BYU elected to play on even though that meant piecing together a schedule on the fly. Instead of playing Utah, Michigan State, Arizona State, Minnesota, Missouri, Boise State and Stanford, the revised schedule included such toughies as Troy, Western Kentucky and North Alabama. When the Pac-12 and Mountain West woke up and started playing it was too late for BYU to re-schedule against good teams. To their credit, the Cougars have scored at least 41 points in eight of their nine games. Having watched them play several games including their 51-17 stomping of Boise State, I think BYU would have stood a chance to go unbeaten against the original schedule too. That’s speculation. What isn’t speculation is they deserve better than a #13 ranking. FINALLY, GATORS PLAY SOME BASKETBALL After four cancellations due to the Covid-19 virus, Mike White finally gets to see the Gators go head-to-head with another team against Army (3-0) at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut (2:30 p.m., ESPN2). Four Black Knights average in double figures and 11 on the roster average at least 10 minutes per game. Three starters return from last year’s Florida team led by Keyontae Johnson (14.0 points, 7.0 rebounds), the preseason Southeastern Conference Player of the Year. He will be joined in the lineup by returning starters Noah Locke (10.6 points, 2.5 rebounds) and Scottie Lewis (8.5 points, 3.6 rebounds) along with Tre Mann (5.3 points, 1.9 rebounds) and Michigan transfer Colin Castleton. Army’s top scorer is Josh Gray (14.0 points, 4.0 rebounds) and the top rebounder is Josh Caldwell (12.7 points, 7.0 rebounds). Starting lineups: FLORIDA (0-0): Keyontae Johnson (6-5, 231, JR); Colin Castleton (6-10, 232, JR); Scottie Lewis (6-4, 175, SO); Noah Locke (6-2, 193, JR); Tre Mann (6-5, 191, SO) ARMY (3-0): Charlie Peterson (6-9, 233, FR); Alex King (6-8, 210, SR); Josh Caldwell (6-2, 185, JR); Jalen Rucker (5-10, 180, FR); Lonnie Grayson (6-0, 180, SR) TROUBLE, RIGHT HERE IN RIVER CITY On the banks of the Tennessee River, the football team at the University of Tennessee has lost five straight games. That’s bad. What’s even worse is the athletic director (Phat Phil) who hired this disaster of a coach (Jeremy Pruitt) gave said coach a raise and a contract extension so the fans (many, many) who aren’t happy (understatement) would like to burn said athletic director and said coach at the stake. As if that isn’t trouble enough, the formerly mighty (you have to go back a number of years, but yes, they were once mighty) Volunteers are 17.5-point underdogs Saturday when 6th-ranked Florida comes to town. They should be pulling all-nighters in Knoxville if the Vols keep it that close. Chances of actually playing it close took a serious hit Tuesday when starting linebacker Kivon Bennett was arrested on four charges related to drugs and possession of a firearm. Bennett, who leads the team in sacks (4.5) and tackles for loss (7.5) has been dismissed from the team. Back in the day when Phat Phil was the head coach, that might have resulted in suspension for the first quarter. Bennett won’t be the only Vol missing on Saturday. Currently there are 16 players who aren’t practicing because of Covid-19. Some of them might be able to play Saturday if they test negative by Friday. At least one QB won’t be playing. Fans are hoping the QB in question is Jarrett Guarantano, who has a rather miserable 125.43 pass efficiency rating (Kyle Trask of Florida is a mere 196.79, which, by the way, is very good) and averages 6.7 yards per pass attempt. RUMBLING, STUMBLING, BUMBLING IN THE SEC #1 ALABAMA (8-0): Unless he has another positive test for the virus, Nick Saban will be on the sideline Saturday when Alabama faces LSU in Baton Rouge. ARKANSAS (3-5): A week after a postponement due to the virus, the Razorbacks are expected to have an almost full roster at Missouri Saturday. One player who will be missed, however, is running back Rakeem Boyd, who has decided to opt out for the rest of the season. Boyd had 82 carries for 309 yards and three touchdowns along with 10 receptions for 33 yards in seven games. AUBURN (5-3): Cornerback Matthew Hill, who played in three games this season, has put his name in the NCAA transfer portal. The former 4-star recruit played wide receiver his first two years before moving to CB this year. #8 GEORGIA (6-2): Georgia’s defense was once billed best in the country. That was before Alabama torched the Bulldogs for 41 points and 464 yards and Florida followed that up with 44 points and 571 yards. Florida and Alabama are a combined 15-1 this year. The other six opponents have averaged 13.3 points and 261.7 yards per game. The other six have a combined record of 17-32. KENTUCKY (3-6): Corner Kelvin Joseph, who transferred to Kentucky from LSU, has elected to opt out for the Wildcats final game of the year against South Carolina. Joseph led the Wildcats with four interceptions and was in on 25 tackles. LSU (3-4): The Tigers have been competing with just 59 scholarship players the last few weeks, which is why Coach O says he will be looking hard to lure grad transfers and ready-to-play jucos to go with a recruiting class that is currently ranked fourth by ESPN. MISSISSIPPI STATE (2-6): The Bulldogs rank dead last in the country in rushing yards per game. Mississippi State’s 23.75 is more than 43 yards fewer than UMass. MISSOURI (4-3): The story in Columbia this week is the return of former head coach Barry Odom, now the defensive coordinator at Arkansas. Mizzou’s offense averages 24.4 points and 403.6 yards per game while Odom’s defense gives up 30.9 points and 427.6 yards. OLE MISS (4-4): Ole Miss is expected to pick up a commitment from quarterback Luke Altmyer (6-2, 190, Starkville, MS), who decommitted from Florida State on Tuesday. Altmyer was in attendance last Saturday when Ole Miss beat Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl. That leaves FSU without a quarterback in its 2021 recruiting class. SOUTH CAROLINA (2-7): Sophomore running back Kevin Harris needs 72 yards against Kentucky Saturday to reach 1,000 for the season. Harris, who has 14 rushing touchdowns, ran for 179 yards and four touchdowns as a freshman last year. #5 TEXAS A&M (6-1): The Aggies have the top-ranked defense in the SEC, giving up 328 yards per game. The Aggies give up 87.14 yards on the ground and 240.9 yards passing. VANDERBILT (0-8): A couple of names that might figure prominently in Vandy’s coach search are Alabama running backs coach Charles Huff and Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis. Huff worked as a quality control assistant for James Franklin at Vanderbilt in 2010 and coached running backs for Franklin at Penn State from 2014-17. Gattis also has ties to Alabama and to Franklin. He coached wide receivers for Franklin at Vandy in 2012-13 and at Penn State from 2014-17. He was the co-offensive coordinator at Alabama in 2018. PITHY ON WEDNESDAY: This comes from Jason Whitlock of Outkickthecoverage.com, who said this about Vanderbilt sending Sarah Fuller out to kick off to start the second half of last Saturday’s 41-0 loss to Missouri: “The people who hate football and the people who spent the whole summer trying to cancel college football over COVID concerns came together to celebrate the game Saturday. Sarah Fuller briefly made football socially acceptable for America’s most ardent virtue-signalers. That was her primary accomplishment, pleasing Make A Wish America.”

Florida Gators Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham met with local media on Tuesday night. He discussed the win over the Kentucky Wildcats, what it will take to put together a complete game on defense and the "fight" between he and Head Coach Dan Mullen caught on camera during the Kentucky game. As a valued subscriber, we are offering this transcript in full. THE SIDELINE FIRE BETWEEN YOU AND MULLEN...? YOUR TAKE ON THAT, SOMETHING PAR FOR THE COURSE BETWEEN COACHES? "Well like a lot of guys, my wife, Mrs. Paige, she enjoys the holidays and Christmas, and she wants the lights up, so don't kill the middle man. I'm just doing what I'm told to do and everything. Nah, it's a competitive deal. We're all in it for one goal: to go win. We've had a lot of success, and we have a lot of respect for each other and what we do. And because of that respect we're allowed to express our opinions on things and do what's best for the team, and that's what we've done the last four years and we'll continue (INAUDIBLE). We've been able to have a lot of success with our ability to be together." NOT THE FIRST TIME, WON'T BE THE LAST? "I would say it's not the first, won't be the last. It's probably a part of a lot of staffs across the country. So the great thing about us is we get to be in front of a camera working for like three and a half, four hours. Nowadays with all the great media we have, everything you do gets looked at. So it's just part of it. You live with it and you move on." SECOND HALF WAS BEST HALF YET, WHAT DID YOU SEE AND HOW DO YOU CONTINUE THAT LEVEL OF PLAY? "Well I mean to hold someone to six straight three-and-outs was pretty impressive. No. 1, we always talk to our guys about, 'You have to work the game.' So what that means is while the offense is on the field we're going over there, we sit in our groups and we are discussing, one, plays that just came up, complementary plays relative to what you just saw to be ready to play, any adjustments we need to make relative to the calls we have and 'here are the calls we have moving forward.' So we're going to kind of work the game and do all that. I think in this game you've got to give Kentucky a little bit of credit because if you go back and study them, they have a tendency to start pretty fast against teams. I mean if you go back to the 'Bama game in the first quarter they were pretty impressive moving the ball there. I think that they have a very good offensive line. They have a very good system for running the ball, and you've got to work the game to figure out exactly the style in which they're going to play. So I think our players did a great job of working the game, understanding this is the package we're going to see and being able to play those plays. That’s part of it; there’s no perfect game, there’s no perfect player. You’ve just got to continue to work the game to be successful and to be hard to score on and to get stops as you move throughout the game. I think it’s a product of us working the game and handling the adjustments that we needed to, but honestly, we had the same calls in the first quarter as we did in the third quarter. We just had a good feel for what we needed to do.” Defensive front more stout? “Yeah, I think those guys have done a good job of understanding their fits. I thought in this game, to be honest, we kind of jumped out of our gaps a couple times where we could have played a little cleaner. When you face good runners, good runners run where you’re not. If you have a gap, you’ve got to secure your gap. Even though we’re going to be a gap and a half team, we’re going to secure our gap, but as our gap no longer gets threatened, we’re going to shed and get to the next half gap based upon where the ball is. You can’t void your gap too soon because, if you do that, like I said, good runners will run where you’re not. We’ve addressed that and worked on that. As far as the guys up front, I’ve always said when Kyree came back, he gave us some flexibility and size does matter and the ability to have a bigger guy in there gives us a little more stoutness and allowed us to play people probably in a little more comfortable position.” Challenges of facing Vols? “No. 1, I think they are a very physical O-line. I think if you look at the games over the last four weeks, they’ve been very physical. They get movement at the point of attack. I think they’re O-line is coached really well. I think their O-line is physical. I think their running back is dynamic. He’s a guy that can make you miss. He can hit a hole and they got skill guys outside. So the combination of the ability to run the ball and to take vertical shots down the field is something that you’ve got to honor and have an appreciation for. If not, they can hit those. We understand that we’re going to have to play a physical and match their physicality because they have played physical in my opinion. You watch the Auburn game and they were really getting after those guys. And I don’t expect anything less getting ready to play us. Their ability to run the ball, their physicality and their skill outside is things you’ve got to understand and address.” Missed all the fun? “Hey, that’s what happens when you’re late.” Figured you’d be late? “I’m never late.” You and Dan thumb wrestle it out? “Yeah, we’re good. We’re great, I mean, like I said, I think because the respect we have for each other, the ability to have our opinions, it has allowed us to grow as coaches and our program to grow. We’ve won a lot of game together and look forward to winning many more.” Is that fire a good thing? “I’ve always believe, I learned this from Bill Cowher is, if you coach with passion and play with passion and have that kind of drive it can feed into your players. If you’re kind of not very passionate or kind of ho-hum, I think that can breed to your team, too. So I’ve always been a guy that wanted the player to know I had their back, that I was going to coach my tail off to get them in position to make plays and we’re going to find a way to do this together, and I think that’s the way you got to coach in practice and I think that’s the way you got to coach in games because I think it does breed into your unit.” What do you guys need to do the next two weeks? “I would really like to see us play a consistent game all the way through. Cause if you go back through it they’re really good times and all the sudden they’ll an explosive play. That’s a credit to the team we’re playing, because the teams we’re playing have players, they’re well coached and they have guys that can make plays. But as we move forward there’s opportunities for us to make plays out there. For example, in the second half there we had three picks in that game, opportunities. Those opportunities have been there throughout the course of the year. It’s a matter of making those plays. We always talk about finishing plays. So our ability to be consistent in our play and finish those drives off in a consecutive is something that would allow us to continue to reach our goals.”

A few thoughts to jump start your Monday morning: We learned three things about the Florida Gators when they beat Kentucky 34-10 Saturday to improve to 7-1 on the season. First, you know we’re reduced to nitpicking anytime there are complaints after a 24-point win against an SEC team and when a 21-27 passing performance for 256 yards and three TDs by Kyle Trask has both the Florida fan base and national pundits thinking the Gators under-performed. To address the first point, for the second straight game the Gators played like a very bored team. Bored teams fumble away two potential touchdowns and boink field goals. This could have been a 40-point win but winning by 24 in the SEC is nothing to sneeze about. Dan Mullen needs to do whatever is required to get the Gators fully focused before they go to Knoxville Saturday. A focused Florida team is at least four touchdowns better than the Vols. As for Trask, he didn’t have any style point moments against UK, but how can you complain when your QB doesn’t turn the ball over, finds nine different receivers and has an efficiency rating of 194.09? Second, the return of Kyle Pitts – five catches for 99 yards and three touchdowns – served as a reminder that the Gators might have rung up that vaunted Georgia defense for 60 points if not for that vicious illegal hit that sidelined Pitts for 2-1/2 games. Pitts is uncoverable. He has 29 catches for 513 yards and 11 touchdowns. Imagine what those numbers would be like if had played the last 2-1/2 games. Imagine the excuses Georgia would be making now if Pitts had played the second half? Third, the way Florida’s defense got with it in the second half tells us it’s time for Grantham’s troops to put an entire game together. In the second half Saturday, the Gators allowed just 33 rushing yards on 11 attempts and just 13 passing yards with three interceptions. The defense has been exceptional in spurts like the second half against Missouri or the last three quarters against Georgia or like they were Saturday. When they are out of sorts they force the Gators to win shootouts. When they play motivated and focused, they are capable of getting stops and giving the offense more chances to score. What eight games have told us is the Gators have yet to play a complete game on both sides of the ball. If this team ever gets it together with the offense and defense functioning at the highest level at the same time and for four full quarters, there isn’t a team in the country they can’t beat. ASSOCIATED PRESS TOP 25 POLL: (1) Alabama 8-0; (2) Notre Dame 9-0; (3) Ohio State 4-0; (4) Clemson 8-1; (5) Texas A&M 6-1; (6) FLORIDA 7-1; (7) Cincinnati 8-0; (8) BYU 9-0; (9) Miami 7-1; (10) Indiana 5-1; (11) Georgia 6-2; (12) Iowa State 7-2; (13) Oklahoma 6-2; (14) Coastal Carolina 9-0; (15) Marshall 7-0; (16) Northwestern 5-1; (17) Southern Cal 3-0; (18) Wisconsin 2-1; (19) Oklahoma State 6-2; (20) Louisiana-Lafayette 8-1; (21) Oregon 3-1; (22) Tulsa 5-1; (23) Washington 3-0; (24) Iowa 4-2; (25) Liberty 9-1 COACHES TOP 25 POLL: (1) Alabama 8-0; (2) Notre Dame 9-0; (3) Clemson 8-1; (4) Ohio State 4-0; (5) FLORIDA 7-1; (6) Texas A&M 6-1; (7) Cincinnati 8-0; (8) BYU 9-0; (9) Miami 7-1); (10) Georgia 6-2; (11) Indiana 5-1; (12) Iowa State 7-2; (13) Oklahoma 6-2; (14) Coastal Carolina 9-0; (15) Marshall 7-0; (16) Southern Cal 3-0; (17) Northwestern 5-1; (18) Oklahoma State 6-2; (19) Wisconsin 2-1; (20) Oregon 3-1; (21) Louisiana-Lafayette 8-1; (22) Tulsa 5-1; (23) Washington 3-0; (24) Iowa 4-2; (25) Liberty 9-1 RUMBLING, STUMBLING, BUMBLING IN THE SEC #1 ALABAMA (8-0): Alabama has scored at least 35 points in 21 consecutive games, which is an NCAA record. The last time Bama failed to score at least 35 was the 2018 national championship game, won by Clemson, 44-16. This season Alabama averages 48.5 points per game, tops in the SEC and third nationally. Next week: at LSU (3-4) ARKANSAS (3-5): Arkansas is 3-5 and if not for goofs by the zebras would be 5-3. None of that would be remotely possible except for grad transfer QB Feleipe Franks, who has thrown for 2,017 yards and a career-high 8.8 yards per attempt. Franks has 17 TDPs and only four interceptions. Next week: at Missouri (4-3) AUBURN (5-3): Although a win over 5th-ranked Texas A&M won’t ease the bitterness over losing to Alabama by 29 points in the Iron Bowl, it might calm things down enough to save the job of HBC Gus Malzahn. The Tigers are 4-0 at Jordan-Hare Stadium, 1-3 on the road. They are +67 in points at home, -51 on the road. Next week: vs. #5 Texas A&M (6-1) #10 GEORGIA (6-2): The quarterback situation at Georgia could be chaotic in the next month. Start with the latest savior, JT Daniels. He could actually declare for the NFL Draft rather than stick around at Georgia. Backup D’Wan Mathis is expected to put his name in the NCAA today. Whether or not Daniels elects to stay at Georgia for another year, freshman Carson Beck may elect to go since Georgia is expected to sign 5-star dual threat QB Brock Vandagriff in the early signing period. This season didn’t count against Beck’s eligibility so he’s still got five years to play four and with the new NCAA transfer rule almost certain to pass in January, he can be immediately eligible somewhere. And given how Kirby Smart handled Justin Fields, will Vandagriff believe he will get a fair shot if Daniels stays? Stay tuned. It could be better than a sitcom. Next week: vs. Vanderbilt (0-8) KENTUCKY (3-6): Kentucky fans are calling for the head of offensive coordinator Eddie Gran on a pike after the Wildcats managed only one offensive touchdown and just 221 yards against Florida. For the season, Kentucky is averaging only 19.6 points (12th in the SEC, 114th nationally) and 291.8 yards (14th in the SEC, 121st nationally) per game. Next week: vs. South Carolina (2-7) LSU (3-4): Tiger fans must be looking to heaven and asking why me? The Tigers just faced #5 Texas A&M and their next two games are against #1 Alabama and on the road at #6 Florida. If they’re still standing after that gauntlet, they will need a game for December 19 to finish out with ten games. LSU will be doing the rest of the season without its best offensive player, wide receiver Terrace Marshall Jr. (48-731, 10 TDs), who elected to opt out after the Saturday loss at Texas A&M. Next week: vs. #1 Alabama (8-0) MISSISSIPPI STATE (2-6): The Bulldogs aren’t winning much, but they are finally adapting to Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense. Leach has a terrific pass-catch combo in QB Will Rogers (1,312 passing yards, 6 TDPs) and receiver Jaden Walley (35-462, 1 TD), both of whom are true freshmen. Next week: Open MISSOURI (4-3): Eli Drinkwitz may have sealed SEC Coach of the Year with the Tigers’ 41-0 win over Vanderbilt. Mizzou has exceeded expectations with four wins and can be assured of at least a break-even record with a win over Arkansas Saturday. Drinkwitz has also found his quarterback in Connor Bazelac, who is hitting 70.7% of his passes and averaging 7.8 per attempt as a redshirt freshman. Next week: vs. Arkansas (3-5) OLE MISS (4-4): There are no more games remaining on the Ole Miss schedule so if they’re going to get in ten games, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is going to have to get creative. They are off this week so that leaves December 12 and December 19. It’s likely the Rebels will play Texas A&M on December 19 since that game could have an effect on the College Football Playoff for the Aggies but December 12 will require some finagling by Sankey. Next week: Open SOUTH CAROLINA (2-7): The season comes crashing to an end next Saturday in Lexington, at which time South Carolina will be working as fast as possible to hire a new coach. The two names that have emerged as the leading candidates are Oklahoma assistant head coach Shane Beamer, a former South Carolina assistant under Steve Spurrier, and West Virginia HBC Neal Brown. Beamer has been a prime candidate since Will Muschamp was fired. Brown only recently popped up on the radar. Next week: at Kentucky (3-6) TENNESSEE (2-5): One reason the Vols have regressed (five straight losses after a 2-0 start) after getting to the 8-win mark in 2019 has been the play at QB of Jarrett Guarantano, whose QB rating for 2020 (125.43) is worse than it was when he was a freshman in 2017 (128.74). Plenty of Vol fans as well as numerous pundits believe it’s past time for Jeremy Pruitt to make the switch to dual threat true freshman Harrison Bailey, particularly with Florida coming to town Saturday. Next week: vs. #6 FLORIDA (7-1) #5 TEXAS A&M (6-1): Fortunately for the Aggies they got their best defensive effort of the season in the win over LSU. That was a necessity since Kellen Mond had his worst game of the year (11-34 passing for 104 yards and just 27 rushing yards). Next week: at Auburn (5-3) VANDERBILT (0-8): It was thought Derek Mason’s job would be safe no matter what happened this year, but Vanderbilt pulled the plug Sunday. Mason finishes his career 27-55 as a head coach. Vanderbilt is going to try for a splash hire, perhaps Clark Lea, the Notre Dame DC. Lea is a former Vandy fullback, but until there is a serious commitment to upgrade the stadium and facilities, nobody extraordinary is going to come to spend the next five or so years competing for last place in the SEC East. Next week: at #10 Georgia (6-2) ELSEWHERE IN THE COLLEGE TACKLE FOOTBALL PLAYING WORLD Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence is leaving Clemson after this season for the NFL. I know you’re all shocked. Trevor says he loves Clemson so much that it’s really hard to leave. At what point does love of Clemson intersect with the reality of being drafted by the New York Jets, the place good quarterbacking skills go to die? The Big Ten is an absolute disaster. Penn State is 1-5. Michigan is 2-4. Northwestern just lost its first game to the same Michigan State team that Iowa whacked 49-7. Ohio State is unbeaten at 4=- and somehow ranked third but has had two postponements due to the virus and there is no way to make those games up. Right now the only reason Ohio State will get into the College Football Playoff is because the committee will think TV ratings and not if the Big Ten deserves a team in the final four. If you think the Big Ten is a disaster, then direct your attention to the Pac-12, which has the misfortune of being led by Larry Scott, a commissioner so bad he makes Big Ten rookie commish Kevin Warren seem competent. Oregon was supposed to be the one team in the league capable of making the playoff in spite of the abbreviated schedule but the Ducks lost to Oregon State. In the South Division a tiebreaker may have to be used. Southern Cal and Colorado could finish unbeaten but didn’t play each other due to the virus and there is no makeup date available. Having seen both 7th-ranked Cincinnati (8-0) and 8th-ranked BYU (9-0), I would take BYU in a head-to-head matchup. Since neither one has a win over a ranked team, they need to find a way to play before December 19 if they want a shot at the College Football Playoff. If the SEC can schedule games on the fly to ensure everybody gets in 10 games, then Cincinnati and BYU could follow that lead to play and give a chance to a team from the Group of Five to make the playoff. A PITHY MONDAY COMMENT: The Jacksonville Jaguars (1-10) have a legitimate shot at a 1-15 finish which would ensure them of no worse than the second selection in the 2021 NFL Draft and a chance to select either Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence or Ohio State’s Justin Fields. In anticipation of a chance to draft a franchise QB, the Jags fired GM Dave Caldwell Sunday night but given their history, figure the next GM will fail to surround Lawrence or Fields with the kind of personnel it takes to win in the NFL.

A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning: Dan Mullen knows his 6th-ranked Florida Gators (7-1) have to do a better job Saturday when they face Tennessee (2-5) in Knoxville needing just a win to clinch their first Southeastern Conference East Division championship since 2016. The Gators go into the game on the heels of a 34-10 win over Kentucky in which they racked up an uninspiring 418 yards, four touchdowns and two field goals. With the defense doing its part, particularly in the second half when they allowed Kentucky just 46 yards of offense (33 on the ground, 13 passing), it was a 24-point win over an SEC opponent but Mullen clearly wasn’t happy when he talked to the media Monday. “I don’t think we were very efficient offensively last week,” Mullen said. “We didn’t hit any of our goals offensively going into the game, so I don’t think we played very well there. But that gets into, you know, I mean it’s hard to say, ‘hey, OK, we’ve got to scrap everything and start over.’ I just don’t think we played at a very high level and weren’t very efficient. “They were a good defense. You knew that coming in, that they were one of the top pass defenses in the country, big, stout guys up front. And then you look – because you look at the drives – you end up with two punts, a missed field goal, two turnovers … that’s not very good offensively. We want to get back to just having a consistent, efficient offensively [sic].” Kyle Trask threw for three touchdowns, 254 yards on 21-27 (77.8%) and averaged 9.5 yards per attempt. Those are great numbers except when you compare to the norm for Trask this season – four games of 300-plus yards, two games of 400-plus yards, six games of at least four touchdown passes. The Gators ran for 104 yards on 25 rushing attempts, a letdown after the last two weeks in which the Gators went off for 208 against Arkansas and 173 against Vanderbilt. Evan McPherson hit field goals of 34 and 40 yards but he boinked a 45-yarder off the right upright, just his second miss of the season. Jacob Finn had to punt twice for the second straight week. Saturday the Gators will face a Tennessee team that has lost five games in a row by at least 11 points, the longest streak of consecutive double-digit losses in school history. The Vols have allowed 102 points and 1,385 yards in their last three games including 48 points and 587 yards to Alabama. The only team all season the Vols held to fewer than 300 yards was Kentucky (294), a game in which the Wildcats ran for 187 yards and won 34-7. The Gators are favored by 17 Saturday and even though this is not a good Tennessee team it is one the Gators cannot take lightly. The Vols know their head coach Jeremy Pruitt’s job could be in jeopardy is they suffer a sixth straight blowout loss so they will be motivated. Will the Gators have more motivation, though? A win guarantees a trip to Atlanta as the SEC East champ. A win gives the Gators a shot at the SEC title which all but assures a spot in the College Football Playoff. To do that the Gators need to play better offensively than they have the last two weeks. FLORIDA BASKETBALL GETS UNDER WAY WEDNESDAY Now that the Covid-19 issues are at least temporarily out of the way, the Gators will finally get their basketball season started with two impromptu scheduled games at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. The Gators will face Army Wednesday (2:30 p.m., ESPN2) and Boston College Thursday (9:30 p.m., ESPN). Florida will play its first home game on December 6 against Stetson. MAGARITY STEPS DOWN AS GEORGIA AD: Greg Magarity, who spent 18 years as Jeremy Foley’s top lieutenant on the Florida athletic staff, will retire at the end of the year. When he leaves the job, senior associate AD Josh Brooks will serve as the interim and will be considered a candidate to have the interim title removed. It’s going to be interesting to see how much input Kirby Smart has in who becomes the new AD and how much rope the new boss will give basketball coach Tom Crean, whose first two Georgia teams finished 13th in the SEC. Magarity will be remembered as the AD who fired Mark Richt, the second winningest coach in Georgia history, after a 9-3 season in 2015. Magarity hired Smart who is 50-14 through his first 64 games. Richt was 52-12 through his first 64. A FEW COLLEGE FOOTBALL WHY NOTS WHY IT’S NOT WORKING AT TENNESSEE: From 1990-2008, Tennessee tied with Miami and Florida State for the fourth-most wins (175) in all of college football (Florida #1 with 189, Nebraska and Ohio State tied for #2 with 182). During that time, most of it under the direction of Phil Fulmer (Phattus Maximus), the Vols won five SEC East championships (1997, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007), three SEC championships (1990 although UF had the best record; 1997-98) and the 1998 national championship. Since Fulmer was fired in 2008 after enduring a second losing season in four years, the Vols are just 99-89, which ties them for 62nd nationally. Since Fulmer, UT has run through three head coaches (Lane Kiffin 2009; Derek Dooley 2010-12; and Butch Jones 2013-17). The current head coach Jeremy Pruitt is 15-17 but only 2-5 this season after starting out 2-0. So what’s gone wrong at Tennessee? How is it that a school with one of college football’s most iconic stadiums, great facilities and a rabid booster base can’t seem to hire a competent football coach? How is it that every time Tennessee fires a head coach (some say Pruitt is hanging on by a thread), it seems the new guy hired is something like the 10th choice. Why is it that Tennessee, with all these positives, can’t get a top coach with its first choice and instead settles for someone who couldn’t have landed an SEC job? The only logical answer is the athletic director. Since 2010, the Vols have gone through four of them and the current AD – Fulmer – got the job as the result of a palace coup that ran John Currie off after eight months. When you hire competent athletic directors, they tend to make better decisions and there is stability. Football isn’t the only sport at Tennessee that has been a revolving door. The Vols are on their fifth basketball coach (Rick Barnes) since 2001. The winningest baseball coach in school history (Rod Delmonico) was run off in 2007. The Vols are on their third coach since then. It stands to reason that Tennessee could once again be a perennial challenger for the SEC East championship with the right coach, but it’s not going to happen with Fulmer as the athletic director and it darn sure isn’t going to happen with Pruitt as the head coach. WHY IT DIDN’T WORK AT SOUTH CAROLINA: There are plenty of theories about why Will Muschamp will be trying to squeeze by on $15 million after South Carolina opted him out for 2020 a couple games back. Most of them will center around the defense collapsing on him after the Gamecocks upset Auburn 30-22, but one of the main reasons Muschamp got canned is because he hired former teammate and old buddy Mike Bobo as his offensive coordinator. Instead of rejuvenating the offense, the Gamecocks are spinning their wheels in 2020 just as they did in 2019 when Bryan McClendon was calling the plays. The Gamecocks had a promising incumbent QB in Ryan Hilinski, who played well when thrown into the fire as a true freshman, so well that three-year starter Jake Bentley transferred to Utah. Bobo, who was fired as the HBC at Colorado State, brought with him weak-armed, immobile Collin Hill and gave him the reigns of the offense, allegedly because Hill already knew it and there was no spring football to help Hilinski. Bad move there. Until he was finally replaced midway through the blowout loss to Georgia last Saturday, Hill was sacked more than 20 times and averaged 6.6 yards per attempt with as many interceptions (6) as touchdowns. Hilinski should have been the QB all along. There are two morals of this story: (1) When you are a defensive-minded coach who has an HBC gig, go out and hire the best possible DC you can find; and (2) don’t go hiring any friend unless the word genius is often associated with him. WHY IT DIDN’T WORK AT VANDERBILT: Derek Mason is out of a job at Vanderbilt. Eventually we knew that was going to happen, just it wasn’t expected this year due to the financial hit everybody is taking due to the pandemic. But, Vanderbilt elected to roll the dice, fire Mason and see if they can find another James Franklin. Franklin worked at Vandy (three straight bowl games, two straight 9-win seasons) because he got the administration working with him. They gave Franklin an indoor practice facility and there were other promises made when he left for the big bucks at Penn State. Apparently, the promises died when Franklin departed. The stadium hasn’t gotten any upgrades and the rest of the facilities have lagged even further behind. Mason is a good football coach, but not good enough to overcome the combination of bad facilities and tough academics. Maybe it would have been different if the higher ups at Vandy had kept promises put in place when Franklin was the coach. To get a decent coach, they’re going to have to make a whole slew of promises, particularly regarding facilities. Whoever takes the job is going to have to believe the school is willing to spend some of that $45 million-plus a year of SEC money to make Vanderbilt a place where good high school kids want to play football. That’s going to be one tough sell. WHY THE AGGIES WON’T MAKE THE PLAYOFF: The second College Football Playoff Poll will be out tonight and whether Texas A&M remains one spot in front of the Gators or falls one behind is irrelevant for two reasons. First off, while the Aggies may have knocked off Florida on a last play field goal, they lost to Alabama by four touchdowns, struggled to beat a bad Vanderbilt team by five points and didn’t pass the eye test with their 20-7 win over LSU. About the only way the Aggies can make the playoff is for Alabama to blow the doors off Florida in the SEC Championship Game, Notre Dame to score a convincing win over Clemson with Trevor Lawrence on the field in the ACC Championship Game and for Ohio State to either lose a game or finish at 5-0, which wouldn’t be enough games to make the Big Ten Championship Game. Texas A&M can win its last three regular season games but can’t get in the playoff without a lot of help and the odds are stacked against everything falling perfectly into place. As for the Gators, they control their own destiny. Go 3-0 and they’re in, no help needed. A FINAL PITHY COMMENT FOR TUESDAY: Now that Texas is 5-3 and officially out of the running for the Big 12 (Minus Two) Conference championship, the alums and boosters are calling an involuntary opt out by head coach Tom Herman. Herman is 30-18 since arriving in 2017 after two seasons as the head coach at Houston where he was 22-4. Naturally, the folks calling for Herman’s head are making it well known that they’ll raise whatever money is necessary to buy out Herman $15.416 million and hire Urban Meyer. Meyer is healthy, content doing his Fox Sports Saturday gig and probably wouldn’t take a job vacated by one of his former assistants. Would that deter Texas boosters and alums? Hardly. Rich they are. Smart? Debatable.

Florida Gators Head Coach Dan Mullen met with local media on Monday to discuss the No. 6 Gators win over the Kentucky Wildcats, how the defense has regressed/progressed, what UF can do to promote Kyle Trask's Heisman chances and what it'd mean to clinch the East this weekend versus Tennessee. As a valued subscriber, we are offering this transcript in full. INTRO "Hope everybody's doing good today. I'll give you your injury scoop. Everyone, we got out of that last game pretty healthy, fortunately. And we're hoping Trent Whittemore can make it back this week if he progresses, so hopefully we get him back and everything else is kind of status quo." CHANCE TO CLINCH EAST, THAT A BIG EMPHASIS THIS WEEK? "Yeah, I mean it's a great opportunity for us that way. You know, I mean the biggest emphasis on us is finding ways that we've got to improve as a team. That's the biggest emphasis. It's a long season, it's a tough season to make sure we have the mental toughness and the physical toughness to continue to play at a high level, to continue to do the things you need to win. And part of that is the preparation all during the week, because the game you get to go perform. All our preparation leads up to how you're going to perform. That's the most important thing. That's what we touched on this morning in the meeting, is finding ways to be mentally tough to get better." YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN AMAZINGLY EFFICIENT ON OFFENSE, ESPECIALLY BEFORE HALF. HOW CRITICAL IS THAT FOR WHAT YOU'VE ACCOMPLISHED? "Well I think that gets into situational football. We spend a lot of time on situational football during the year. What is situational football, offensively? The opening drive of the first half is a situation. How you're doing in end-of-half, the last two to three minutes of the first half, really the last four minutes of the first half. First four minutes of the second half, huge situation time. Two-minute situations at the end of the game or four-minute situations at the end of the game. Then obviously you have red zone, third down. All the different situational things in the game we spend a lot of time on. I think our guys understand that and it goes in, it's a lot of team focus. You go into last week's game, last time we touched it it was a special teams play. But was a special teams play that didn't end the; it was a defensive stop forcing a punt to give us the ball back one more time to try to get that two-for-one possession at the end of the half, and we were really able to do that. That's been a big emphasis all year, of making sure our guys understand the situational importance of every aspect." The second half, you guys defer and get the ball quite a bit. And I think six times, you have four TDs, one field goal. Again, to that point I mean how can that deliver a knockout blow to a team because it's done it a few times. "Well I think it is, I think, you know, you look at all the games, you get into close tight games and how important that is. You know, and you go back even, you know, I mean, to me, the one time I don't think we get it, and having the ball at the end and stealing that extra possession, playing Texas A&M and they get the extra possession. You know, they have one more possession for us, then we did the entire game, that one possession, at the end of the game they score...It's such a big part, it's such a big part of the game that kind of gets overlooked.” You touched on it Saturday. The weather is gonna be an issue, could be an issue. You take advantage of it tomorrow, two a day's tomorrow since it's gonna be like 30 degrees and high of 50 something? "Yeah, you know I think, I think it'll be a little chilly here in Gainesville this week. Um, you know, I mean I don't know. Our players I'm sure'll be fine. For me I'm, I'm like you know anything below 60, you know, I probably gonna, you might be looking at me, people be laughing, I don't know. Last weather report I saw, it's supposed to be like, you know, mid to high 40s, you know, but I'll probably be bundled up with like hat, gloves and a big puffy winter jacket on. I've gotten used to the warm weather, that Florida weather. So, uh, but I think for our guys, you know I mean I don't think it'll be that big of a factor to be perfectly honest with you, I think, you know, it just kind of it is what it is. You know and I know we have a lot of guys that have a desire to go and play football beyond college. And turn those games on, on Sunday and most of them are in cold locations so we got to learn how to do that. And so, so, it’ll be a fun experience for us." Aren't you from New York? "Definitely not. New Hampshire.” They're all the same up there. “(Laughs) Wow. Wow.” It’s cold is the point. “Yeah, don't tell, don't tell, don't tell people in New Hampshire they’re from New York; Boston fans." How do you keep the guys focused with so many games falling apart and cancelled or postponed around you? “Well I think we’ve gone through it, you know? I’ve had some coaches call and say ‘hey, how did we handle this, how did we handle that?’ Because we’re one of the first teams I think – I mean other teams have it, but none in-season where they were dealing with kind of an outbreak and some shutdown and we went through it. So I think our guys went through it and we understood it and we were able to get through it and move forward and so I think that has allowed our guys really to get back their focus on football. You know, I mean we’ve worked down players. I want to think, I’m guessing we’re going in with 72 scholarships of the 85 players right now in the games. You see teams that are down. So, everybody’s down and then you have the COVID numbers on top of that. You know what I mean? Everybody’s numbers are kind of down. They know our situation and you’re going to have to try and figure out a way to battle through it and other teams out there, you hope they can, but it’s going to be a unique finish to the college football season.” What are you most pleased with your team right now? “You know what, the attitude that they’ve had and the approach that they’ve had through this entire season, with it being a very unique year. I’ve seen us continue to not get too high and not get too low, to show up every day, and put in the effort to try to get better, and come with a great attitude every day. One of the things it is, it’s a long season but to try and maintain and continue to have that great effort and that great attitude, and that desire and drive to continue to improve. That’s probably the thing I’m most pleased with, with our guys.” What would you credit that to? “Yeah, I think we have some good leadership on this team. I think if you go back to before we shut down, we felt pretty good about the season and felt pretty good about the roster. If you go back to February and March before we shut down and we’re getting ready to start spring ball, with all the offseason work we’d done to that point we really liked where we were at mentally as a team. We liked the leadership on the team. We thought we had a very favorable schedule going into the year. We thought if we could stay healthy and could continue to grow and develop we could have a very good season. Then everything kind of blew up on us, you know the whole year. But our guys have kind of continued that mental preparation, that mental toughness and continued to keep us on track to where we are today.” Chance to get back to Atlanta and win SEC? “We’ve got to qualify to get there first. That’ll be much more important than even thinking about that. For us, we’ve got to focus on beating Tennessee this week. They’re going to be a really, really talented team, really talented offensive line, great running backs, threats at receivers, and the quarterbacks who, if they need to, throw really good deep balls, very, very veteran units on defense. We’ll see. If that becomes a reality, we’ll think about that then. The only reality I know we’re faced with is having to go to Knoxville, Tennessee.” Your first division title as a head coach? “That’d be great if it happens. That’s’ always the goal, to worry about what you can control. We’ve put our self in a position to play Saturday and we can control the game on Saturday. We put ourselves in that position at this point. We’ll work our tail off to go try to control the game as best we can Saturday. If we come out on top, I’ll let you know afterwards how it feels.” Evaluate Grantham’s defense? “I think he’s done a great job. Look at what we’ve done in different games and adjustments we make in the course of the game. Early in the season, we were shorthanded defensively every week. We’re kind of looking as the season goes. Early in the year, the first several games, we’re very shorthanded defensively. We kind of everybody offensively and were shorthanded defensively. As the season has moved on, it’s kind of flipped. We’ve kind of gotten more people back defensively and gone shorthanded a bunch on offense. But I think he’s done a really good job of being able to make adjustments within the personnel we have out there on the field of getting guys in position to make plays and making adjustments as we saw in the course of the game in the last two weeks. In the last couple weeks, right, their one touchdown we gave up on Saturday was after an offensive turnover on the plus-30-yard line going in and it’s the only time they went down and scored a touchdown in the entire game. The week before, we give up 10 points and shut them down the rest of the game. We have one play where we missed a couple off tackles. So I think the adjustments that we’re able to make defensively I’m really pleased with. And then, statistically, I think early on we had some games that we kind of growing, learning, and played some pretty good offenses. But you look, we’ve had some pretty darn good defensive games here as well in the middle of the second half of the season.” What are some areas that you can get better on both sides of ball? “I don’t think we were very efficient offensively last week. We didn’t hit any of our goals offensively going into the game, so I don’t think we played very well there. But that gets into, you know, I mean it’s hard to say, ‘hey, OK, we’ve got to scrap everything and start over.’ I just don’t think we played at a very high level and weren’t very efficient. They were a good defense. You knew that coming in, that they were one of the top pass defenses in the country, big, stout guys up front. And then you look – because you look at the drives – you end up with two punts, a missed field goal, two turnovers, that’s not very good offensively. We want to get back to just having a consistent, efficient offensively [sic]. Defensively, I think we missed some fits in the run game last week, with guys getting out of a gap at times, and so I think that was something that you gotta get to, to continue – and now we’ve done that – to me is putting it all together. We’ve done that well other times. But different schemes present different problems from one week to the next. And then different personnel matchups present different problems. I think those are some things we’ve got to look at and hopefully we can continue – we didn’t give up, really, any big plays on Saturday – that was a big factor the week before and we kind of slammed the door on that. You are always kind of give and take, give and take, trying to get better and peak at the end of the season.” How do you manage fatigue and the attitude of the team during a long season? “It gets to mental toughness. It gets to mental toughness. If you want to be successful, the path to success is not a short one, it is a long, long journey, and most people all of a sudden, as you said, get exhausted on their journey to success. It’s very easy. The easiest thing to do is to quit or give up or stop trying. The hardest thing to do is to continue to push on. As I said, the path to success is a long one and it takes great mental toughness to do it. We talked this morning, you can’t get bored with repetition. We’ve gotta come in and have a great Monday practice. I know we’ve had a lot of Monday practices. We’ve had a lot of practices. If you go back to when we could start doing walkthrough was mid-July. Now we’re heading into December. It takes great mental toughness to continue to show up, to continue to work, to continue to grind, to continue to mentally prepare and go out and give the physical effort that you need to be successful to improve and get better on the field. That’s stuff that we stress all the time.” Heisman hype for Trask, how can you get him more noticed for it? “Win on Saturday. That’s about it. You go turn on the news everybody knows who he is. You go turn on SportsCenter on Saturday night they’re going to talk about him. Get on talk radio this morning, they’re going to talk about it. The only thing we can do is win. If we win they're going to keep talking about you. If we don’t they’re not. I don’t know. I’m sure there are some great players on teams out there. There are some great players on teams. There are guys that have huge years. I’ve been through it before. Mississippi State was the No. 1 team in the country back in 2014 and Dan Prescott was all this until we lost a game and no one spoke about it again. I’m hard-pressed to say that a guy that took Mississippi State to No. 1 wouldn’t have been deserving to even be considered a Heisman finalist. It was only teams that had played for a championship that got invited, pretty much. You know what we can do for him to win the award? First, we gotta win. If we win on Saturday then we’re doing, there’s no better promotion for us of a Kyle Trask than us winning the game on Saturday.” Your knowledge of history in terms of this game, are you aware of the 1928 game and the 2001 game? You're going up in December, same time the 1928 team went, any symmetry there or water under the bridge? "I wasn't around for any of those ones, so, those are way before my time. Nobody on that twenty, nineteen, oh-eight team or whatever [28], 1928 team is going to have an impact on this game. You know, I hope anybody that played in that game is still cheering for us, if they're around. But I don't see that, it's all about us playing Tennessee this year and their team against our team. There's, you know, stuff doesn't really to me carry over. Like last year's game has no effect on it, year before has no effect and next year it being, it won't have any effect on this year's game. So, it's about our preparation and our execution in this game." Mohamoud Diabate's growth at linebacker? "Yeah, I think, well, one of the things you look is he's been a great special teams player for us. And I think as a young player, you know, he's only a true sophomore, guys get really comfortable, the more they play, the more the comfort they get. They start having success on special teams, then all of a sudden they start having more success on defense, or offense, or other things. He's a guy that you watch, of what he's been able to do and his growth, his playmaking ability, he's a great special teams player for us. He starts getting a couple more reps defensively and then he's making more plays because he's used to the speed of the game, he's used to making plays out there on the field, you know? And I think he's becoming a player. The more experience you get through, the more times you see things, the more you react to it, the more plays you make. I mean he's an explosive player, he's got great speed out there on the field and I think you saw that running down some plays, tracking down some ball carriers out there on the field. But, you know, that doesn't surprise you. Go watch him on kickoff coverage, go watch him covering punts, go watch him do other things out there as well. And then you see why, 'Okay, now I understand why he's so good at chasing that guy down on a sweep on the outside,' because I watched him, he learned how to do that covering a kick. So I think that gets into player development." Didn’t hit offensive goals against Kentucky? “We hit the win goal. We won. That was one of them. So, we hit one of them.” What were offensive goals? “There are weekly goals within our program that we have each week what we want to do. Just we missed them, like third-down conversions is one of the goals. There’s a list of them. We hit the win one.” Just as I was praising offensive efficiency— “I will say this, but you tied it into our offensive efficiency at the end of the first half, which unfortunately in this game we weren’t again. We ended up with that penalty. We had the ball and an opportunity to stay efficient at the end of the first half. We ended up with a penalty and it ended up being second-and-25 or something - that’s hard to overcome. But we made up for it on a defensive stop and special teams. That was the last we touched the ball.” Explosive runs lacking, Dameon’s 38-yarder something to build on? Want more I’m guessing? “We do. We’ve ended up with a lot more explosive passes this year. Maybe it’s just how people are playing us, how they’re defending us and the matchups we take and what people are doing. I also think a lot of people maybe are sitting back, giving up … you talk about the efficiency. People are maybe allowing us to more efficient and not give up the explosive plays, not just in the run but the pass. They’re playing that deep, soft coverage and saying, hey, we’re going to let you go. We’re going to see if you make a mistake. We’ve made some mistakes. But they did some of that on Saturday. They said, hey we’re going to let you make a mistake, before the half we end up with a 15-yard facemask penalty. So now we’re second-and-25. Now even if we 10 on second down, 10 on third down, you’re still fourth-and-five. You’re still punting. We fumbled the ball twice. I think a lot of it is how people are playing us. They’re saying, hey, we’re going to let you go be efficient in each play but we’re not going to give up the big explosive. So I think that’s probably what you’re seeing more than anything else.” Vanderbilt job one of the hardest in the league? “I think every job in the Southeastern Conference is a really tough deal. You have expectations and fans in this conference where everybody expects to win a championship. “I only know really know the two of them, being the head coach at Florida. I know the Gator Nation expects championships. Spent nine years at Mississippi State. I know we built that program up, and their fans expect to win a championship. So I think you’re in a league where fans expect success, expect championships. I think the thing that makes this challenging and makes it challenging at every school is the quality of teams that you are playing from one week to the next, I think is such a big deal in this league. This year you’re playing a 10-game conference-only schedule. You know. There’s not a whole lot of time to catch your breath this year when you’re having to do that. I think that makes it challenging. You look at Vanderbilt, like Florida. They’re the two top academic schools, so that adds some recruiting challenges that really – Vanderbilt and Florida are the only two schools that have that such high-end, the highest end of academics mixing in with football, as well.” More about weather in Tennessee being cold this weekend— “I’ll get some warm clothes going on.”

Florida Gators Offensive Coordinator Brian Johnson met with local media on Monday night to discuss the changes with Kyle Pitts return, the possibility to clinch the East this weekend versus Tennessee and what sort of difference it makes playing in the cold. As a valued subscriber, we are offering this transcript in full. What characterizes offense? “One of the nice things that we do a nice job of is making people defend everyone, putting our players in a position to be successful, creating matchups and creating opportunities to get our players explosive-play opportunities. I think we do a good job of distributing it and making defenses have to defend the entire field.” Kyle Pitts return elevate offense? “I mean, he can just make so many explosive plays. He makes very difficult plays look routine. He’s a fantastic player; he’s one of the best players in America. It’s obviously great to have him back. But we found him and we found a chance to get him matched up a couple of times. More often than not he’s going to win his matchup.” How much of summer scouting on Tennessee do you still use? “You use a little bit of it and you have a general idea of overall scheme and what they try to accomplish. The difficult part about that it’s so early in the season you go back and look at some games because there’s just not enough film to make a really, really solid plan. Like we always talk about, teams are different every single year. So the defense they have this year takes on a little different personality than they had the previous year. Playing them towards the end of the season, now we have quite a bit of film on them and can put together a pretty solid plan.” Being able to clinch the East this week, easier to get guys attention and get them focused this week? “Yeah I think that obviously, we did not play well as an offense last week. You can’t turn the ball over twice, put our defense in a terrible situation. Those guys did a great job only giving up 10 points with us giving them the ball twice on their side of the field. We have to play much cleaner. We have to execute at a much higher level and not waste opportunities. it’s always fun to play Tennessee. Our players will be fired up to hit the road and go and put on a good show.” Fumbles becoming an issue? “Ball security is a premium. You have to take care of the football and not put it on the turf. I think that the ball the issue, you can’t make plays if you don’t have the ball. It has to be a priority to take care of the football and keep getting first downs, put yourself in a position to go score.” Not making guys run a mile with the football like in Remember the Titans “No, we don’t go to those extremes. I think the biggest thing is you have to have a really high standard for ball security and each individual coach coaches ball security. Every coach coaches ball security for the entire offense and we have to obviously do a much better job of taking the ball and not coughing it up.” Are we looking at Kyle Trask too harshly/nitpicking him? “He’s playing really well. He’s playing like one of the best players in America. To this day I don’t think anyone’s played a perfect game. There’s always teachable moments. I’m sure there’s plays that he would love to have back as well. That comes with the territory if you’re going to be the quarterback at Florida. You gotta be ready for that.” Vandy using Sarah Fuller, is the game evolving to that being more normal? “Um, I’m not sure. Obviously, it was a wonderful story, a bunch of good headlines. I was watching SportsCenter on Saturday night and I saw that was the lead story on SportsCenter on Saturday night. I saw she won co-SEC Player of the Week this week. Great honor. It was a great moment. I’m not sure how common it will be moving forward, but it’s always nice when someone can break a barrier, for sure.” Kyle Pitts loves trash talk? “I don’t buy much into that personally. Kyle Pitts is extremely self-motivated. I don’t think he reached his status without being extremely self-motivated. He wants to be a great player and he practices really, really hard up until the games. Trash talking is part of the game..." Coldest game you've played in? “There’s been a couple. I would say we played at Wyoming, had to be the third or fourth week in November of 2004. It was an ABC game. We were playing Wyoming. I think we were 11-0. We had BYU the next week. (another part I can’t decipher). The stadium lights went out, so we had like a two-hour break where we had to go back and just kind of hand out. So we get to the game and I mean it's really, really cold. And I will never forget, coach Mullen had this huge jacket on and gloves and at the time, he was the play signaler. I was just a freshman so I was sitting on the bench. And Alex couldn't see the signals through Dan's fingers because he had these huge gloves on. So he asked him to take the gloves off and coach Mullen was like, 'Absolutely not taking the gloves off.' So that was a cold game. I remember I got to go in at the end of the victory, like my mouthpiece was frozen stuck to my helmet. So that's probably the coldest one I've been in, back in 2004." ANY ADVICE FOR KYLE OR NO REAL IMPACT? "I mean I don't exxpect it to be like a frozen tundra, so no, just go out there and play." AP SAID GAME WAS PLAYED IN BITING WIND THAT MADE IT FEEL LIKE 15 DEGREES "In 2004? Yeah, it was cold. It was really cold. No doubt. (When you're not playing) it makes it even colder." YOU GUYS ARE TASKMASTERS, HOW DO Y'ALL IMPACT THAT WITHOUT COMING DOWN ON THE GUYS? HOW MUCH DO THEY DO THAT THEMSELVES? DESCRIBE MENTALITY TOWARD 34 POINTS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH? "Yeah, I think each game kind of takes on its own personality. Sometimes you can have a game where 34 points and you played really, really well. It's whatever the circumstance is based on the number of possessions, the flow of the game you're playing. But that was a game where we scored 34 but we did not play well and we didn't play clean. We left eight points in red zone possessions. Fourteen points by turning the ball over. So it just was not a complete effort. We obviously didn't play to the best of our abilities. I think the key is obviously coaching it. It's much easier to coach that type of stuff when you win. But the key is just understanding what the standard is and playing to your standard, playing to the best of your ability each and every play and we didn't do that this past Saturday." HOW DOES MULLEN DRILL THAT INTO PLAYERS AND STAFF, TRICKLEDOWN? "Yeah, he has an unbelievably high standard for himself, but you surround yourself with highly motivated people that want to be great at what they do. That's the beauty of the game is you get a bunch of guys pulling in the same direction toward a common goal. Obviously at Starkville he did a great job of leading the program and setting the standard, and all the players and the coaches want to be great as well, so it makes it easy."