JACKSONVILLE, FL.—The wind was whipping off the St. John's River as a trickle of fans began to filter into the sparse parking lots outside TIAA Bank Field. Tailgates dotted what appeared more to be the World’s Largest Empty Outdoor Cocktail Party Venue. Even with the small crowd and restrictive COVID-19 policies that made this unlike any other Florida-Georgia game in recent memory (the smallest crowd since 1938 when the stadium held 17,000 people) the anticipation was still heavy, the nervousness was still felt in every fan who quietly walked towards the gate. After the No. 8 Florida Gators won the toss and deferred, the No. 4 Georgia Bulldogs used their first play to motion four men to the left and hand the ball off to Zamir White who went that direction behind a wall of blockers. The tone seemed to be set for the day the moment White hit the edge. For 14 years, whoever has controlled the run game has won this matchup. Georgia made it clear early they would be the team to do so on Saturday. And they did. Technically, the Bulldogs out rushed the Gators 165-97 yards. It wouldn’t matter, but more on that in a bit. Back to the first play. White hit the edge and went 75-yards, untouched to the endzone. The vaulted Gators offense went three yards on a three-and-out and a bad punt gave Georgia the ball back at the UGA 46-yard line. In six plays, Georgia made quick work of the short field and Stetson Bennett (5-16, 78 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception) found Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint over the middle for the 32-yard touchdown. Brad Stewart, attempting to make a touchdown saving tackle, dove for Rosemy-Jacksaint’s ankles as defenders are now taught to do in order to avoid head injuries. The cart came out before the redshirt freshman could even roll over. Everyone in attendance could see he’d suffered a gruesome injury. Don’t watch the replay. The score put Georgia up 14-0 and could easily have put Florida into panic mode. Instead, it did the opposite. "On the sideline we just kept our heads up and kept playing,” says corner Kaiir Elam "The first two touchdowns were off of just busted plays, and we're the type of team that shouldn't be giving up any plays. So it was just added motivation to keep going. I'm just happy nobody put their heads down. Everybody was motivated to get back out there and just play the game of football. I'm just proud to see that.” Adds Head Coach Dan Mullen, “Our guys were kind of maybe a little shell-shocked coming out at that point with what was going on. We did a nice job settling down. Nobody panicked. Everyone was kind of like, ‘Whoa.’” As the offense retook the field, now in a 14-0 hole, receiver Justin Shorter went to his quarterback. “I looked at Kyle [Trask] and was like, 'Hey, we need to score here, like we have to get this back going.’” On 3rd and 4 from the UGA 14, Trask dropped back in the pocket. As he cocked his arm, a defender hit his elbow. Trask pulled the ball back in to save the fumble, and dumped it over the middle to Shorter who cut on a crossing route. Shorter turned up field—exactly as the play is practiced he revealed—and gave a peace sign to the camera as he crossed into the endzone. “We ended up scoring and thank God it ended up being me,” laughs Shorter. With the score, even still down by a possession, the Florida sideline let out a breath. “I think we once down and got that first offensive touchdown, I think the attitude on our sideline changed and everybody kind of remembered, ‘Hey, you know what, we can play pretty good defense, getting 11 guys running to the ball as hard as we can. We can score points.’ I think everybody all of a sudden realized we’re fine, we’re going to be OK in this game,” says Mullen. After an incredible Georgia kickoff return (56-yards) looked to put the Bulldogs in great position to extend their lead, the Gators defense stood up. A stuff on an opening run and a Brad Stewart pass break up but the Bulldogs into a bad position on 3rd and long. Bennett fumbled the bad snap and had to quickly fall on it before Georgia transfer now Florida defensive end Brenton Cox could still it away. That was, in many ways, the story of the Gators defense on the day. They didn’t beat Stetson Bennett so much as gave him the rope to hang himself. And he took it. The next Gators offensive drive, a wheel route to Malik Davis moved Florida 20-yards downfield and sat a new tone for the day. As mentioned above, for 14 years the team that had the better running performance won the game. On Saturday, Florida put the ball in the air and into their running back’s hands. Florida’s three backs came together for 10 catches and 212 receiving yards (Malik Davis, 5-100; Nay’Quan Wright, 3-71; Dameon Pierce, 2-41). “I know everybody says whoever runs for the most yards wins, but maybe it’s whoever’s running backs get the most yards win,” points out Dan Mullen, before praising Trask for consistently finding and exploiting those matchups. And exploit them he and Offensive Coordinator Brian Johnson did, all game. “We go to what works,” states receiver Tre Grimes. “If Coach see's a matchup that he likes, he's going to attack it. And that's what he does with all the players, he puts them in a position. So early in the game we've seen that the wheel routes and all this stuff was working, and we just kept executing it and it was a big role in gaining huge chunk yards plays so that helped us out a lot.” Adds Trask, “When you're making a gameplan you want to try to find as many mismatches as you and we were having some good success with the running backs on their linebackers we just tried to take advantage of it.” It was those matchups and mismatches, the ability to exploit them, that led to Florida’s win. For years, this game has been about X’s and O’s versus Jimmy and Joe’s. Georgia had the players, Florida had the gameplan. Could Dan Mullen get better talent and put them in a position to beat the top notch talent coming out of Athens? On Saturday, it finally happened. "They played with a lot of eye- candy and motions that obviously we didn’t handle well,” admits Georgia Head Coach Kirby Smart. “We had calls where we called and then they beat us, right…I can deal with those because we called the pressure and we tried to pressure the quarterback and he made a good throw and catch. I can live with that. What I can’t live with is leaving the guy wide open on a wheel-route. You should be looking at him. That is your job, and somehow you don’t look at him and he is wide open. Those are the breakdowns that we had.” But Georgia, it should be reminded, came into the day with the best total defense in the SEC (300.6 yards per game). They wouldn’t go silently into the night and Eric Stokes—who already had two interceptions and a Pick-6 in the Dawgs first five games—jumped a Kadarius Toney route on the Gators first drive of the second quarter, and returned the Trask interception for his second touchdown of the season, a 37-yard Pick-6. Libational carbonated beverages were spewed in the air of the Georgia side…but yet again, the Gators didn’t panic. Another wheel route to Nay’Quan Wright picked up 50 yards. The next play, Trask connected with his favorite target, tight end Kyle Pitts. The future first round pick was being held enough to draw flags but still managed to outman his defender to make the contested catch look easy for the touchdown. The score was tied again at 21-all. After forcing another Georgia punt, thanks in large part to great pressure in the backfield, Florida took back over and got the drive started with—what else—a 37-yard Malik Davis wheel route. Then the rain began. It came down in sheets, coating the windows of the press box. Kyle Pitts was in the middle of the field, coming down with the pass when Georgia safety Lewis Cine met him mid-air. It took a couple of minutes for either to get up. Cine had to be guided towards the injury tent then the locker room, looking like a man who didn’t even know his own name, much less that he was ejected the rest of the game. Pitts just kept his head buried in the ground until a trainer took his helmet and led him to the locker room. He was out the rest of the game in concussion protocol. “We’ll see,” Mullen says of Pitts status. “We’ll see. That was a big hit, so the trainers said that he would be out the rest of the game. We will check out as that goes the rest of the week.” But still, Florida didn’t panic. On the sideline, redshirt junior Kemore Gamble got ready. “When Kyle went down I said a quick prayer for him, and [tight end coach] Coach Brewster told me it’s my time to shine, and I had to do it for Kyle and step up.” The Georgia defense clearly wasn’t planning on the offense depending on a tight end who had nine total receptions and no touchdowns in his three year Gators career thus far. As Gamble trotted out to the top of the formation, someone in the Bulldogs secondary saw the big bodied tight end was uncovered and began trying to move defenders over. It was too late. “When I seen Tre Grimes ran the post route, and I seen the corner route I’m like ‘Ooh OK, free ticket to the touchdown?’, and I took advantage of it,” Gamble told reporters. The 24-yard touchdown (psst, another wheel route) gave Florida their first lead of the game. They wouldn’t look back. Two 50 yard field goals from Evan McPhearson bookended the half and a Trask to Tre Grimes touchdown that the receiver high pointed and will most assuredly be on the Trask Heisman hype tape. So much of the credit for the catch needs to go to the physical Grimes, who blessedly was given an uncontested catch by his quarterback for once and used his size to his advantage. “Our coach told me, we wanted to take a shot, but at the same time we didn't have any timeouts, so if it wasn't there he told me just to throw it away, you know, so we can kick the field goal. But, luckily, we got a match up we wanted and Tre Grimes made a great catch,” explains Trask. But Grimes also knows to tip his hat to his quarterback. “I see it every day in practice, we see it every day in practice so when he comes out here and he does these, these amazing things and he throws, all these touchdowns, it's nothing new to us. We see it every day in practice and it's, we've kind of we've gotten used to it. The fans are cheering for him but we just know that's what he can do, and that he has potential to do much more.” Florida wouldn’t score another touchdown in the second half. It’s a drought that can’t happen in the SEC Championship game that the Gators are now in the drivers seat to reach. But they’d already done enough. According to Florida, Kyle Trask’s 474 passing yards were the second-highest total in school history and just eight yards shy of Tim Tebow’s single-game school record of 482 set in the 2010 Sugar Bowl. Trask set a single-game school record for passing yards against Georgia... by the end of the third quarter, which he finished with 412 passing yards. Kerwin Bell (408 in 1985) and Rex Grossman (407 in 2001) were the onlyGators in history to eclipse 350 passing yards against Georgia prior to Saturday. Trask joined Danny Wuerffel (five in 1995, four in 1996) and Shane Matthews (four in 1991) as the only Gators in history to throw four touchdown passes against Georgia. Florida’s 474 passing yards were the highest total allowed by a Georgia defense since Oct. 21, 2000, when the Bulldogs ceded 528 passing yards to Kentucky. The Gators’ 44 points were the third-highest total surrendered by Georgia’s defense since Kirby Smart took over in 2016, only behind Oklahoma (48 in the 2018 Rose Bowl) and Ole Miss (45 in 2016). “I don't think we were that conservative,” admits Trask. “I think we were still trying to push the ball downfield. But, I think Georgia did a great job making adjustments and then we had to adjust to their adjustments to continue to move that ball down the field and get a couple of, you know, kind of put a dagger in the game." The defense in the second half held the Bulldogs to 111 yards and 1-7 on 3rd downs, forced a quarterback change and three interceptions. One of them came courtesy of Elam and the fact he could’ve possibly had two others was the only big complaint of the day on that side of the ball. "It was something going into the game that we said we were going to do and we did it. Our goal was to get three and we accomplished it. So it was real big. “It felt amazing. I should have caught the second one. I actually should have had three. So I just gotta go back to the drawing board and watch film on Arkansas tonight." While Elam might be ready to return to the film room, there’s something to be said to enjoying this win, at least for a moment. It was the game Florida had to win this year. The Gators did just that. Now they’ll be eyeing the Top 5 and Atlanta…but just like they exhibited time and again versus Georgia on Saturday, they won’t panic and jump ahead to that just yet. This win has been three years in the making and Tre Grimes wants he and his teammates to soak in what it means. “It means a lot to all of us, you know last year that feeling, leaving the, leaving the stadium, not being victorious is a bitter feeling and we've worked hard all year to come back for this game on. Whether people say or not this is our biggest game. And to come out victorious is just a feeling that, like I said before, it's indescribable and we're gonna cherish this for a couple days.”

*This will be updated throughout the first half with game updates and throughout the entire game with any news updates. JACKSONVILLE, FL.—The rain tapered off and the wind died down as the No. 8 Florida Gators and No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs took to the field for warmups ahead of the 2020 version of the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Although this year, with COVID-19 restrictions limiting tailgating, it looked more like the World's Largest Outdoor Empty Cocktail Party Venue. GatorBait Magazine is onsite for the game and will have full post game updates. Here are the notes and observations from pregame and the first half. Travel Roster in Attendance: WR Ja'Quavion Fraziars 0 WR Kadarius Toney 1 LB Brenton Cox 1 QB Anthony Richardson 2 STAR Brad Stewart Jr. 2 WR Xzavier Henderson 3 DB Marco Wilson 3 LB David Reese 4 C Kaiir Elam 5 QB Emory Jones 5 S Shawn Davis 6 RB Nay'Quan Wright 6 LB Jeremiah Moon 7 WR Trevon Grimes 8 DL Khris Bogle 8 WR Gervon Dexter 9 TE Keon Zipperer 9 DL Andrew Chatfield 10 LB Mohamoud Diabate 11 QB Kyle Trask 11 WR Rick Wells 12 S Donovan Stiner 13 WR Jacob Copeland 15 LB Derek Wingo 15 DB Tre'vez Johnson 16 DL Zach Carter 17 P Jacob Finn 18 K Evan McPhearson 19 RB Malik Davis 20 RB Lorenzo Lingard 21 DB Rashad Torrence 22 C Jaydon Hill 23 RB Iverson Clement 24 C Chester Kimbrough 25 P Jeremy Crawshaw 26 RB Dameon Pierce 27 LB Ty'Ron Hopper 28 LB Amari Burney 30 DL Princely Umanmielen 33 DB Patrick Moorer 37 DB Nick Oelrich 38 DB Fenley Graham 39 LB Jesiah Pierre 40 LB James Houston IV 41 LS Marco Ortiz 45 LS Brett DioGuardi 48 LB Ventrell Miller 51 OL Stewart Reese 51 LB Antwuan Powell 52 DL Kyree Campbell 55 OL Jean Delance 56 DL TJ Slaton 56 OL Brett Heggie 61 OL Griffin McDowell 62 OL Kingsley Eguakun 65 OL Michael Tarquin 70 OL Chris Howard 71 OL Stone Forsythe 72 OL Will Harrod 74 OL Richard Gouraige 76 OL Ethan White 77 OL Josh Braun 78 WR Trent Whittemore 80 TE Dante Lang 81 TE Kyle Pitts 84 TE Kemore Gamble 88 WR Justin Shorter 89 DL Jalen Lee 92 *All four starters that missed last week (Marco Wilson, Donovan Stiner, Shawn Davis and Evan McPhearson) are here. The following Florida football student-athletes will be unavailable for today’s game against Georgia: 0 Trey Dean 17 Kahleil Jackson 21 Ethan Pouncey 29 Isaac Ricks 32 Mordecai McDaniel 35 William Sawyer 47 Austin Perry 55 Hayden Knighton 66 Jaelin Humphries 83 Josh Tse 95 Lucas Alonso Georgia is still favored by 3.5. Georgia's kicker warms up while Floria players conduct walk-throughs. Crowd is limited by COVID-19 restrictions. Gary Smitter of the Jacksonville Times Union tells me this is the smallest crowd at Florida-Georgia since 1938, when the stadium only held 17K. Flip card.

A few thoughts to jump start your Friday morning: The comparison is fairly easy. One team has an offense that runs like a Ferrari. The other one has an offense like a Chevy Volt that needs to be recharged very soon. The Ferrari is 8th-ranked Florida (3-1), which comes into Saturday’s game with 5th-ranked Georgia (4-1) averaging 42 points and 476.5 points per game. The Volt – or is it a Prius? – is Georgia, whose offense the last six quarters has lacked both imagination and explosiveness. Now Georgia has a defense that looked dominant in the first three games of the season, but along came Alabama to shoot holes in the theory the Bulldogs could get just enough offense and win with their defense. Florida’s offense, led by QB Kyle Trask (18 TDPs and 335.3 passing yards per game, is good enough to do to the Georgia defense what Alabama did and that was a Georgia defense at full strength. Saturday, Georgia will be without at least three key starters – All-America safety Richard LeCounte and stud tackles Julian Rochester and Jordan Davis. Rumor has it that two or three other starters might be out for the game or at least not at full speed. With Trask at the helm and with receivers like tight end Kyle Pitts (22-355, 7 TDs) and slot receiver Kadarius Toney (22-297, 6 TDs receiving; 8-83, 1 TD rushing) there isn’t a defense in the country that can’t be stretched. And, with an offensive line that has given up only four sacks and seems to be improving every game, it’s entirely possible that Florida will run the ball well. Certainly, the Gators will run it better than they did last year (19 attempts, 21 yards). Georgia, which comes into the game a shaky 3-point favorite, has hit the skids offensively and most experts agree the reason is QB Stetson Bennett IV, who has thrown five interceptions in the last six quarters (last two against Alabama and all four against Kentucky). When analyzing what is going wrong with Georgia, nobody seems to point a finger at offensive coordinator Todd Monken, although they probably should since his is a paint by numbers offense and Florida’s is a Picasso original. But Monken’s rather pedestrian approach might be as much as Bennett is capable of handling. Former FSU QB and CBS analyst Danny Kannell tweeted out that Georgia’s problems throwing the ball are that “They’re still playing like it’s 2000 not 2020.” The Sayer Says Sooth: This is the game that will decide who wins the SEC East title, claimed by Georgia each of the last three years. Georgia has the higher ranked team and is the slight favorite because no one trusts the Florida defense. If the Gators were playing a team that has proven it can light people up in the passing game, maybe Georgia’s favorite status could be justified. As it is, the Gators are going to force Bennett to beat them while making the Poodles match them score-for-score. Florida is more than capable of winning a shootout. Georgia, meanwhile, is offensively challenged. FLORIDA 31, Georgia 20 THE SEC SOOTHSAYER #7 TEXAS A&M (4-1) at SOUTH CAROLINA (2-3): Everything seems to be falling in place for the Aggies to perhaps get an at-large invite to the College Football Playoff. That two-game end of the year gauntlet of LSU and (at) Auburn doesn’t look nearly as daunting as it did when the SEC came out with its schedule back in August. So what the Aggies have to guard against is overlooking any of the remaining five teams on the schedule starting with Saturday’s game with South Carolina in Columbia. On paper, it would seem the Aggies should be favored by more than 10 points, particularly considering the way South Carolina folded like a cheap tent against LSU in Baton Rouge a couple of weeks ago. So why aren’t they favored by more? Maybe it’s because nobody trusts Kellen Mond to continue playing at the level he’s played at four of the five A&M games. Mond has always been a good QB, but he’s been playing at a higher level than any time in his Aggie career. He’s always had great games, but he’s always had games that make you scratch your head and wonder why. Will this week be one of those games? South Carolina, meanwhile, plans to start Collin Hill at quarterback once again. Maybe he’s the best Will Muschamp has but the fact Hill will start against the Aggies makes you wonder once again why they’re only favored by 10. The Sayer Says Sooth: The Gamecocks are much better at home than they are on the road. Just ask LSU about playing them in Columbia. Just ask LSU about playing them in Baton Rouge. But are they good enough that they can spring an upset over a team ranked 7th nationally and seemingly with a good path toward an at-large playoff bid? If the South Carolina defense can play as well as it did against Auburn, maybe the Gamecocks can spring the upset. If they play like they did against LSU, this will be a rout. The thought here is that they will play somewhere between inspired and abysmal. Texas A&M 30, South Carolina 17 TENNESSEE (2-3) at ARKANSAS (2-3): For a team that was strutting around like a contender after the first two weeks of the season, the Vols have been blown out three consecutive games. For unexplained reasons, HBC Jeremy Pruitt has a contract extension. Vol fans by the thousands are being coaxed off the ledge, told by the few folks who remain optimistic that things are better than what they seem. They aren’t. Meanwhile, Arkansas, which hadn’t won an SEC game since 2017, has won two this year and could have won three if not for a blown call by the zebras at Arkansas. So the Razorbacks are playing with house money which means they’ll be loose and feeling they have nothing to lose when the Vols come to town Saturday. There is no pressure on Arkansas. There is a ton of pressure on Tennessee. Lose this one and the Vols could be looking at a 3-7 season. They’re favored by 1.5 points Saturday in Fayette Nam and the only other game in which they will be favored is at Vanderbilt on November 28. As for Arkansas, Sam Pittman has his team believing they can break even or better. Do that and he might be the national coach of the year. The Sayer Says Sooth: When Feleipe Franks goes to bed Friday night, he will be remembering the Heave to Cleve in 2017 that beat Tennessee on the last play of the game when he was a Gator. He will also be remembering the 2018 game in Knoxville in which he threw three touchdown passes and ran for another as the Gators ran the Vols out of Neyland Stadium. He’s going to feel very, very confident going against Tennessee given his history for playing well against them. The Vols are going to play like they’re on the verge of apoplexy and Barry Odom’s defense is going to make them feel like the whole world is caving in on them. Arkansas is going to play like a team on a mission. Arkansas 33, Tennessee 24 VANDERBILT (0-4) at MISSISSIPPI STATE (1-4): This is Vanderbilt’s one chance to avoid an oh-fer and it might be Mississippi State’s last chance to win another game. The Commodores are bad. Really, really bad, but so are the Bulldogs, who made sure they don’t do a reverse run of the table in game one when they shocked LSU in Baton Rouge. Vanderbilt can’t say its season has gone south since it never was north to begin with. Mississippi State can say it’s been an adventure picking up the nuances of the Air Raid offense that Mike Leach runs. Vandy will drop eight and dare the Bulldogs to run. The question is will Leach ignore the dare and try to throw into coverage all day or will he force the Commodores to adjust and play him straight up? The Sayer Says Sooth: This tells you how bad Vanderbilt is. They’re 19-point road dogs against a team that has gone from bad to worse to horrible in the last four games. The consolation for MSU is that the defense has played pretty well in the three games sandwiched between LSU and Alabama. Fortunately for the Bulldogs, Vanderbilt would have trouble scoring against a decent powder puff team. Mississippi State 33, Vanderbilt 10 CBSSPORTS.COM GIVES PRESEASON #21 RANKING FOR UF HOOPS Matt Norlander of CBSSports.com came out with the network’s first power ratings for the 2020-21 season, ranking Mike White’s Florida Gators 21st. Florida is one of four SEC teams in Norlander’s top 25 (Kentucky is #10; Tennessee #15; LSU #18). One of the big reasons the Gators will start out as a top 25 team, per Norlander, is the return of All-SEC Keyontae Johnson, who led the Gators in scoring and finished second in rebounding last year. Regarding Johnson, Norlander writes, “A couple of SEC coaches told me they’d tab UF’s Keyontae Johnson as the guy to be SEC Player of the year. If that happens Florida’s a top-four seed for sure.” Other rankings for SEC teams: (27) Alabama; (52) Arkansas; (55) Missouri; (67) South Carolina; (72) Ole Miss; (80) Mississippi State; (84) Texas A&M; (88) Auburn; (114) Georgia; (129) Vanderbilt ELSEWHERE IN THE TACKLE FOOTBALL PLAYING WORLD Here we are opening weekend of play in the Pac-12 and we already have our first cancellation due to Covid-19. The Washington-Cal game won’t be played because a single Cal player tested positive for the virus. Thanks to the brilliance and foresight of commissioner Larry Scott, the only commissioner in college sports who might be dumber than Kevin Warren of the Big Ten, there are no makeup dates on the schedule, so instead of a 7-game slate, both Cal and Washington will at most play six. That is, of course, if they are able to play next week and since they are scheduled for different opponents (Cal at Arizona State; Washington at home vs. Oregon State) there is a potential ripple effect that will further make the Pac-12 look stupid for not putting any wiggle room in the scheduling for just such moments as this. It’s a bad weekend for the military. Air Force-Army was postponed and they will try to reschedule although it isn’t certain it can be due to current conflicts. Also, there was an outbreak of the virus at Navy so this week’s game with Tulsa has been postponed. It’s the first time Navy has had a game postponed but it’s the fourth time for Tulsa. In yet another postponement. North Texas had its game with Louisiana Tech postponed, the third time that UNT has lost a game due to the virus. They will try to make up the game on December 5. The late T. Boone Pickens, the oil gozillionaire who gave $165 million to Oklahoma State back in 1965, is being honored with a 9-foot tall statue outside Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater. To see the statue you don’t have to go to the end of the earth, although you’ll get the impression it’s fairly close by time you get to Stillwater. Rumor has it that Michigan HBC Jim Harbaugh is putting out feelers for a return to the NFL at the end of this season. Paul Finebaum says Harbaugh and Michigan have come to terms for an amicable divorce which might have something to do with the interest in returning to the NFL. If Harbaugh is indeed leaving Michigan he might look back on two things that brought about his demise: (1) Failure to recruit elite quarterbacks and develop the position; and (2) defensive coordinator Don Brown. Brown’s defenses do well against the bad teams, but they get burned beyond recognition every time they play Ohio State (56 points in 2018; 62 last year) and that’s the one game by which every Michigan coach is judged. Cincinnati (5-0 and 6th) and BYU (7-0 and 9th) are the two highest ranked Group of Five teams. Cincinnati has a pair of wins over ranked opponents (#22 Army and #16 SMU). BYU has a chance to get a win over a ranked team this weekend vs. #21 Boise State. If one of these two teams runs the table, there will be howls for inclusion in the College Football Playoff, but with the SEC with three top ten teams and playing a 10-game conference schedule and the ACC with three ranked in the top 11 and playing 10 conference games, it’s going to be very hard for Cincy or BYU to have a good enough strength of schedule to crash the playoff party. END OF THE WEEK PITHY COMMENTS: ESPN has been bleeding subscriptions by the gallon for months now. Thursday morning, the network announced substantial layoffs (some 300 positions), one of which is Ivan Maisel, who’s been with the network 18 years. Maisel is one of the most accomplished college football writers in the country … Denver Broncos general manager John Elway has tested positive for Covid-19 … The NFL fined Las Vegas Raiders coach John Gruden $150,000, fined the Raiders $500,000 and took away a 6th-round draft pick for violating Covid-19 protocols repeatedly. With viewership of NFL games setting record lows every week it would seem Roger Goodell has better things to do than act like a tough guy over virus concerns.

On paper, this should finally be the year. We’ve said that before and put too many chips on the table that Florida would beat Georgia the past two years… But this should be the year. In Dan Mullen’s third season, the No. 8 Florida Gators and No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs meet yet again in a Top 10 matchup. If the same Gators defense that whooped the Missouri Tigers last Saturday shows up in Jacksonville, the matchup against Stetson Bennet IV and the FBS 57th ranked Georgia offense should favor Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham’s squad. We leave that breakdown to our own Ainslie Lee. But what of the other side? The 18th ranked Florida offense (476.5 yards per game) versus the 15th ranked Bulldogs defense (300.6 yards per game)? Of the Top 20 ranked offenses in the country, three are SEC teams: Alabama (3rd), Ole Miss (4th) and the Gators. The Crimson Tide have already played and defeated Georgia, 41-24. In the matchup, Nick Saban’s crew put up 564 total yards. “They kinda spread the ball around,” explained Gators tight end Kyle Pitts of Alabama’s success against the Dawgs. “They got the ball in the playmakers’ hands. That helped with Georgia messing up in coverages and that’s when they scored.” The Tide had seven different playmakers touch the ball versus Georgia with three of them amassing over 150 yards in addition to the quarterback Mac Jones throwing for 417 yards. Jones and company also didn't fold under the tough Georgia defense, but instead kept chipping away through the first half. They chipped and chipped and finally the flood gates opened in the second half, when the Tide outscored the Bulldogs 21-0. The Gators can replicate that success, primarily because, according to Pitts, the offense has yet to reach its potential. Ole Miss and Florida are arguably (and statistically) the only other two offenses in the SEC capable of such a performance. And Kyle Pitts says they’re just getting started. "I wouldn't say we hit our peak yet because we still have some things we need to fix, I don't think anybody is at their best right now. I mean, we have our games where we go out and we do really good, but on the inside, we still need small details, where we leave points on the field. “Tre [Grimes], Jacob [Copeland], the young guys, they haven't really stepped out yet. So when they do, it's going to be a shocker to everybody.” Florida has two playmakers that are averaging at least 88 yards per game (Kyle Pitts: 88.8, Kadarius Toney: 95.05) through four games. In three of the Bulldogs five games thus far, Georgia’s defense has allowed a playmaker to accumulate at least 88 yards or more. Toney in particular has taken the innate talent that’s always made him mesmerizing and channeled it into crisp routes and disciplined play that can take over a game. Offensive Coordinator Brian Johnson is perfectly fine putting that game in his hands and will do so against Georgia if needed. "For sure. I think it's a fine line between, like I always say, we always have certain stuff where we're trying to force the ball into his hands, but the majority of the time it was predicated on the coverage that we were given and the ball's coming his way. So, I think that's the uniqueness of our offense is that we have the ability with all five skill positions that those guys can make a direct impact with the ball in their hands. “So, guys kind of made plays all over the field, whether it was Pitts or Kadarius or Cope [Jacob Copeland] had a couple big plays and Grimes had some big plays. So, you know, we have some guys that can do some damage once you get the ball in their hands. But yes, if a guy is going off and you have a matchup, I think the one thing you can do is just try to continue to exploit that until the defense stops it. “I feel like the game is in our hands,” added receiver Tre Grimes. “We have to go out there and execute, do what we need to do. It’s not so much their defense is tough as how well we’re going to execute. It all comes down to us. I feel like we’re going to go out there, do what we need to do and come out victorious. If we do everything we need to do we’ll be victorious and at the end of the game we’ll come out with a win.” Of course, that isn’t to take away from a defense that is still stout. “The talent level they have front to back,” began Gators Head Coach Dan Mullen on what impressed him about the Georgia defense. “And I don’t want to say it’s just players, I think [Georgia Head Coach] Kirby [Smart]—they have a great defensive scheme. They have answers to the questions. He knows it inside and out. They do a good job of putting their guys in great position to make plays, and they’re not afraid to tweak. They’re different this year than last year. But he knows his defense has a great system to put players into position to make plays. "They play hard, and then they have talent at every level of the defense. They can put big guys in the game to stop the run; they can put pass rushers in the game to get pressure; they can cover and play man coverage; they can try to confuse you with looks and a lot of different zones; they mix it up a lot. They’re a very, very good defensive football team and it’s not one thing that makes them a great football team, it’s every layer of it that makes them a really good defensive football team.” Georgia will be without three defensive starters—Richard LeCounte, Jordan Davis and Julian Rochester—due to varying injuries. But Mullen doesn’t believe that or the familiarity between the two teams will lead to either side brining a wholesale change to their identity. "We're going to run our offense and they're going to run their defense. We're not coming up and throwing everything out and running a whole new offense that we haven't run. We're going to run our offense this week. And I can't imagine them coming up there and saying, 'Hey, we have this defense that has been one of the top defenses in the country right now and we're going to scrap all of that and start new to try to create it.' So the matchups are the matchups and you're going to try to get some beneficial ones. The guys that played in that game last year that are back are a year older and hopefully a little bit better for us. I'm sure they feel the same about their guys as well.” In essence for the third year in a row, as Brian Johnson says, “it's definitely gonna be a 15 round heavyweight fight.”

I am told there are people in this world – Gator fans mind you – who say they always cheer for Southeastern Conference teams when they’re playing outside the SEC. For the most part, I agree except for one slight deviation and that is to never, under any circumstance, pull for the University of Georgia unless it can help the University of Florida win a championship. For example, if Florida and Tennessee are tied for the SEC East lead in football and the Vols are playing Georgia. If a Georgia win is beneficial to the Gators, therefore, grudgingly, I will support Georgia. But I feel dirty after I’ve done it. To say I don’t like Georgia would be an understatement. To say I hate Georgia is closer to reality but there is far more intensity to my dislike than simple hate can even begin to approach. Imagine the heat of a thousand suns. You’re getting closer. I find everything about the University of Georgia so reprehensibly disgusting that I wonder why it is General William Tecumseh Sherman didn’t detour from his march to Savannah to burn down Athens and the University of Georgia then salt the earth so nothing would grow there for a hundred years. I also wonder how it is that allegedly educated people would identify with the term “Dawgs.” My belief is let the big dog spell instead of acting like a bunch of functioning illiterate rednecks. The reasons to despise Georgia go far beyond that, but I will offer a few reasons that should make you understand that if your dislike of Georgia doesn’t resonate to the very core of your being then you have somehow missed the Gator standard. By a wide margin. Here are a few other reasons: 1. THE 1942 GAME: I wasn’t even an idea in 1942 when my father was a 17-year-old freshman on the University of Florida campus. He was biding his time until he turned 18 when he could join the Navy. At UF as in most campuses across the nation, the physically able athletes signed up to fight the Germans and Japanese within weeks of Pearl Harbor. Without the war, the Gators were expected to have a very good football team in 1942, building off a 4-6 season in which five of the six losses were by six or fewer points. In the final three games, the Gators beat Miami and Georgia then lost by three to UCLA. By the time the 1942 season arrived, almost all of head coach Thomas Lieb’s players had joined the military, leaving behind guys who were either too young to enlist or who couldn’t pass the military physical. Meanwhile up at Georgia, Wally Butts had the dream team assembled. Georgia had one of the best ROTC programs in the country and was chosen for a Navy Pre-Flight program. Butts already had a stacked roster, but players poured in from around the country. The roster included “Flatfoot” Frankie Sinkwich, who would win the Heisman Trophy; Charlie Trippi, who would win MVP of the 1943 Rose Bowl and probably should have won the Heisman in 1946 when he came back from military service; George Poschner, an All-American end who became a war hero at the Battle of the Bulge; and Gene Ellenson, a great defensive lineman who would win a pair of Silver Stars for heroism at the Battle of the Bulge and would later become the defensive coordinator at the University of Florida. By the time the annual Florida-Georgia game rolled around (played at Fairfield Stadium in Jacksonville), the Gators had lost three straight games and all hope for a decent season had long since evaporated. Georgia, meanwhile, had won seven in a row and arrived in Jacksonville fresh off a 21-10 win over 3rd-ranked Alabama. No one in his right mind gave the Gators a chance and for good reason. The game was never in doubt but Butts saw no reason to put his second and third teamers in the game. Sinkwich, Trippi, Poschner and Ellenson were still in the game late in the fourth quarter. The final score was 75-0. Florida finished the season 3-7 and wouldn’t have a break even season again until 1948. Georgia won the Rose Bowl and a piece of the national championship. My dad and other Gators I talked to who were part of that greatest generation that went on to serve our nation and win a war in Europe and the Pacific, never forgot how Wally Butts chose to humiliate the Gators when it was obvious UF could offer little to no resistance. Every single one of them was bitter and the mention of Wally Butts made their blood boil. 2. THE 1968 GAME: Florida was picked in the preseason to win the SEC for the first time and finish top five nationally. The season began well with four straight wins and a #7 ranking but on a rainy day in Chapel Hill the Gators lost seven fumbles and lost to North Carolina. The bottom fell out of the season that day. The Gators tied Vanderbilt in Nashville, then lost to Auburn on Homecoming. By the time the Georgia game arrived, UF was 4-2-1 and in a downward trajectory while Georgia was 5-0-2 and heading for its second SEC championship under Vince Dooley. Florida’s issues had much to do with a quarterback controversy that divided the team almost straight down the middle. Half the team wanted Larry Rentz while the other half wanted Jackie Eckdahl. Defensive players were angry because they thought the offensive players were selfish to allow such a controversy to split loyalties. Adding to the problems, play caller and offensive backfield coach Fred Pancoast was hospitalized for an appendectomy a few days before the game. Feeling the need to shake up the team head coach Ray Graves decided to swap coordinators. Ed Kensler went over to the defense and Gene Ellenson became the offensive coordinator. About the only thing that was shaken up was the team’s confidence. Game day was cold, rainy and downright miserable. I was working for the Gainesville Sun at that time but press box space at the old Gator Bowl was limited. My boss, Joe Halberstein, got me a ticket to watch but I wasn’t there to write. By the second quarter, my rain gear was completely inadequate, I was soaked to the core and freezing. On the field, 9th-ranked Georgia, quarterbacked by Mike Cavan and led by defensive studs Bill Stanfill, Jake Scott and Happy Dicks (that’s not a misprint), was in a seek and destroy mode. It was 41-0 at the half. The Florida offense didn’t cross the 50 until the third quarter. In the last minute of the game, already ahead 48-0 and facing a fourth down, one of the centers on the Georgia team approached Dooley and told him he hadn’t kicked a field goal since high school. Dooley called time out, sent his center in to kick the field goal that nailed down the final humiliation points in a 51-0 beatdown that will go down as one of the worst in Florida football history. As was his habit on Saturdays upon seeing the Florida football score, San Francisco 49ers backup QB Steve Spurrier called Ellenson to talk about the game. If you’ve ever wondered why Spurrier was obsessed with running up the score on Georgia whenever he had the chance, the conversation he had with Coach Ellenson is the reason. Remember when Spurrier ran it up in Athens in 1995? Do you remember Eric Kresser throwing two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter, the last one with 1:21 remaining that put the Gators ahead 52-17? Remember Spurrier saying he wanted to be the first coach to hang “half a hundred” on Georgia in Sanford Stadium? Think back to 1968 and you’ve got the reason. Coach Ellenson wasn’t alive for Spurrier to call with congratulations but a call was made to Coach Graves to say this one’s for you. 3. THE PROBATION YEARS: Okay, we’ll start with the obvious. Florida got nailed by the NCAA not just once, but twice. The first time, the Gators were hit with 109 violations, some of them as heinous as Dale Dorminey getting an extra T-shirt, a pack of Juicy Fruit and a Sprite. Hanging offenses! Now there were some violations that were pretty bad, but the majority were of the nickel and dime variety. For that Charley Pell was fired and the SEC championship the 1984 Gators won on the field was forfeited (more on that later). The second probation was for Galen Hall allegedly paying a month or so of child support for Jarvis Williams. At the same time the NCAA dropped the hammer on Florida (two years of probation without TV; maximum 12 in recruiting classes for consecutive years), Florida State, Tennessee, Auburn and Georgia all got slaps on the wrist. You see, the NCAA is quite selective about who it chooses to punish. For landing Herschel Walker, allegedly sold to the highest bidder, Georgia lost two scholarships, a small price to pay for perhaps the greatest college football player of all time who led Georgia to one national and three SEC championships. It turns out that at the time the Georgia was being investigated, Vince Dooley was chairman of the NCAA television committee. Just a coincidence that Georgia was basically given a pass, right? There are rumors that persist that Dooley lobbied long and hard to ensure Georgia’s transgressions were light. Georgia fans will tell you Vince Dooley is a man of the highest possible integrity, so explain why Georgia went on football probation three times (1965, 1978, 1982) while he was the coach and again in 1997 while he was the AD. He’s the guy who hired Hugh Durham and Jim Harrick, who both put Georgia basketball in the NCAA jailhouse. Dooley is also the same guy who allowed a serious academic fraud scandal to go on right under his nose. Google Jan Kemp sometime and read the details about how she got fired because she wouldn’t give athletes passing grades. She was fired but she sued and won a $1.08 million settlement. All this is relevant for Gators because Vince Dooley was among the leaders of the vote to strip Florida of the 1984 SEC title won on the field. Years ago, I did a magazine article with College Football Hall of Famer and Gator great Wilber Marshall. When we got around to the subject of recruiting Wilber said, “I went to Florida because it was close to home and I’m a mama’s boy. I didn’t go there because they paid me to go but other schools made offers – some big offers – some of the same teams that voted to strip the SEC championship from us in 1984. You would go on recruiting trips and some fat cat booster would let you know what you could expect. That was pretty common then.” I mentioned Georgia. Wilber just laughed rather sarcastically. The second probation was meted out on the 1990 team even though no one on that first Steve Spurrier-coached team was even on the UF roster when Galen allegedly paid the child support for Jarvis Williams. Galen has always denied he did it. There were stories that he did pay the cash but the next morning Jarvis’ mom drove over from Palatka to pay him back. None of that was ever substantiated. What’s interesting is the NCAA never offered any real proof that Galen had done it. For that alleged crime, Galen was fired during the 1989 season. The Florida AD at the time (Bill Arnsparger) was unwilling to fight the allegations and was all too quick to fire Galen. He saw this as an opportunity to hire Mike Archer and would have if powerful people like Ben Hill Griffin hadn’t put him in his place. Florida was banned from a bowl game in 1990 and was not allowed to claim the SEC title even though the Gators won it on the field. The SEC title ban was decided by a vote of SEC athletic directors and you’ll never guess in a million years who led the charge to make certain UF didn’t get that championship. If you answered Vince Dooley, then you win the kewpie doll. Punishment should always fit the crime. It could be argued that what Florida did in 1984 deserved time in the NCAA jailhouse, but if that’s the case, why was Florida’s punishment so tough and the punishment to FSU (a couple of scholarships lost), Tennessee (something similar) and Georgia nothing more than a pop on the fanny and the NCAA saying “be good boys and don’t do this again”? And why was it so important for Vince Dooley, whose cheating that was exposed in 1965 helped Georgia win SEC titles in 1966 and 1968, to make every effort to strip Florida of the 1984 title and prevent the Gators from winning it in 1990? Dooley wanted to keep Florida down as long as he could and might have succeeded except that he hired Ray Goff to succeed him and Spurrier was hired over Arnsparger’s objections. Hiring Spurrier changed everything and tilted the rivalry advantages strongly in Florida’s favor. The Head Ball Coach understood the hypocrisy and he knew the history. That has everything to do with why he took such delight in sticking it to Georgia (11 wins in 12 years; average margin of victory 23.36 points) every chance he got. Ron Zook beat Georgia two out of three and might have made it 3-3 if he hadn’t been fired the Monday prior to the 2004 Georgia game. He still almost won that one. As a Spurrier assistant for five years (1991-95) Zook was well versed in what beating Georgia meant and why it was so important. Urban Meyer wasn’t around for the Spurrier years but he understood it too. He beat Georgia five times in six seasons. He knew all about the recruiting advantages for beating Georgia and he had been well versed in the history of the rivalry. It’s been quite a dry spell since Urban left in 2010. The Gators have won only three times since and the rivalry has tilted back in Georgia’s favor. Too many Florida fans have lost the necessary zeal to put Georgia back in its place. Too many Florida fans have forgotten why it’s so important to not only beat Georgia but dominate this series. My dad died in 1986 having never seen the Gators win a single SEC championship in either football or basketball. Until the day he died he took particular delight in the Gators whacking Georgia no matter the sport, but he took real delight whenever the Gators beat Georgia in football. I share in that delight mostly because I was there at the 1968 game. I sat there freezing in the rain, wondering why Vince Dooley would go out of his way to humiliate a team that was already so soundly beaten. I remain friends with Charley Pell’s widow, Ward Pell, who was, is and will always be a Gator at heart. Ward despises Georgia with all her being. She remembers what Vince Dooley did. You should, too. I remember what happened to Spurrier in 1990. It still grates at me. It all adds up to one thing. I despise Georgia with my every breath I take. I think you should too.

When he has to, Trask can tuck it and run. (Florida Gators photo) There is a reason Kyle Trask is still standing. And prevailing. And maybe about to move up in the quarterback neighborhood to elite status. He is a poster boy for patience, grit and determination. Trask got passed over more times than an airport control tower. Until last season. Lesser men would have folded and been long gone through the transfer portal. Your butt can just take so many splinters, but the emerging Gator star would not go away when had every reason to do so last season. Why? “Maybe he just loves being a Florida Gator,” theorized former All-SEC wide receiver, NFL player and UF coach Lee McGriff, now a Gator Radio Network analyst who admits to coveting the tasty room service tosses Trask delivers to his receiving corps. Turns out that later Trask did say exactly that: He loved being a Gator. He was content waiting his turn. And it came on the unlikeliest circumstance one night in Lexington, Ky. when his friend Feleipe Franks lay writhing on the turf with a serious leg injury and had to be hauled off in a cart to an ambulance. In any scenario it’s tough to come in cold from the bullpen, but when you’re mummified with cobwebs from inactivity, and just saw your cohort hauled off in great pain, maybe your coach really shouldn’t expect your best efforts. But Trask delivered like Amazon Prime. When he entered the game at Kroger Field, Florida trailed 21-10 and the Wildcats’ defense was providing stubborn resistance. Right away, Trask moved his team downfield and led them to a 29-21 victory, himself scoring the go-ahead TD in the final four minutes. It was the ultimate comeback moment for a guy who had been in mothballs since he was a sophomore in high school and hadn’t started a game since. Actually, Trask wasn’t coming back – he had never been there in the first place. But Mr. Unflappable didn’t flap, calmly stating: “I was expected to go out there and produce,” Trask said matter-of -factly. “I was expected to go out there and win the game. It was nothing new.” He just kept on going for the next 14 games, pitching his Gator teammates to an 11-3 record, including an Orange Bowl win over Virginia. According to his coaches, Trask benefitted from a strong work ethic and the routine of Offensive Coordinator Brian Johnson which allows all three quarterbacks to share equally in reps with the No. 1 unit. And his passion for the game. “I think it's absolutely huge how we train the quarterback position in terms of making sure that guys are getting reps in practice,” said Johnson. “You know, I tell those guys all the time, ‘this is the one sport where you practice more than you play,’ and I think it's very, very important that guys get a great feel and a great understanding of how to become a great practice player, and have it translate to the game. “It was really no surprise that Kyle went in and played well because he's always performed really well in practice.” Not even a pandemic could stop this football equivalent to a gym rat. When practice was shut down by the quarantine after an outbreak of Covid-19 and there was nobody to even pitch and catch with, he conned his girlfriend Jade Caraway (who plays softball for the Gators) into being his target. “You know, he's a fantastic young man, he's very, very diligent about his preparation, he wants to be a great football player, he has an unbelievable desire, and he's very self-motivated, and I think that's a great quality to have, not only in football but in life, in general,” said Johnson. It’s Kyle Trask’s team now. And that was pretty evident when Missouri defensive lineman Trajan Jeffcoat hammered Trask late on the final play of the first half last Saturday night and his teammates quickly responded by squaring off at mid-field with the visitors. Some called it a “brawl,” but it seems to me “scuffle” more accurately describes it. There were several ejections and suspensions for the first half this weekend – Florida players Zach Carter (DL) and Antwuan Powell (LB) and three from Missouri next week. Several Gator players spoke out this week saying they felt the whole incident may have inspired their team. “When it comes to our quarterback,” said receiver Trevon Grimes, “nobody should touch him.” He is highly regarded by his teammates. Show of appreciation from favorite receiver Kyle Pitts. (Florida Gators photo) I’ve seen 50 years of SEC quarterbacks, but I've never seen one throw 18 touchdown passes in four games. Not Manziel or Manning, Tagovailoa or Tebow, or Locke or Leak. Those are big-time numbers because nobody in football’s best conference has ever done it. And certainly not against all SEC teams. Of course, numbers alone do not an elite quarterback make, but let’s start there. BTW, who gets to decide which guys are worthy of an “elite” designation? For right now, right here, it’s me. My friend Scott Carter of Floridagators.com came up with delicious stat: “I notice #Gators QB Kyle Trask now has 44 career TD passes and 4,444 passing yards if the Gators score 44 Saturday, like their chances.” Four more touchdowns for the fifth straight game? Kyle Trask’s story is one that should be memorialized. How he got here to this game in this moment is remarkable, not a story very well told or its magnitude properly expounded. In children’s parlance, he’s The Little Engine that Could. He is the ultimate Next Man Up. This is his defining moment. If they ever build a statue on the Florida campus in honor of “Next Man Up,” Kyle Trask would make the perfect model.

Head Coach Dan Mullen of the No. 10 Florida Gators met with local media following the Gators Homecoming 41-17 win over the Missouri Tigers...at least, we think it was him. It was someone in a Darth Vader costume. It was Halloween of course. As a valued GatorBait subscriber, we are offering this transcript in full. On fight? Defending teammates? “I think it starts there. I didn’t see it. I was watching the play down the field to see if there was pass interference on the play or if they made the catch. Guys were like … I got told they hit him late. And you know what? Our guys told them don’t hit the quarterback. I think our guys started to do that. Unfortunately, you had a play where if that’s a late hit and that’s pushing and shoving and we have a fourth down and we have to punt it’s one thing. But when the teams are leaving the field and both teams are running off the field at the same time. I didn’t see what was going on. I didn’t see the late hit. I was told that guys thought was the case. But obviously it wasn’t from the official’s point of view. Then we were out there trying to get our guys’ off the field ‘cause it was getting testy. We have a big game next game. I think it kept growing and growing. We’re trying to push guys back and unfortunately it kind of get in the middle and get the officials in the middle. Get them in the middle, get us in the middle, get their team off, our team off. But everyone’s running to the locker room and it keeps spilling down that way. Really unfortunate situation. It’s not something we condone, obviously. It’s not something that you really want to see in the game at all. I’ll tell you this: I give our coaches and our players a lot of credit. And I give coach Drinkwitz and the Missouri staff and their players a lot of credit because how that tense that first half ended just shows the class of both teams being able to come out the second half and just play football. Absolutely zero got carried over into the second half. Zero of that carried over postgame. Zero of that carried past that and it just shows the good job of players and coaches on both team and their ability to settle. I don’t think either side would say that’s what we wanted to happen. Neither side condones it. It’s an unfortunate situation that happened, but I think it shows the class of the programs to be able to come out and play the second half the way we did.” Clarification on more punishment? “My understanding is the intent with two guys on our team and one guy on their team in the first half is they miss the rest of this game. My understanding from the officials is that was the end of it, right. Those guys were in the locker room first half and miss the rest of this game. Great learning for everybody. The officials did give an unsportsmanlike conduct to everybody. Every coach, every player on both teams, as well. But being that there were no unsportsmanlike conducts in the second half, that wouldn’t carry over to the second half of the next game.” Darth Vader, feel like a villain of fight? “I was trying to get our players off the field, you know, because I know we have a big game next week.” Feel like escalated things? “I was trying to get our players off the field to make sure we didn’t have issues and have a whole bunch of guys suspended. We’re already a paper-thin outfit right now.” Kyle Trask’s unflappability post pick-six? “Yeah, I don’t think he gets frustrated with that. I don’t get upset with the pick-six, he got hit as he threw the ball. We were talking to him about getting it out of his hands a little quicker. I think he’ll tell you, I think, I mean, I don’t think we’re as crisp as we want to be. But you know, you don’t practice for two weeks, you have a bunch of guys missing practice during the week, I think you’re going to be a little bit rusty coming out there. I think you saw that with Kyle at times, but you know what, he’s a veteran guy. I don’t think he let’s that bother him.” With three starting DBs out, probably not expecting to dominate on D? “I think that on the outside they’ve gotten a lot of criticism. They haven’t gotten a lot of criticism from the inside, from us. I can’t wait until we get to play a game with a full defense, you know, it kind of seems like we’re playing with a partial defense every game of the season right now. I think our guys, Todd and the staff, we talk about making sure we have the guys in the right position to make plays. We’ve played some very good offenses throughout the course of the year so far. “I thought they did a good job of making the adjustments, putting guys in position to make plays. Our guys taking a lot of pride to pick it up after people have been getting after them. But we haven’t lost confidence in that in our ability to make plays and our playmakers on the field. I’m really proud of how those guys played. You knew they were going to take pride in how they were going to play the game this week. And they certainly did that for four quarters.” How much of a difference did it make having Kyree Campbell in there?  “I think, you look at that. You’ve got a returning starter on the defensive line. We lost a couple of defensive linemen off last year’s team. He’s one of our current starters and this was his first game back. It just raises the play of everybody, a veteran player. He’s going to raise the play of some of the players around him and then it’s like when there’s a trickle down effect. When guys come back it’s a trickle up effect. Now guys have experience. The one thing, when you have to play players the way we’ve had to defensively this year, it actually creates depth and that helps you as the year goes on.” You talked about your offensive linemen not practices until Wednesday. Do you think the offensive line kine of a rusty start as well? They seemed to pick it up after that.  “Yeah, I think everybody offensively just a little bit slower getting going. We hjad guys missing practice all week. That happens. Thankfully we kind of picked it up. You look at things to me that are disappointing to me in the game, our red-zone offense disappointing early, our third-down conversions disappointing. But I think as we get another week of practice under our belt we’ll be a little crisper. You’re ready for a regular week. And you still get a non-regular week this week.” Apologies for not knowing this, but is this an annual tradition for you? “I usually trick or treat. To be honest, one thing I will say this, it’s something we started a long time ago. Mississippi State. I read a book once and it was George Allen, I’m not sure, about never being around his family. It was written through the eyes of the family and the active family. You’re never around on holidays. It’s something we did a long time ago at Mississippi State was make sure coaches, especially those with young kids, would either come in super late at night or super early in the morning and you'd be able to take your kids trick or treating. As your kids grew up, they could say, ‘Hey, was my family’s football coach never around.’ You do look at it. My daughter is nine. I think she spent three out of the last four Christmas’s in a hotel. At nine years old. Six, seven eight and nine, we’re in a hotel room, I’m guessing. I know it’s been a couple. That’s hard. It’s something we always did. This costume here, as you said, it’s suitable tonight. I didn’t pick this out after the game.” Kadarius Toney’s night, three touchdowns: “He did well. You know, well you know, one of the things that's so impressive with him is you know, I think everybody’s used to, watch a playmaker, put the ball in his hand and something crazy is gonna happen. But you watch his discipline and his understanding of how the plays are being run, how the plays are hitting, you know his production going forward; he had one where he stopped and ran back all the way around the field, you know, today, and I don't mind that. But you know, because, because you watch him, you watch how he's matured and grown into playing within the offense, not just give him the ball and I'm just going to run around like crazy. He plays within the scheme, he sets up runs, he sets up blocks. And then he can make special things happen and make you miss great tackles as well.” After the brawl, came back and pumped up the crowd; what was going through your mind? "I mean I talked about let's create an exciting environment in the Swamp, with the crowd. And I love hearing them be loud and I love hearing them cheer so I was just trying to get them to keep continue to stick with the game and continue to cheer…and I did that the whole game too. I did it after the game too. And I appreciate our fans, you know what I mean? I talked about the challenge of getting our fans here to the game and help and making an impact on the game and create an exciting atmosphere and creating as good atmosphere as they can and they did for four quarters. That's why I was doing it in the fourth quarter as I did in the first half and at halftime, coming out in the third quarter too.” Can you go more into the challenges of practicing this week, having guys out at different intervals? "You know, I mean just we have a veteran coaching staff and, you know we sat together, we had to change a little bit of our practice routines. You know, but we you know, it's guys have done it before, guys, you know we look at different things and say 'okay, you know, who do we have practicing, who’s, who can be on the scout team, what our numbers, what reps do we need to get, how do we get guys reps? You know, what guys are on zoom meetings, what guys are in regular meetings. It just took a lot of organization and I think our staff did a really good job of keeping everything organized and our players did a good job of of dealing with the adversity and preparing to play.” Treating down time as a bye week “Our guys continue to battle, continued to do what they were supposed to do, and we were able to get a win. This was a big win for us today. I was concerned. You’re talking about a Missouri team that lit up LSU, that dominated Kentucky last week, and actually I thought they kind of hung with Alabama and played then really tough too. We knew they were a really good football team and we were coming off all the adversity. I was really proud with how our guys came out and performed.” Defense picked up the slack? “That was a concern, and it was a good deal. Coming into the game you’re thinking they’re gonna play real ball-control and we’ve got to be efficient offensively. I don’t know if we were really as efficient as we want to be offensively but the defense allowed us to get more possessions offensively, and if you give our offense enough possessions we have enough playmakers they have the opportunity to go score points. That’s really how you want it to be — that’s what puts pressure. Our defense did an unbelievable job allowing the offense to continue to put pressure on Missouri and eventually full away.” Defense carried them early “We talk about it as a team. For us to be successful we’re going to win as a football team, whether that means we win 3-2 or 41-40. It’s fine either way, but we’ve all got to play together as a team. You look at how the game’s gonna play out and you don’t know how the games gonna play out for four quarters, but I think defensively the guys looked and said, “If we make stops and give the offense the ball enough, we’re gonna make plays. Offensively in the first half, we have two good drives and end up with field goals. Then we throw a pick-six and we’re losing 7-6, and the defense is dominating and the offense hasn’t really been stopped, except we threw a pick — we stop ourselves, you know, by getting the quarterback hit and the ball floating down the middle of the field. That just shows our guys sticking together as a whole team and saying ‘Hey, keep going, keep going, and good things are gonna happen.’” Chris Howard’s kicking “He did a great job but we have a lot of confidence in him. I think the team does, because they see them practice all the time. I knew I had a lot of confidence in him and a trust that he was gonna be able to come out there and perform. You have such a great deal with Evan but to have a guy come in and play like him, I’m really proud of his performance.”

Come Saturday afternoon, there are bound to be some folks out of place. Those that are typically found in parking lots, under overpasses, staked out on any available grassy real estate and in any other nook and cranny around TIAA Bank Field, will likely have stayed home. And those who do make the trip to Jacksonville will have to do their pregaming in non-traditional locations. “Non-traditional” meaning nearby bars or restaurants as the City of Jacksonville forbade tailgating around the stadium in effort to ease the spread of Covid-19. It’ll be strange. But strange has been no stranger for the Florida Gators this season. With the obvious obstacles that a global pandemic create, Florida was forced to piece together a defense, which lacked two of its top three tacklers from 2019, in the absence of a true offseason. When the Gators’ defense struggled against Ole Miss in week one, there were questions, but none that Dan Mullen couldn’t answer in saying that the Gators’ hadn’t played live, full-contact football but two times the entire offseason. “We’ve tackled twice since the Orange Bowl,” Dan Mullen said following the Gators’ win over Ole Miss. “Normally you’ve got a lot of spring ball, you’re getting physical, you’re getting tackling… We only did two in our scrimmages.” Paired with a number of new faces playing a number of new positions, it seemed the Florida defense would improve with time. However, that didn’t end up being the case. In the opening three weeks of play, after games against Ole Miss, South Carolina and Texas A&M, the Gators found themselves dead last in a number of statistical categories within the league. Having given up an average of 7.58 plays per drive, 2.35 first downs per drive, allowing opponents to score in the red zone 58.06% of the time and missed a rushing tackle 36.67% of the time, all posted last-place finishes within the SEC and attributed to the #FireToddGrantham Twitter campaign rising from the ashes. Following the loss at Texas A&M and the defense’s poor performance, Dan Mullen was backed into a corner and forced to take a long look at his defense. “I think one thing you look defensively that we spend our time on is now ‘are we sound or not?’ I know what we’re doing sound. We’ve got a great coaching staff and I know our scheme is sound,” Mullen said following the Gators’ loss to the Aggies. “But now, as guys are performing here on a live basis within a game, there’s a lot of new faces out there for us as well. Are we putting them in a position to make plays .Even though this is sound, right, this guy, we’re putting him … he’s not going to be as good at doing this; we need to put him in a position to be something that he’s going to do really well. If we struggle doing something make sure we’re not putting those guys in that position, right?” Right. And following the program’s Covid-19 outbreak, it appeared as though the Gators’ staff wouldn’t be able to address the defensive woes. It also looked as though the Florida defense would be greatly depleted. And while Florida’s defense against Missouri was indeed depleted, the Gators were able to make up for the absence of eight defensive players with the return of one defensive player. Kyree Campbell, Florida’s projected starting nose tackle heading into 2020, missed Florida’s first three games for undisclosed reasons. But on game four, following a two week football hiatus, Campbell returned to the fold, which opened up a number of different avenues for the Gators to improve their defense. Prior to Campbell’s return, T.J. Slaton had nearly been an every-down player on defense. Meanwhile, Zachary Carter, who will miss the first half against Georgia after his part in the halftime melee, has been forced to play defensive tackle for the first time in his career. Additionally, Georgia transfer Brenton Cox Jr. is able to move back and into a true outside linebacker position, where he’s best fit, versus the defensive end position he’s been playing. Explained Grantham, "By having Kyree back it allowed Brenton to move back a little bit. It gave us the ability to play Brenton as a  true outside ‘backer as opposed to a defensive end. We played with bigger-body guys and that physical presence allowed us to be pretty stout against the run.” With everyone playing in their natural positions, the Florida defense improved tremendously against Missouri. “I think the biggest thing is, and it goes back to what I said last week, you’ve got to establish your physical presence in the game by being able to limit their ability to run the ball,” Florida’s defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said Tuesday. “That does that. I really think that came about because of our ability to have certain guys available, and by having those guys available it gave us flexibility to play guys in some natural positions. Really the guys did a good job of playing physical and then executing the game plan, and that allowed them to make plays. The credit needs to go to the players and the ability to have some guys available that gave us the flexibility to play guys where they need to be playing.” Grantham’s goal of limiting the run game is important as ever heading into Saturday’s game against the Bulldogs. Thus far in 2020, Georgia’s rushing attack outweighs its passing attack 210 to 156. Fortunately, the Gators were able to hold Missouri to just 80 rushing yards last week, in a showing that’s promising heading to Jacksonville on Saturday. Grantham, who will be calling his third game against Georgia as Florida’s defensive coordinator, has a good idea of what it’ll take to slow the Dawgs’ rushing attack. “I think the biggest thing when you talk about stopping the run is your ability to set the edge of the defense, build a wall inside, don’t give them seams, don’t create displacements and then make sure you’re always coming downhill and fitting your gaps,” Grantham explained. “I think that’s the biggest thing that you’ve got to look for is your ability to set the edge of the defense because they do got some talented running backs. Their offensive line’s a veteran group. If you look, four out of the five guys were there last year. They can get you at the point of attack. So, we’ve got to understand formationally what’s happening and then be able to set the edge and build a wall inside, get the ‘backers to going downhill.” With everyone on Florida’s defense settling into their more natural positions, Grantham’s goals and expectations on Saturday don’t appear nearly as tall as what they would’ve at the start of this season. So while Florida-Georgia attendees will be burdened with finding their place in Jacksonville, those on Florida’s defense are no longer looking for their rightful homes in the lineup. And the self-discovery of the Gators’ defense couldn’t come at more critical time.

No. 5 Georgia (4-1) vs. No. 8 Florida (3-1) Location: TIAA Bank Field, Jacksonville, Florida Kickoff: 3:30 p.m. Broadcast: CBS On the call: Brad Nessler, play-by-play; Gary Danielson, color commentary; Jamie Erdahl, sideline Vegas lines: -3.5, Georgia Setting the scene: Come Saturday afternoon, Dan Mullen will be hunting his first win over the Georgia Bulldogs since returning to Gainesville in 2018. Mullen and the Gators will look to do so after thumping the Missouri Tigers on Halloween night 41-17. Meanwhile, Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs will look to continue its dominance in the SEC East. The Bulldogs are coming off of a lackluster win 14-3 win over Kentucky last week. Each team has one loss on it’s record, with each coming from a SEC West opponent. Like most years, it appears the road to Atlanta runs right along the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, making for a huge top-10 matchup against the Gators and Bulldogs. Rosters: Florida: https://floridagators.com/sports/football/roster Georgia: https://georgiadogs.com/sports/football/roster Tailgating and COVID Protocols: Stadium parking lots will open at 12:30 p.m., gates to TIAA Bank Field will open at 1:30 p.m. and kickoff will be at 3:30 p.m. Fans are encouraged to arrive early at TIAA Bank Field. All 88 gates will be available for entry and there will be new magnetometers in place, enabling fans to walk through carrying their clear bag and leave their cell phone and keys in pockets. After entering, fans will then proceed to the new self-scan ticket kiosks to have their mobile tickets scanned. Face coverings that completely cover one’s mouth and nose are required at TIAA Bank Field. Guests will be required to wear face coverings upon entry and throughout the stadium, except when actively eating and drinking. Guests failing to adhere to this policy will be subject to disciplinary measures. TIAA Bank Field will have over 750 hand-sanitizing stations throughout the lower and upper concourses, plaza and premium spaces. Physical distancing signage, including directional arrows, queue line spacing indicators and safety reminders have been posted throughout the stadium. All concession stands and restrooms will be open and all payments inside the stadium will be contactless. Cash will not be accepted for stadium transactions. Beer and wine will be served and available for purchase at concession stands throughout TIAA Bank Field. Tailgating has been a long-standing tradition for the annual Florida-Georgia football game, but due to the current pandemic, tailgating will not be permitted in stadium parking lots. This regulation is a provision of safety and protection. Only game ticket holders will be permitted in these parking lots, and the new tailgating policy will be observed and regulated. Fans without tickets are strongly encouraged to stay clear of the Downtown Sports Complex area. As previously released, the game will take place with limited capacity. In addition, RV City and all ancillary events including the Hall of Fame Luncheon and Duuuval’s Bold City Bash will not take place this year.

A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning: Paybacks are hell. Just ask Mark Richt. Back in 2007 nearly all of Poodledom was seriously perturbed with Georgia coach Mark Richt. Georgia had lost to South Carolina in Athens in the second game of the season, needed overtime to beat Nick Saban’s first Alabama team (they weren’t very good) and was neutered by Tennessee, 35-14. A week after the abysmal performance at Tennessee, the Poodles barely escaped going down to lowly Vanderbilt. The folks who write the big checks that keep the Georgia athletic program afloat weren’t exactly enamored with their coach and here they were heading to Jacksonville. Now keep in mind this was a time when the. Florida Gators basically owned Georgia so Richt’s tush felt as if there was a blowtorch fired up and lodged between the cheeks. The Gators were ranked ninth nationally, 5-2 with wins over #22 Tennessee and #8 Kentucky and losses to #4 Auburn and #1 LSU. This was Tim Tebow’s Heisman year so while the Gators were capable of putting up scads of points on just about any team they faced, nobody felt the wrath of God when the defense took the field. Because of the defense, Georgia was expected to hang three or four touchdowns on the Gators but Tebow, Percy Harvin and the Florida offenses figured to light it up and win a shootout similar to the one in Lexington the previous week when UF outscored Andre Woodson and Kentucky, 45-37. Richt couldn’t afford to lose a shootout, much less a blowout in case his defense couldn’t get off the field. He also couldn’t afford to lose his job and a loss that day might have set a firing in motion. What he needed was something that not only would fire up his team but the half of the stadium in Jacksonville that wore red and black. In the days before the game, Richt told his team that if they didn’t get a celebration penalty after Georgia’s first score of the game the entire team would be running early morning the next week. When Georgia got the ball after a Kestahn Moore fumble in the first quarter, Knowshon Moreno carried the ball eight of nine plays, scoring from a yard out with 6:00 left in the first quarter. At that point, the entire Georgia team rushed the field to celebrate. There was plenty of taunting going on almost as if Georgia was trying to provoke a response that would offset the unsportsmanlike penalty the Poodles knew they were going to get. Cool heads prevailed on the Florida side and there was no response to the provocation but the celebration got the exact response Richt wanted. Georgia was fired up on the field and the fan base forgot all about those Fire Mark Richt petitions they were readying to circulate. Florida was stunned by the action and never recovered. Georgia won the game, 42-30, went on to win out the rest of the season and finish fourth nationally although Georgia fans consider it one of their several “near national championships” won since 1980. After the game, Richt claimed with a straight face that the celebration was spontaneous, a claim he would make again at SEC Media Days in July of 2008 in Hoover, Alabama. Here is why you know there was nothing spontaneous about the celebration. It was planned and rehearsed well before Jacksonville. It wasn’t about firing up the team because they were fired up because Richt was letting them storm the field. This was about getting the crowd behind them and intimidating the Gators. They succeeded on both ends. Why we know it wasn’t spontaneous is because not a single coach on the Georgia sideline made even the slightest attempt to keep the team from storming the field. If you have ever watched any time there is an incident in which players leave the sideline, coaches are always making every effort to put themselves between their players and the players from the other team. That never happened. Another reason why know it was rehearsed is the way Georgia’s players taunted and tried to provoke a response without actually taking a swing or shoving a single Florida player. For a full year after the storm the field incident, Urban Meyer plotted his revenge. Like him or hate him, but one thing you can’t discount about Meyer is his long memory and his inherent belief that no act of disrespect goes unpunished. The video of Georgia storming the field played hourly in the offseason and once the 2008 season began, it played with greater frequency. Game week it was almost a continuous loop. Leading up to that Jacksonville matchup between 5th-ranked Florida and 8th-ranked Georgia, Meyer was asked at least a hundred times what, if anything, he was going to do to exact his revenge on the Poodles. He simply said the response would be appropriate and would offer no further detail. The tone of the game was set on the game’s second play when Brandon Spikes decleated Knowshon Moreno in the hole for no gain. The Gators took a 7-0 lead on their second possession of the game, a 13-yard TD run by Percy Harvin. Most on the writers on the beat had figured the Gators would storm the field after their first touchdown, but the Gators did their been there, done that routine and acted as if they had been in the end zone before. By the time the game reached the final minute of the fourth quarter, the Gators held a 49-10 lead. With the exception of a few hundred gluttons for punishment, most Georgia fans had long since headed for Hahira and parts north. The TV cameras were still on, however, and Meyer exacted his payback. After a 15-yard run by Emmanuel Moody, Meyer called time out. Over on the Georgia sideline, Richt was seen staring at the scoreboard. There were 44 seconds to go in the game. Moody ripped off a 16-yard run on the next play. Meyer again called time out. Richt again stared at the scoreboard. There were 30 seconds remaining. The scoreboard read Florida 49, Georgia 10. It was a humiliating moment for Richt, who knew in his heart dating all the way back to the year before that Meyer had never bought his explanation of a spontaneous gesture. For Meyer and the Gators it was akin to sticking Richt’s nose in the mud and grinding it in. As Richt learned that day, paybacks are hell. JAYDON HILL ON DAN MULLEN Florida corner Jaydon Hill talked Wednesday about what he appreciates about UF HBC Dan Mullen and that includes Mullen’s mad dash to midfield after QB Kyle Trask took a hit just under the chin in last week against Missouri: “I’ve been behind Dan ever since he was recruiting me. Mullen took me in after an ACL so I see it as more of a respect thing. He trusted me enough to come in and it would’ve been easy to drop me. From a player to a coach, I respect him tremendously. I like how he was behind his player and was made about it, as he should be. It just goes to show how he cares about his players.” FOOTBALL IN THE SEC AND ELSEWHERE Consider Arkansas coach Sam Pittman a real fan of his QB, Feleipe Franks. “He was team captain during COVID without spring ball and that tells you something. He takes care of the football … leadership skills … we were very fortunate that he transferred to Arkansas.” With former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville elected to the US Senate from Alabama Tuesday night, University of Alabama coach Nick Saban was asked if he has any political aspirations. Saban answered, “I can answer that real quick. No.” Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network was asked about Georgia and quarterback Stetson Bennett IV in advance of Saturday’s Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville. Finebaum replied, “They’re (Georgia) severely challenged and as I say that, Florida has one of the best quarterbacks in the country in Kyle Trask. So this is a very dangerous game for Kirby Smart.” Tennessee fans hoping for a quarterback change are seriously disappointed. Jeremy Pruitt plans to stick with Jarrett Guarantano when the Vols travel to Arkansas Saturday. ESPN’s Tom Luginbill thinks Mike Leach will have to make some changes to his Air Raid offense if he wants to find any kind of success in the Southeastern Conference. Speaking on a radio show earlier in the week, Luginbill said, “He absolutely needs to modify it and that goes back to what I’ve said to you since the moment he was hired. I said watch out because now you are in a line of scrimmage league with superior athletes on defense and if you are not going to play with a tight end, you are not going to run the football.” You won’t see the usual Big Noon Kickoff crew for Fox Sports Saturday due to Covid-19 protocols. Instead of Urban Meyer, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn and Rob Stone, Fox will broadcast a one-hour pregame show featuring Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long. Louisville’s game with Virginia has been moved to November 14 after 15 Louisville players tested positive for Covid-19. Earlier in the year, Virginia’s game with Virginia Tech was postponed and rescheduled for December 12. Like the SEC, the ACC made provisions for postponed games, a lesson the Big Ten and Pac-12 probably could have learned if their brain trust (inject sarcasm) had common sense. It’s the annual Battle of the Roommates in Columbia, South Carolina Saturday when Texas A&M travels to South Carolina. Aggie coach Jimbo Fisher was a roommate of South Carolina coach Will Muschamp when they were on Nick Saban’s staff at LSU. For years before Muschamp became Florida’s head coach back in 2011, Fisher and Muschamp shared ownership of a Gulf Coast beach house. PITHY THURSDAY THOUGHTS: The PGA Tour will stop in Houston this weekend for the Houston Open which will be played on a public course. Unlike last week’s event in Bermuda there will actually be more than two or three golfers whose names you might recognize … They’re playing the Masters in Augusta in another week. I’m glad they’re playing but it still feels weird that they’re playing in November … It is being suggested that the Tampa Bay Rays might trade ace lefty Blake Snell during the offseason. The Rays management can’t be that dumb, can they? Okay, they do play in the Plastic Palace there in St. Petersburg … Not that anyone actually listens to what he has to say, but Colin Cowherd thinks the Dallas Cowboys should think about drafting Ohio State QB Justin Fields. For the Cowboys to draft Fields they would need to tank the season. The New York Jets are accomplishing that without even trying to tank. The Jets are just that bad and Adam Gase might go down as one of the worst head coaches in history.

When Feleipe Franks shushed his Florida Gators home crowd during the 2018 season, it became a rallying cry for he, his teammates and a run to a New Year’s Six bowl win that set up a program for a revitalization. It was a college football heel turn in the truest sense of the term and proved to be the perfect antidote to what had been a lackluster performance and loss of the fanbase the week before. So when Dan Mullen ran onto the field Saturday night, irate and beyond restraint, yelling towards the head official but also in the vicinity of Missouri Tiger players and coaches, and then returned to the field a few minutes later, throwing his hands up and playing to the reduced crowd in attendance, one couldn’t help but think back to that moment with Franks two years ago. “The Brawl”—much like “The Shush”—has the potential to define a season. As such, before contemplating how it could affect the No. 8 Gators matchup on Saturday versus the No. 5 Georgia Bulldogs, let’s have one last talk as to what it was. The Brawl was a result of, well, several things. Some would justifiably argue that it came about when Mullen stormed to mid-field and yelled at the officials and simultaneously, whether intentional or not, Missouri players. I’d back up a little father than that. Some would justifiably argue that it came about when Tigers Trajan Jeffcoat laid a late and clearly illegal—albeit not intentionally dirty—hit on Gators quarterback Kyle Trask. I’d back up a little farther than that. The hit wasn’t flagged and it was a long list of blatantly questionable calls made throughout the first half on both teams. By the time Mullen—who was watching the ball be batted down in the endzone off the Hail Mary—was told on the sidelines about the hit, it was the tipping point. While we can readily agree there were better, more civil ways to handle being upset, it’s hard to judge Mullen or the Florida players too hard for essentially defending their quarterback. Be displeased with the methods, sure. But one can’t dispute the motivation. Quarterback Kyle Trask, who typically keeps his emotions three decibels below comatose, sounded relatively and positively inspired and fired up after the win, talking about the way his teammates came to his defense. “It was really cool just to see my teammates have my back. At the end of the day, if that happens, the whole team is going to have to back you up. That’s just how this team is. That’s just what is so special about this team. Like I said before it really caused a moment for us to just come together in the locker room, come out and play a solid second half.” Mullen, who himself was in damage control mode (and a Darth Vader costume) by the time the clock hit 0:00 and said he was merely getting his players off the field, couldn’t fault his roster for their motivation either, even if he’d rather it have been handled more as “do as I say, not as I do.” “You know what? Our guys told them don’t hit the quarterback.” The Darth Vader costume was a nod to a cornerstone of Mullen’s coaching philosophy; coaches always get to spend Halloween with their families. Sure it might have fed into the narrative of the night that he was becoming the college football villain, but—like the Brawl—methods can be argued, but not the motivation. “It’s something we started a long time ago. Mississippi State. I read a book once and it was George Allen, I’m not sure, about never being around his family. It was written through the eyes of the family and the active family. You’re never around on holidays. It’s something we did a long time ago at Mississippi State was make sure coaches, especially those with young kids, would either come in super late at night or super early in the morning and you'd be able to take your kids trick or treating. “As your kids grew up, they could say, ‘Hey, was my family’s football coach never around.’ You do look at it. My daughter is nine. I think she spent three out of the last four Christmas’s in a hotel. At nine years old. Six, seven eight and nine, we’re in a hotel room, I’m guessing. I know it’s been a couple. That’s hard. It’s something we always did. This costume here, as you said, it’s suitable tonight. I didn’t pick this out after the game.” The defining moment for the night though came after the brawl. Mullen’s return to the field to pump up the crowd was not the first time he’d participated in such an act. He did so during the LSU game in 2018 and the Auburn game in 2019. He emerged before the team in his first home game to ask for a raucous response and has never been above leading the “towel guys” that are employed with keeping the team juiced during games. The timing of all of this, on top of the fight, made it a definite heel turn. It’s a reaction and attitude that wouldn’t work at a lot of programs but fits perfectly for the Florida Gators. Mullen has long held Urban Meyer’s coaching style and Steve Spurrier’s personality. Both were on display Saturday night. Now he just needs to beat Georgia. The brawl and the fight shone in that moment, much like the fire lit by Feleipe Franks all those Saturday’s ago, could be the catalyst to finally getting over that hump. “The halftime thing did like put some fuel to the fire, because we went back out there with the mindset that we don’t wanna even let these boys score. We didn’t want to let them have nothing. That was the kind of the mindset we had,” says redshirt freshman corner Jaydon Hill. Adds senior receiver Tre Grimes, “I think all of the players saw that everyone has each other’s back. When it comes to our quarterback, nobody needs to touch him. That was just something that I feel like the quarterback knew that we always have his back and everybody has each other’s back. That did light a flame for everybody. We know that if one man goes down we’re all going to go down. I think that is going to carry over and it will have a fire into this week. “We need everything we can get. We’re very excited. We’re very hyped to go out there and show the world that we are the best team in the country and we’re looking forward to showing everybody what we can do this Saturday.”

Florida's coach became a piñata for the national media. (GatorBait Photo) So Dan Mullen has been a little bit eccentric lately, barking at the Harvest Moon like a semi-possessed bounty hunter tracking his prey, dodging in and out of character from a New Hampshire nice guy to the pissed off dude on the sidelines, at times losing track while trying to shepherd his tribe back onto a path of equanimity. Perhaps imbued with a touch of fall madness and human quirkiness. Personally, I like my coaches a little bit quirky, if not downright eccentric. Some also like their presidents that way. And, frankly, so do many Gator fans. “At last, we’ve got a coach again that is hated by everybody in the SEC,” a fan texted me this week after Mullen was fined $25,000 and reprimanded by Commissioner Greg Sankey for his antics in the Gators’ 41-17 win over Missouri. You apparently can’t go out on the field to chastise officials and get into the face of your opposing coach, even if the clock is stopped at halftime. OK, a little out of control, but sticking up for his quarterback who was hammered on a late hit. Some his friendly contemporaries are casting a raised eyebrow at Mullen, the 48-year-old Taurus, who, granted, has been acting a little bit like a bull. However, to the contrary of what some amateur psychologists and out-of-town criers have been recommending lately, Mullen is not being fitted for a straight jacket. And on top of a halftime dustup partially inspired by Mullen’s emotional outburst, critics say, he shows up in a Darth Vader Halloween costume for a post-game presser. His critics are acting as if they were connected. I am pretty sure that Mullen is trying to become a different coach because he sees a different path to his success. Some media commentators are painting him as Coach Beserko, suggesting he be treated like an ax murderer. The other day on the Paul Finebaum Show, there was a jailbreak Mullen bashing. One guy even called for him to be fired. A number of out-of-towners said he should be suspended. I went on the Finebaum Show and pointed out that if only the officials called the late hit on Kyle Trask and taken control of the game, none of the halftime scuffling likely would have happened. Later, as my guest on The Buddy Martin Show, Finebaum admitted he had been caught up in the early emotion of the callers’ mob mentality in which he described Mullen as being treated like a “piñata.” In our chat, Finebaum and I finally agreed that the pressures of the pandemic and the high degree of uncertainty, plus fatigue, can make anybody a little crazy – including Finebaum himself, who came off a grueling 2019 season, got sick with a bug and then returned to his 20-hours-a-week talk show to fend off the loonies. He admits to not being himself for a while and said he could understand Mullen’s angst. Who among us hasn’t been a little wacky during these Pandemic Days? Just figuring out the sports calendar is yeoman’s work. Did they play the World Series yet? What? The Masters is next week, in November? What did you mean that the Florida-Florida State game isn’t being played? And by the way, have seen my glasses? And get off my lawn! And YOU – get outta my chair … oh wait, wait, that’s my wife. Sorry honey. We’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately, quarantined here these last eight months. Kiss your what? On the flip side, Mullen’s team is suddenly playing with an edge. Many Gator fans are embracing his bold new don’t-give-a-damn, I’ll kick-your-ass persona. His eye-for-an-eye Old Testament response to seeing his star-quarterback being cold-cocked late at the echo-of-the-echo of the whistle by a Missouri lineman with no yellow flag thrown drove him over the edge. And he wound up where he shouldn’t have been: On the field, stalking the white hat, in the face of his coaching adversary, then pulling his team off to the locker room, only to stop for a few pom-pom moments and jack up a handful of end zone patrons. Which brings us to Mullen, himself quarantined about 10 days with Covid-19, trying to coach a football team, itself half-infected with the virus, put on pause for nearly three weeks. And when the team had showed up in late August, not having a spring or any organized practices in 2020 -- not even certain there was going to be a season -- experts were talking about the Florida Gators as championship timber for the SEC East. No wonder Dan Mullen has been a bit eccentric lately. Haven’t we all been? Perhaps that explains a little bit some of his unusual -- if not downright bizarre – behavior. This is me playing Dan: “C’mon Gator Nation! Pack the Swamp with 90,000! They’re cramming them in Kyle Field, so why can’t we? I’m trying to win a championship here, but we’ve lost our edge at the Swamp, because our fans have been limited to about 17 percent, if not discouraged from coming to the games.” “I’ve got what? Me? Covid? I can’t have Covid! I wear a mask all the time and wash my hands. I can’t be isolated. I’ve got a football team to coach. And I’ll go nuts if I have to stay home for 10 days. Can’t I at least be in the booth helping to call the plays? Wait, wait, we’ve got how many cases?” “Hey, did you see that? They hit Kyle late! I’m not going to stand by and let my quarterback be assaulted while you swallow your yellow flag. That’s bull-----!” Most Gators are okay with lobbying the officials. Happy to see Mullen standing up for Kyle Trask. Thought the Darth Vader costume (unrelated) was no big deal. But didn’t like the appearance of Mullen stirring the pot while on the field. It was a mistake. He paid for it. Move on. So Mullen will be very much at the helm for this week’s Florida-Georgia showdown, the biggest game of his three seasons as head coach at UF because it has championship implications. It is Mullen’s Magnificent Obsession. "You know, I don't know,” he said in seemingly conflicting terms. “It's such a different year. I'd love to be a championship team this year. I would love this year for us to go on and win the East, win the SEC Championship, win a national championship.” It’s within his grasp, but in this quirky 2020, maybe it requires a little eccentric thinking. Mullen Presser: Seeking a path to a championship. (Buddy Martin photo) “I hope I never have anybody having to call me and saying, 'OK, when we have to shut down the world, how do we win a championship when that happens?' I hope this is just a one-time deal, because I think it's scvery unique, different situation from those. “I thought coming into the season we had the potential to be a championship team. I thought there were certain things I wanted to see us grow on. I think we talked about it, then you never got to see it through spring. We never got to see if we could develop all those things. But to be honest with you, I think that to be a championship team this year it's going to take something a little different than it would in most other years. And if we're able to do that I hope I don't ever have to replicate it the exact same way because we don't have to deal with what we are all going through again.” Wacko? Beserko? No, but hyper-focused on trying to consummate this championship run Saturday on the banks of the St. John’s River. I find this semi-normal for a football coach with eccentric tendencies – all the great ones have them – perhaps overdosed with hyper-competitive juices. I mean, Les Miles chewed grass, Ray Graves secretly smoked cigars and went pond-fishing in the Ocala National Forest with his hated FSU rival coach Bill Peterson, Jim Harbaugh has a fetish for $9 khakis, Mike Leach talks about UFOs and BigFoot, Woody Hayes wouldn’t buy gas over the state line in Michigan so his money wouldn’t go for taxes to support the Wolverines’ program. And it is said that General Robert Neyland watered down the Shields-Watkins field the night before the game. Of course, the beloved Steve Spurrier kept his foes off balance with numerous pithy, humorous jabs, dripping with sarcasm. One day he tried to goad fellow SEC coaches into donating their own money to the cause of players. He also ripped into Bobby Bowden and his staff for encouraging “echo of the whistle” late hits on Danny Wuerffel. A different kind of guy. Yet Spurrier remains the most revered Gator coach in history. And by the way, the HBC beat Georgia 11 out of 12 seasons, won six SEC titles and a national championship. If that’s “eccentric,” yeah, Gator fans will take some. Is there a championship on the horizon? Do you see a Gator? (File photo)