A WANDERING MONDAY MIND (1) The easy thing is to criticize Mike White for Florida’s 65-62 loss to Utah State Saturday, but all the coaching in the world can’t make the ball go in the basket. Say what you will about White’s offense, but the Gators had plenty of open shots and the ball wouldn’t go in the basket. Florida was 4-17 from the three-point line. Hit one more three-ball and the Gators are in overtime. Hit two layups – I lost count how many were missed – and they win. Florida once again played good enough defense to win the game. When you hold an opponent to 65 you should be able to win, but of course, that means shooting better than 32.3% overall and 23.5% from the three-point line. When the Gators are making shots, they can beat anyone in the country. When they’re shooting like they did Saturday, they can also lose to anyone in the country. (2) I’ve had it with players electing to sit out their bowl game to start preparing for the NFL. What a bunch of hooey. I can understand if a player has had an injury-filled year and he’s still not 100% healed, but to sit out for fear of getting hurt in the bowl game? Give me a break. There is a far greater chance of getting hurt during the 12 games (13 if you make the conference championship game) of the regular season than in the bowl game. If a player is that concerned about getting hurt and diminishing his chances of getting drafted in the first round or two, then he should elect to sit out the entire season, but that would be counter-productive since his draft status would indeed be diminished. So the reason players elect to sit out the bowl game? Here’s my theory: They want the money their agent is throwing out there at them and they’re being pressured by someone to take the money now rather than wait three weeks. So, sorry CJ Henderson. You’re only being selfish. Jon Greenard is playing. He knows fully well the money will still be there on December 31 (Gators play in the Orange Bowl on December 30). A player who sits out the bowl game is letting down teammates that deserve better. (3) Following the Fighting Clarabelles’ disaster of a performance in the New Mexico Bowl, HBC Jim McElwain said, “We learn from our failures.” Yeah, I guess you could say a 48-11 loss to a team that was averaging 19 points a game is a failure. And you could also say giving up 510 yards to a team that only once gained more than 400 yards in a game is a failure. It will be interesting to see if Old Yeller can consistently win at Central Michigan. I think he’s far better equipped to win at that level than at a Power Five conference school since there is far less media scrutiny about his inability to answer a direct question. It’s also a fact that he hasn’t coached anywhere long enough to determine if he’s got it in him to sustain success whether it’s at the MAC level or anywhere else. (4) How weird was it watching Washington whomp Boise State Saturday night. On one sideline you have Chris Peterson, the guy who really turned Boise State into a powerhouse, coaching his final game as the HBC at Washington. Over on the Boise State sideline was Bryan Harsin, Peterson’s offensive coordinator for Boise State when the Broncos pulled that stunning Fiesta Bowl upset of Oklahoma in 2006. Peterson is calling it quits for reasons only he knows for sure, but people who know him aren’t the least bit surprised because football has never completely consumed him. Harsin loves Boise. He grew up in the city, played QB for Boise State and all but four of the years he’s been coaching since 2000 have been at Boise State. Perhaps Harsin is a lifer who never intends to leave but we thought that about Peterson, too. Peterson said no to one opportunity after another to leave Boise before he took the Washington job in 2014. I wonder if Harsin is content to spend his career winning the Mountain West or if he’s going to get the itch to expand his horizons. (5) The more I watch college basketball this season, the more I am convinced there isn’t a single super team out there. Already, five teams (Michigan State, Kentucky, Duke, Louisville and Kansas) have been ranked #1 so far this season. Preseason #1 Michigan State is 9-3. Kentucky, which was in everybody’s top four and favored to not only win the SEC but advance to the Final Four, is 8-3. Last year’s national champ, Virginia, lost to South Carolina at home Sunday afternoon and is now 9-2. There are exactly three undefeated teams in all of Division I – Liberty (14-0), San Diego State (12-0) and Auburn (11-0). I will be surprised if there are more than two teams with fewer than five losses when we get to NCAA Selection Sunday. (6) CBS and the SEC will divorce following the 2023 season. CBS made a bid in the neighborhood of $300 million a year to retain the rights to broadcast SEC football but when the SEC didn’t accept the bid and sign on the dotted line, CBS walked away from the negotiations. Sports Business Journal says the SEC and ESPN/ABC are in serious negotiations to finalize a deal but that Fox Sports will make a presentation and a bid next month. Personally, I’m not thrilled at the idea that ESPN/ABC will get the exclusive to the SEC since it ties the league to one revenue source and will give ESPN/ABC far too much say in scheduling, etc. ESPN already gets plenty of SEC games in the Saturday noon and Saturday evening portals and lest we forget, the SEC Network is nothing more than an extension of ESPN/ABC. It’s probably a longshot at this point, but I do hope that Fox Sports will come in with a blockbuster bid that will blow ESPN/ABC away although I have to wonder how the SEC would maintain that 3:30 p.m. Saturday slot since Fox Sports already has deals going with the Pac-12 and Big Ten. (7) If Clemson can win a second straight College Football Playoff, the Tigers will enter the 2020 season with a 30-game winning streak and the odds-on favorite to run the table for a third straight year. Besides the usual weaklings in the ACC for 2020, the Tigers’ non-conference schedule is Akron, at Notre Dame, The Citadel and South Carolina. Win all the regular season games and then the ACC Championship Game and Clemson could head into the College Football Playoff with a 43-game winning streak. The all-time collegiate record is Oklahoma’s 47-game streak from 1953-57. Second place is held by Washington, which won 40 in a row from 1908-14. Since the 1980s, the top win streak is held by Miami, 34 straight from 2000-03. And now you know why Bobby Bowden remarked more than once that it’s a whole lot easier to win national championships playing an ACC schedule than having to play in the SEC. SOME SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL STUFF Alabama: Will there be some bad blood between Nick Saban and former DC, now Georgia HBC Kirby Smart? After speaking to Alabama QB signee Bryce Young’s father, Andrew Bone of Bama Insider reports that Georgia tried to get Young to visit Athens the weekend before Early National Signing Day and urged him to keep it all on the hush-hush. Auburn: BUCK end Nick Coe is skipping Auburn’s Outback Bowl game with Minnesota to prepare for the NFL. It’s not like Coe will be missed. Coe regressed in nearly every category after a standout 2018, dropping from seven sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss to zero sacks and three tackles for loss in 2019. Georgia: Now that Georgia’s attempt to snake QB Bryce Young away from Alabama has come to light, I have to wonder how that makes UGa QB signee Carson Beck feel? And, is Georgia’s attempt to woo Beck from the clutches of Nick Saban a clearcut sign that Kirby Smart knows Jake Fromm will declare for the NFL? Mississippi State: Some former Mississippi State players are calling for Joe Moorhead to raid the Florida staff to bring back Jamar Chaney to coach the linebackers. Chaney, who played linebacker for Dan Mullen at MSU, works at the assistant director of player personnel at Florida. Tennessee: Lamonte Turner, last year’s SEC Sixth Man of the Year, has been diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, which occurs when blood vessels or nerves between the collarbone and ribs are compressed, causing pain, numbness and weakness. Turner will have season-ending surgery. ESPN GRADES SEC RECRUITING CLASSES National rank in parenthesis (2) Alabama: A+; (4) Georgia: A+; (5) LSU: A+; (6) Auburn: A; (7) Texas A&M: A; (8) FLORIDA: A; (16) South Carolina: A-; (18) Tennessee: B+; (23) Kentucky: B; (24) Mississippi State: B+; (41) Ole Miss: C+; (NR) Arkansas: C; (NR) Vanderbilt: C; (NR) Missouri: C GOOD QUOTES FOR MONDAY From Christian Caple of The Athletic, Chris Peterson on why he decided it was time to retire as the football coach at Washington: “I’m not burnt out. That didn’t even cross my mind. I gave more of my heart and soul to this place this year, with the things that we’ve been through, than I feel like I’ve ever given. So it’s not about that. It’s about living true to who you are and are you enjoying this 24/7/365 job? And if you’re not, it’s crazy to either not change your mindset or change your circumstances. So it was time for me to change.” From Bill Connelly of ESPN, the sense of urgency for Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh to beat Nick Saban and Alabama in the Citrus Bowl: “To critics, though, he is firmly ensconced in the ‘can’t win the big one’ territory. He’s 0-5 against Ohio State and 2-11 against top-10 teams. His Wolverines have made two New Year’s Six Bowls and gone 0-2. He’s hit a roadblock in his quest to take UM from very good to elite, and it’s too early to know if he’s a Tom Osborne or a John Cooper.” RANDOM THOUGHTS: Stanford quarterback K.J. Costello has entered his name in the NCAA transfer portal as a graduate. Costello suffered through an injury-filled 2019, but in 2018 he threw for 3,540 yards and 29 touchdowns. Costello is one of 12 Stanford players who have put their names in the transfer portal … Bush Hamdan, who worked for Will Muschamp at Florida’s receivers coach in 2012, was dismissed as the offensive coordinator at Washington on new HBC Jimmy Lake’s first day on the job … Julio Jones became the fastest receiver in NFL history to reach 12,000 yards for his career on Sunday. Jones has 1,200 or more receiving yards for six straight seasons, the second longest streak in NFL history … Willie Taggart has hired former USF head coach Jim Leavitt has his defensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic. Meanwhile, USF’s new head coach Jeff Scott has hired former FAU defensive coordinator Glenn Spencer as his DC. Spencer was the interim coach at FAU for the Owls’ 52-28 Boca Raton Bowl win over SMU … Jameis Winston has thrown for a career-high 4,908 yards and 31 touchdowns this season. He has also completed 28 passes to the other team, easily the most in all of the NFL … Since taking over as the starting QB for the Denver Broncos, rookie Drew Lock is 3-1 with 834 passing yards and six touchdown passes. He’s played well enough that the Broncos just might feel the need to shop veteran Joe Flacco in the offseason .. Major League Baseball is discussing the possibility of computer-called balls and strikes in the Florida State League in the 2020 season.

“So the index finger is the last one off the ball.” Brian Johnson motions out with his right arm, dropping each digit, mimicking a ball coming smoothly out of his hand. “Like a revolver chamber, just spin it and that ball spins like a spiral. So you really wanna guide that index finger being the last one off the ball to get the ball to spin in that motion.” The Florida Gators quarterbacks coach is explaining what it takes to throw the perfect spiral…and therefore what makes the act one of the most difficult things to teach young passers. “There’s a bunch of different things that can affect it in terms of like, if they grip the ball too tight, if they grip it too loose, if they hold it too far back, if they hold it too far forward, their release point.” It’s a lot of physics, he jokes. But it’s the physical act that perplexes the most passers. Off the field though, that’s where Brian Johnson has really honed a style that has proven successful. Finishing up his second year in Gainesville and fifth overall under head coach Dan Mullen, Johnson has proven his ability to coach the physics, the position and whatever role given to him by his former offensive coordinator at Utah. “It’s a guy that I coached a little bit, not a ton, but played the position, played at an extremely high level,” explains Mullen, continuing, “[he’s] a younger guy that related to everybody in the room. He’s extremely intelligent. He coaches the quarterback in a way I like them to be coached. He has his own personality to it. We’re different in how we coach them, but we work really well together in that way and have the same goal. He’s extremely intelligent. He brings a lot to the coaching and the technique part to the game. He has a great understanding of playing the position and what it is to be a quarterback on the field and obviously extremely intelligent within the scheme and game plan and play calling.” Mullen gets labeled a quarterback guru, thanks to guys like Alex Smith, Johnson, Chris Leak, Tim Tebow, Dak Prescott, Nick Fitzgerald—and now Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask, so deservedly so. But he quickly defers the credit to Johnson each time the moniker arises. When the two first met, Mullen was offensive coordinator at Utah and had just brought in Johnson as a recruit. He didn’t have much idea that Johnson would one day become his conduit. But then again, “he was 17 years old,” Mullen laughs. After Mullen joined Urban Meyer at Florida, Johnson stayed at Utah, went on to grace the cover of NCAA Football 2010 and following the 2008 season, he led the Utes to a Sugar Bowl victory. The latter accomplishment meant that Johnson’s Utes and Mullen/Meyer’s Gators were the only teams to beat the Alabama Crimson Tide, who had finished the regular season 12-0 and ranked No. 1. "I think what he brings to the table is, you know, his experience and playing on a big stage,” says quarterback Kyle Trask. “Playing big plays, big time college football like he did when he played. I think when he talks to us it's very relatable and very easy to grasp on to, just because he's been there and he's seen it all so, it's just very helpful to have him as a quarterbacks coach.” Johnson has had his work multiplied this season, essentially having to effortlessly transition calling plays for three very different types of passers in Feleipe Franks, Trask and Emory Jones. Franks completed 76.1% of his passes with five touchdowns and 68 yards with another touchdown rushing before his season ending injury in the third game. Trask has completed 67.6% of his passes, 14th in FBS, with 24 touchdowns through the air and three on the ground. Emory is clocking 65.8% with three touchdowns and four more on the ground with 224 yards. The fluidity to the situation is tethered to how Johnson has set up the quarterback training in practice. “We help ourself by how we train the quarterback in terms of the amount of reps that we give them in practice. Some places, the starter gets all the reps and the backups don’t get many at all but it’s constant development for us in terms of mental reps, in terms of actual physical reps as well and just explaining to those guys from the very beginning that as a group we have to learn from each others mistakes and understanding that the key to continuing development as a quarterback is not to make the same mistake twice. “There’s never been a perfect game of football played—Drew Brees came close [Monday] night. But he still had on incompletion right? So the ability for Kyle Trask to learn from a correction on Feleipe or Feleipe to learn on a correction from Emory or Emory to learn on a correction from Trask and kinda have that in your recall so when it comes up for you, it might be a completely different situation but you can kinda go back to that memory bank.” It’s a lesson that Johnson himself has had to rely on as he rose in the coaching ranks. He was hired at 22, giving him something permanent during a season when little else was. “Football didn’t work out as far as playing so I went back to Salt Lake and hung out that fall, I was doing a bunch of different things. I was a columnist for Salt Lake Tribune, I wrote the weekly column. I was doing radio, I was doing quarterback lessons, stuff like that, kinda just a bunch of little stuff. And right towards the end of the season, I had a meeting with Doctor Hill—Doctor Chris Hill, the athletic director—cause I was thinking about maybe going into administration.” Instead coach Kyle Whittingham asked him interview for the quarterbacks coach position. Johnson figured why not and went for the interview. He was hired and looking back, laughs at what he didn’t know then that he knows now. “I definitely feel like I’m a much better coach than I was 10 years ago. So you know, I think just when you get in as early as I did at 22 years old, you don’t know what you don’t know. So there was a lot of on the job training. Fortunately for me I was around some really big time coaches that helped me out and that I was able to learn a lot from and those guys really helped me develop as a football coach and as a person, as a father. “I had a lot of great examples to follow throughout my career so you know for me, the essence of it is, I think the thing that’s been the most beneficial is the ability to coach different guys different ways and understand that even though you’re coaching a group of guys and a position of guys, they all have different trigger points and different ways of learning. So how you transfer that information to where it makes sense to them is extremely important.” While each guy is different, there’s one thing that every college player requires. Johnson admits it’s the toughest thing to impart on to young athletes—much more difficult than any pass. "The biggest thing is teaching those guys that each play is independent. And understanding how to manage the game within each individual play and how to manage each situation within each individual play. And that stuff comes with experience; the more you play, the more you know…and then mentally with their physique, that they’re held to a completely different standard and once they buy into that, I think it really, really makes it a smooth transition for their development.” When Brian Johnson arrived in Gainesville, he was given the keys to a quarterback room that had little identity and even less confidence. That quarterback room sits directly across the hall from Dan Mullen’s office. But the head coach only pops in every now and then, entrusting his young position coach to handle the vaulted group. In just two short years, Brian Johnson has done just that. He’s given the group a greater understanding of their role, a wealth of knowledge that means they aren’t caught bereft and his own experience from which they can draw. And of course, how to throw the perfect spiral.

When talent is present, but execution is not, the game becomes more a battle of psychology than x’s and o’s. Thus is the coaching challenge Mike White currently faces with the Florida Gators basketball team. “Oh, 90 percent of it. That’s what we’re dealing with on a daily basis.” The Gators are young, which isn’t uncommon in college basketball but has long been an anomaly at Florida who has had only a single player leave for the NBA as a one-and-done in recent years (Bradley Beal). But the youth was overshadowed by the embarrassment of riches talent wise with freshmen like Scottie Lewis, Tre Mann and Ques Glover joining sophomores Andrew Nembhard, Keyontae Johnson and Noah Locke. Oh and don’t forget the graduate transfer hot ticket get of the offseason, K.J. Blackshear. Yet, White points out, “everybody’s got talent. Talent is nice to have and nice to work with, but production is what you need. It’s what we need…some of it is experience and age. Our young, talented guys have to grow up. It’s not enough, not nearly enough to be talented.” To some degree, especially in college, preparing the mental state of a team is just as much the head coaches responsibility as the game plan. It’s why sports psychology is a growing field and how people who never played a minute of a respective sport can still rise in the coaching rankings. If you know how to find the similar pressure points on a variety of people, then there’s a good chance you can motivate the assortment of personalities that make up one roster. Mike White understands this. He factors it into his molding of the 2019-2020 team. But this particular group—this particular diversification of dispositions—is requiring a shift in their coaches approach to focus considerably more attention to the mentality of each individual player and how it relates to another. “How to prepare this 18-, 19-year-old to go hard at practice today. How to talk this 19-year-old off the cliff because it’s not going as expected, ‘cause he’s not getting 25 a game like last year. You go thorough it every year, but I’ve never been through it to this extent, to this amount of exterior expectation, with this amount of young guys who are needed. We need these young guys. We’ve had some older teams. "I’ve said it to a bunch of people lately. This is difficult. It can be a good problem to have, too. I like our talent level. I like our guys a lot. This team is fun to be around. There are a ton of positives. But I have a newfound respect for some of these guys who deal with teams that are this young year in and year out.” It’s another candid moment from a coach who has never hid behind empty platitudes or excuses. Mike White is honest—brutally honest if need be—which means he hasn’t sugar coated a single part of the Gators season to this point. He sat in the post game press conference following the early season loss to FSU and lamented on the players buying into their own preseason Final Four prediction and hype. He questioned their buy-in and said if they were that over confident, “then I've really got my hands full." It can be scary for fans who think the sky is falling around a program that doesn’t know how to keep from being smothered. But instead, this has been an all-access look into perhaps the toughest part of bringing along a hopeful contender. The Gators are currently 7-4, coming off two games that featured perhaps their most complete win of the season—an 83-51 dismantling of Providence in Brooklyn, New York—followed by another loss that slipped from their fingers, this time to Utah State. The wins and at least more productive losses comes courtesy of what White calls a complete revamping of the offense. “We [originally] gave our guys a lot of freedom offensively. We were running a lot of freelance, old-school passing game where there aren’t many rules or set calls. It’s about screening for each other, using screens, reading screens, so on and so forth. When the lights were on, with a bunch of young guys and on TV, we didn’t respond well to that amount of freedom. As I’ve said a few times to friends and family, it was like watching six year olds in a soccer game.” The staff began to demand more structure, more set plays that slowed down the offense but helped the young guys grasp a better understanding of what was going on under the lights. And on Tuesday night against Providence, the Gators shot 51% while holding Providence to 21% shooting. Now they just have to find a way to do it at home. It’s in what should be the friendly confines of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center that White has found his team loose themselves the most, even in wins like the one over Marshall. “We get away from campus and we spend five-six days together in Charleston. We come together. We make a significant jump really both offensively and defensively, but especially offensively. The post-game locker room conversation, in an attempt to avoid [a regression], immediately went to the [outside] noise. To no avail. Whether you want to call it being comfortable, whether you want to call it feeling yourself, whatever. Four games in three days we come back and take two days off, watched the film as a staff we’re geek’d up ready to go to work, get better, continue riding that momentum and we had a really, really bad practice. We came back and had almost equally as bad a practice and played like [against Marshall]. “I don’t know sometimes who these guys are listening to. I don’t know what they’re reading. But we have a breakthrough when we all decide that we’re not going to listen to it and whether it’s positive or negative and we’re going to be connected and not worry about who’s scoring, who’s doing this and who’s doing that.” The Florida Gators talent was matched by their execution against Providence. Now they must find a way to mimic the performance. It’ll be their mindset off the court that determines what happens on the court.

RANKINGS DON’T ALWAYS TELL THE STORY When he looked at his 2010 recruiting class at Mississippi State, Dan Mullen couldn’t help but think he had signed a potentially career-ending class. “I was like, oh boy, this will be the end of the program and terrible players here,” recalled Mullen at his Wednesday press conference where he was assessing his latest batch of brand new Florida Gators. “Dak Prescott, no one has heard of the kid as a quarterback. I don’t know if he can even play.” There were others in that class like Josh Robinson, Preston Smith and Bernardrick McKinney who were essentially unknown when they arrived in Starkville but made a big enough impact that they got contracts to play on Sunday. “It’s like NFL player, star, star, star – like, not really high rated guys but turned out to be really good players in the end.” Prescott, in particular, has evolved into an NFL star as the starting QB of the Dallas Cowboys. Like every coach no matter the level of college football, Mullen wants to recruit the best players possible but whatever their ranking when they arrive on campus it’s all forgotten once practices begin. There is a correlation to something Dean Smith once told me about basketball recruiting to North Carolina: “Everybody scored 20 points a game and was a big star in high school. Not too many do it here.” The same holds true with football recruiting. The kids who are recruited to the University of Florida are typically the best players on their high school teams, but once they arrive on campus, it’s usually like starting at ground zero. It’s particularly tough for quarterbacks. In 1995, Steve Spurrier brought in quarterback Bobby Sablehaus. He was 6-6, 235 pounds and regarded as the best high school quarterback in the entire country. He threw sidearm but that was thought to be correctable. What nobody knew was that Sablehaus had bipolar II disorder, dyslexia and clinical depression. He didn’t last an entire year at UF under Spurrier’s very intense style of coaching QBs to say the very least. (To his credit, after leaving UF he got medical help, got a degree from the University of Maryland and now is a successful Hollywood actor). Spurrier brought in Rex Grossman in his 1999 recruiting class. Grossman was a hotshot up in Indiana but nobody knew him down south and he wasn’t that highly regarded nationally. The next year, Spurrier landed Brock Berlin, the nation’s top high school quarterback. Berlin was expected to start right away, but Jesse Palmer and Grossman were ahead of him. Grossman took over for Palmer after the Mississippi State loss in 2000 and never gave up the starting job even though Berlin was given every opportunity to take the reins of the UF offense. Grossman was the 2001 Heisman runner-up. Berlin ended up transferring to Miami. Fast forward to Florida’s 2016 recruiting class. A QB everybody in the country wanted but Florida landed was Feleipe Franks, flipped from LSU. He was the fifth-ranked pro-style high school quarterback in the country with ideal size (6-6, 220) and an absolute bazooka of an arm. Ranked #92 was Kyle Trask, who didn’t even start at Manvel High School in Texas. Trask got a three-star rating largely on the fact that Florida signed him to a scholarship. Among the quarterbacks ranked ahead of Trask were Messiah deWeaver (#11 nationally, signed by Michigan State), Devon Modster (#13, signed by UCLA), Logan Boyd (#17, signed by North Carolina), Jake Zembiec (#19, signed by Penn State) and Deuce Wallace (#24, signed by Vanderbilt). All but Wallace transferred out of their original school. Their combined stats through the 2019 season: 196-391 for 2,083 yards with 11 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Trask, meanwhile, patiently waited his turn. He redshirted in 2016, didn’t play at all in 2017, played in four games as Franks’ backup in 2018 (14-22 for 162 yards and a TD), then got his break when Franks went down with an injury in game three of 2019 against Kentucky. Since taking over as Florida’s starting QB, Trask is 213-315 for 2,626 yards with 24 touchdowns and only six interceptions. He has thrown for two or more touchdown passes in nine straight games and can set the Florida record with a tenth multi-TDP game in the Orange Bowl against Virginia. There are multiple points to this exercise. The first is, recruiting, particularly quarterback recruiting was, is and will always be a crapshoot. The second is that with liberal transfer rules in place these days, it’s far too easy for a quarterback who doesn’t get a chance to start early in his collegiate career to move on. The third is not everyone who is patient and waits his turn will get a chance. Sometimes it takes a horrendous injury like the one Franks suffered at Kentucky for an almost forgotten backup to answer the bell. To Trask’s credit, he’s absorbed all the coaching he can get in four years on campus and when he finally got the chance to show what he could do, proved he had the smarts and the ability to get the job done. If Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa and Georgia’s Jake Fromm bolt for the NFL, then Trask will start the 2020 season as the top returning quarterback in the Southeastern Conference. Not bad for a guy who was the 92nd ranked pro-style quarterback just four years ago. It goes to show that rankings aren’t always indicative of future success, especially at quarterback. Finding the right school, the right offensive system and a coach who knows how to develop a quarterback are essential, but even that is no guarantee of success. Sometimes, as in the case of Kyle Trask, it takes a whole lot of patience and persistence as well. HOLLOWAY WINS THE BOWERMAN In the world of collegiate track and field, The Bowerman is the sport’s Heisman Trophy. Thursday night, Grant Holloway capped off his brilliant University of Florida career by becoming the second Gator in history (Marquis Dendy was the first in 2015) to win the coveted Bowerman. During the 2019 outdoor season, Holloway broke Renaldo Nehemiah’s 40-year-old collegiate record in the 110 hurdles with a 12.98 time, which was the fastest in the world. During the fall months, Holloway followed up that record setting performance by winning the IAFF World championship in the 110 hurdles in Dubai. During his Florida career, Holloway was 6-0 in NCAA hurdles championship events, winning the 60 meter hurdles indoors three straight years and the 110 meter hurdles outdoors three straight years. He holds the Florida record with eight individual national championships. SEC FOOTBALL STUFF Alabama: Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy says he will play in the Citrus Bowl against Michigan and make his NFL decision after the bowl game. If he opts to leave for the NFL, Jeudy is expected to be a top ten draft pick. Arkansas: Sam Carter, who worked for new Arkansas DC Barry Odom at Missouri, has been hired to coach cornerbacks. Former Hutchinson Community College head coach Rion Rhoades has been hired to coach linebackers. Auburn: All-American defensive tackle Derrick Brown will play in Auburn’s Outback Bowl game against Minnesota. Projected as a first round choice in the NFL Draft, Brown says the risk of injury isn’t a valid reason to sit out the bowl game. Georgia: Kirby Smart has hinted there may be some staff changes forthcoming after Georgia’s bowl game … Five-star offensive tackle Broderick Jones elected not to sign with Georgia during the Early National Signing Period. If you have been known to wager on such things, put your money on Auburn in February. Kentucky: Backup quarterback Walker Wood has entered his name in the NCAA transfer portal. LSU: The LSU offensive line was honored with the 2019 Joe Moore Trophy, given to the nation’s most outstanding offensive line each season. Last season’s winner was Oklahoma, LSU’s opponent in the College Football Playoff semifinal. Mississippi State: Linebackers coach Chris Marve is expected to leave for Florida State where he will also coach linebackers. Missouri: David Gibbs will remain with the Missouri staff as the cornerbacks coach. Ole Miss: Lane Kiffin may elect to keep Mike MacIntyre as his defensive coordinator … Kiffin is also trying to hire Texas A&M tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley. South Carolina: Speaking of the negativity faced on the recruiting trail, HBC Will Muschamp said, “About 90% of it is not true from some of our lovely competitors.” Tennessee: Offensive lineman Marcus Tatum, who started three games in 2019, is transferring to UCF where he will be immediately eligible … Linebacker Shanon Reid, who took a redshirt in 2019, has transferred to D1AA Illinois State. Texas A&M: Tight end Glenn Beal, who put his name in the NCAA transfer portal last month, has changed his mind and is back practicing per HBC Jimbo Fisher. Vanderbilt: Quarterback Mo Hasan has entered his name in the NCAA transfer portal. Hasan’s 15 minutes of fame in the 2019 season came against Missouri when he completed 7-11 passes for 120 yards in leading the Commodores to an upset over then 21st-ranked Missouri. Hasan suffered a concussion in that game and then missed most of the rest of the seasons. GOOD QUOTES FOR FRIDAY From Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic, Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany on what it will take to get the College Football Playoff to expand beyond the current four-team model: “Probably the fastest way to get an expansion would be if the ACC or the SEC were left out. I don’t wish that on anybody, but I don’t think you fully appreciate the damage tha’s done when conferences are left out two years, three years, four years in a row. Moreover, the big point I would make is that there’s probably seven major interests in college football and really, what I’ve concluded is that the College Football Playoff is only serving maybe two, three or four of those interests.” More Delany on expanding the College Football Playoff beyond the current four-team model: “I think it may happen over the next six years, but I don’t think it’s inevitable that happens in the next six years. There will be an awful lot of contractual collaboration, political collaboration and agreement among coaches, administrators, presidents and networks as to what the best path forward is. Do I think it’ll happen at the end of that period (when the initial 12-year contract expires in 2026)? I would think it probably would, but there’s a long way to go with a lot of other challenges and responsibilities to execute between now and then. But it is being looked at, it has been looked at and it will be looked at. But what we have is an improvement over what we had.” RANDOM THOUGHTS: Oklahoma has suspended three players for the Peach Bowl College Football Playoff semifinal with LSU, among them leading pass rusher Ronnie Perkins (6.0 sacks, 13.5 tackles for loss) and third leading rusher (515 yards, five touchdowns) Rhamondre Stevenson ... The bowl season begins today. I’m sure you will all be riveted to your TV screens to see Buffalo and Charlotte in the Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl and Utah State and Kent State in the Tropical Smoothie Café Frisco Bowl … Among the coaches who are up for the Pro Football Hall of Fame are Bill Cowher, Dick Vermeil, Jimmy Johnson and Don Coryell. Alex Karras and Tommy Nobis are among the players who are nominated for the Hall. I still have a difficult time understanding why Wilber Marshall has never been on the ballot.

REALITY CHECK The sky is not falling. The sun hasn’t gone dark on us. Tidal waves have not wiped out large portions of the Atlantic and Pacific coast lines in the United States. Global warming did not wipe out humanity yesterday. Yet, there are some who follow University of Florida recruiting who tend to think that we have witnessed an unprecedented disaster of epic proportions all because the Gators are either seventh (Rivals and ESPN) or eighth (247Sports) in the recruiting rankings. Before I get into the absurdity of calling this class a disaster or a disappointment, I’ll use an example that hopefully will cause some of you to step off the ledge. Since 2012, Clemson is 100-11 with two national championships, a runner-up finish and, counting this year, five consecutive College Football Playoff berths. During that same time, Clemson has put together FOUR top ten recruiting classes per 247Sports – 2015 (9), 2018 (7), 2019 (10) and 2020 (1). So, does Dabo Swinney have a magic potion that turns average players into the type that can win championships? Is Clemson doing it with smoke and mirrors? Or maybe – just maybe – Dabo and his staff recruit players that fit best in the Clemson system and then focus in on developing them? Obviously, they’re doing something right. Another example is Steve Spurrier. Stevie Wonder was at Florida for 12 years, during which time Georgia typically was credited with better recruiting classes than Spurrier and the Gators. From 1990-2001, Florida went 122-27-1, won six Southeastern Conference championships, lost in the 1995 national championship game and then beat FSU for the 1996 national title. From 1990-200, Georgia was 88-51-1, and not only didn’t win a single SEC championship but didn’t even win the SEC once. There are a lot of theories about Spurrier and recruiting, but people I know and trust who will forget more football in the next nanosecond than the average recruitnik will know in a lifetime, attribute Florida’s success to Spurrier finding players who best fit his system and then developing them. With that in mind, I’ll make a rather rational defense of Dan Mullen and his 2020 recruiting class. Does it ooze with star power? Not necessarily, it is a solid class that more than meets depth issues at nearly every position. Take wide receiver, for example. I asked Mullen at his press conference what is his ideal number of wide receivers on scholarship. His answer: TEN. Counting the seven the Gators already had on scholarship and the two – Texas transfer Jordan Pouncey and Ja’Quavian Fraziars – that signed Wednesday, that means UF has NINE on scholarship, which means there is one vacancy that could be filled, for example, by Leonard Manuel (committed but didn’t sign), Marc Britt (committed but didn’t sign), graduate transfer (from Michigan) Tarik Black or Penn State transfer Justin Shorter. Should the Gators be worried about losing Sam Brown to West Virginia? Not really, and I can all but guarantee you that Sam Brown isn’t as good as Fraziars The Gators added four quality offensive linemen so now there are 16. They added seven in the secondary so there are 17 DBs. Mullen said he’d like to have four quarterbacks (Anthony Richardson makes three) so there is a need to add one more there, either by transfer or a developmental kid who doesn’t mind redshirting and sitting for at least three years. Running back needs one more, but Mullen pointed out he’s not done recruiting and there is every good chance Florida will wind up in February with Henry Parrish, the former Pitt commitment who is the best running back in South Florida. Even without Tim Smith, the defensive line class might be the best in the country. The Smith situation might have a silver lining, however. Clyde Pinder Jr. didn’t sign with North Carolina on Wednesday. A few people who know a lot more about recruiting than I do say it’s very likely he was waiting to see what Smith did. Had Smith signed with Florida, Pinder would be a Tar Heel today. That Smith went ahead and signed with Alabama, they tell me, means Pinder is about 90% certain to sign with the Gators. Add Pinder to a D-line class that has Gervon Dexter, who is all but assured of getting his fifth star, Johnnie Brown, Jalen Lee and Lamar Goods and the Gators have their best group since 2010 when Dominique Easley and Sharrif Floyd signed. Given that the Gators have Georgia transfer Brenton Cox Jr. eligible next year and they signed Antwaun Powell Wednesday, I don’t think it’s worth losing even a second of sleep over the loss of Donnell Harris. He’s a good player and the Gators wanted him, but he would have been an extra, not a necessity. A quick story on Harris. He was 190 when he visited Florida during the summer. He was 220 when he came to UF in the fall and that’s when he got his offer. Do I blame Florida for slow playing him back when he was 190? Hardly. I could probably go on with comparisons, but instead I’ll simply point out the following: (1) Dan Mullen has won 20 games in two seasons at UF. He has filled in nearly all the holes in the roster with quality players to the point where the Gators have the kind of depth you have to have to win big in the Southeastern Conference. The fact that he’s won 20 with all the deficits left behind by the previous coach is fairly amazing. (2) Mullen really likes the players he landed in this class. Maybe he didn’t get everybody he wanted but he got players that (a) want to be Gators and (b) fit into the system he’s running. (3) Mullen isn’t going to sell out his soul for stud recruiters who are average coaches. Alabama did that in 2018 and while Nick Saban got a lot of very good football players in that recruiting class, but on the field coaching lagged behind. Alabama got by on talent alone until Clemson came along in the national championship game and blew the Crimson Tide’s doors off. Alabama is still paying the price for that goof up. (4) What Mullen did at Mississippi State was a testament to exceptional talent evaluation and then player development. If you’ve ever been to Starkville then you know exactly what I’m talking about. He wasn’t ever going to get the guys that Alabama and LSU land every year so he had to beat the bushes to find the players and then develop them. He hasn’t gone brain dead since he left Mississippi State. He’s recruiting better players now than he did at MSU and now he almost has Florida’s depth where he wants and needs it to be. (5) I’ve said this before but I’m not at all sure how many of you understand how far relationships had sunk between the Florida coaching staff and high school coaches in the state. It has been an uphill battle since the day Mullen arrived on campus and things have improved exponentially. Are relationships fully repaired? No, but they’re getting a whole lot better. So do us all a favor. Step back off the ledge. Give Mullen and his staff an opportunity to develop the talent that has been accumulated. Florida is far better off now than it was when Mullen took over and things are only going to get better. Recruiting is good. It will get better. Winning does that for you and the winning is only just beginning.

THEY CALL HIM FLIPPER No I’m not talking about the TV show in the 1960s. I’m talking about Dan Mullen, maybe as good a flipper as there is in the world of college football recruiting. When the dust settles in the Early National Signing Period (starts at 7 a.m. today), Mullen should have no fewer than six signed letters of intent from players who were originally committed somewhere else. The six: LB Derek Wingo (6-2, 215, Fort Lauderdale, FL St. Thomas Aquinas), who was originally committed to Penn State; CB Ethan Pouncey (6-1, 175, Winter Park, FL), who was originally committed to Texas; OT Issaiah Walker (6-4, 309, Miami, FL Norland), who was originally committed to South Carolina; DT Jalen Lee (6-3, 295, Watson, LA Live Oak), who was originally committed to LSU; OT Gerald Mincey (6-5, 300, Fort Lauderdale, FL Cardinal Gibbons), who was originally committed to Kentucky; and Joshua Braun (6-7, 335, Live Oak, FL Suwannee), who was originally committed to Georgia. A seventh flip, safety Mordecai McDaniel (6-1, 190, Washington, DC, St. John’s College Prep), who was committed to Tennessee, may or may not sign today. Mullen and staff are still trying to flip these guys: DT Timothy Smith (6-4, 320, Sebastian, FL Sebastian River), who is committed to Alabama; DT Clyde Pinder Jr. (6-1, 305, Seffner, FL Armwood), who is committed to North Carolina; LB Donnell Harris (6-4, 225, Miami, FL Gulliver Prep), who is committed to Texas A&M. The Gators are very much in it for these guys who have decommitted from another school recently but likely won’t sign until February: S Avantae Williams (5-11, 175, DeLand, FL), who was committed to Oregon; and RB Henry Parrish (5-10, 190, Miami, FL Christopher Columbus), who was committed to Pitt. There is an art to flipping players and typically it has everything to do with relationships. Mullen doesn’t let the relationship die just because a kid commits somewhere else. By sticking with a kid even after a kid has committed to another school, Mullen keeps the doors open since you never know when an official (or unofficial) visit is going to go bad causing a kid to start thinking about what he’s actually done or the reality of living far from mama begins to set in. Mullen isn’t known as high pressure or one to spend a lot of time dwelling on negatives. Instead, he keeps the relationship cordial and lets the kid know Florida is (a) still very much interested and (b) still a very good place to spend the next few years of your life, both in school and playing football. If you’ve heard Mullen speaking about recruiting, he’s always quick to point out that Florida is a top ten academic among the nation’s public universities. He can point out Florida’s 20 wins in the last two seasons, two consecutive New Year’s Six bowl games and an academic opportunity that will speak volumes later in life. He can also point to a program that is well on its way to re-establishing itself as an SEC and national championship contender. By 5 p.m. today we should have a fairly good idea if Flipper has been at it again. If Mullen’s magic is working, Florida’s seventh-ranked class could move up a notch or two. GATORS OVERCOME FOUL TROUBLE WITH GOOD SHOOTING, DEFENSE Mike White got a nice indication that his young Florida basketball team is starting to grow up a bit Tuesday night in Brooklyn when the Gators overcame the whistle-happy zebra crew of Mike Eades, Jeff Anderson and Lamar Simpson to score a decisive, 83-51, win over Providence of the Big East at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn. Florida was whistled for 25 fouls, 15 on the big guys (four each on Kerry Blackshear Jr., Keyontae Johnson and Dontay Bassett; three on Omar Payne), forcing White to constantly juggle his lineup against the tall, physical Friars. There was one stretch when six straight Providence possessions resulted in a Florida foul. Although Florida spent large portions of the game playing small ball it didn’t seem to affect the Gators on either end of the floor. The Gators shot 50.8% from the floor overall (29-57) and 44.4% (8-18) from the three-point line. On the defensive end, the Gators limited Providence to 10-30 shooting overall (33.3%) and a miserable 5.6% from the three-point line on 1-18 shooting. Florida forced 15 Providence turnovers which were turned into 17 points. The Gators got 30 points off the bench and outscored the Friars 38-26 in the paint. Because of foul trouble, Blackshear played only 17 minutes and scored seven points to go with four rebounds but even with their leading scorer having a low production night, other Gators picked up the slack. Johnson finished with a double-double – 19 points and 10 rebounds to go with four steals – while freshmen Tre Mann (13) and Ques Glover (10) provided a real spark off the bench. For Mann, the 13 points represented a career high. Noah Locke scored 11, hitting 3-4 of his three-pointers. Andrew Nembhard scored nine points and had seven assists. Florida never trailed in the game. The closest Providence came after the opening tip was 4-3 with 17:58 remaining in the first half and then 8-7 at the 14:07 mark. The Gators cruised to a 37-22 lead at the intermission. In the second half, Providence was never able to get closer than 17 points (64-47) but in the final 5:18 of the game, Florida went on a 19-4 run to make this a statement win. The win improved the Gators to 7-3. They play Utah State (10-2) of the Mountain West Conference Saturday in Sunrise in the Orange Bowl Classic. SEC (NON-RECRUITING) FOOTBALL STUFF Arkansas: Sam Pittman has hired Hutchinson Community College head coach Rion Rhoades to an as of yet to be determined assistant’s position although he’s expected to coach linebackers ... Former Mizzou coach Barry Odom will be paid $1.2 million as the Arkansas defensive coordinator ... The new offensive coordinator could be either former FSU offensive coordinator Kendal Briles or former Houston head coach Major Applewhite. Auburn: Both Derrick Brown and Marlon Davidson have announced they will play in Auburn’s Outback Bowl game against Minnesota. Georgia: The Bulldogs have lost both tackles to the NFL. First team All-American Andrew Thomas declared Tuesday and will skip Georgia’s Sugar Bowl game with Baylor. Earlier Tuesday, third year sophomore right tackle Isaiah Wilson declared for the NFL. He hasn’t declared his intentions regarding the bowl game. Running back D’Andre Swift won’t announce his intentions until after the Sugar Bowl although it’s almost a certainty that he’s leaving early. No word yet from quarterback Jake Fromm. LSU: Joe Burrow’s Heisman Trophy acceptance speech has inspired more than $365,000 in donations to the Athens County (Ohio) Food Pantry. Missouri: Former UAB recruiting coordinator/tight ends coach Casey Woods has been hired to coach the tight ends for Eli Drinkwitz. Ole Miss: Former Florida State offensive line coach Randy Clements is joining Lane Kiffin’s staff South Carolina: Although he’s been demoted from offensive coordinator, wide receivers coach Bryan McClendon will retain his $1 million per year salary … Former Ole Miss strength and conditioning coach Paul Jackson has been hired to replace Jeff Dillman ... Former cornerback Jamyest Williams is transferring to Georgia State where he will have two years of eligibility remaining. Tennessee: Ryan Johnson, who started 18 games for the Vols, is transferring to Georgia Tech where he will be immediately eligible. Texas A&M: With Cam Akers having declared for the NFL Draft, expectations are that Aggie running back Jayshaun Corbin will transfer to Florida State. GOOD QUOTES FOR WEDNESDAY Dane Brugler of The Athletic on Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm who is debating whether to return for his senior season or declare for the NFL: “Fromm might be the fifth quarterback drafted if he comes out in this class, but that could be an enormous positive if it means he is drafted by a playoff team outside the top-20 picks. On the flip side, he could return to school and improve his draft grade, only to be drafted into a worse situation. So while I understand that all angles must be considered for. Decision of this magnitude, the No.1 question Fromm needs to ask himself isn’t what is my draft grade, but am I ready? Or would another year of college experience make me a better quarterback? Is Georgia currently set up so I’ll get considerably better next year or have I learned all I can from this coaching staff? The NFL isn’t a developmental league and so it is certainly beneficial to put yourself in the best position possible for a long-term career. Being drafted higher is great, but that second contract should be the goal.” Max Olson of The Athletic on the phenomenon of quarterbacks transferring to another school and then having great success: “This year’s College Football Playoff helps reinforce the line of thinking that winning a national championship requires finding an elite QB. These coaches recognized you’ve got to go get one, regardless of the attrition cost because the reward is too great. LSU lost backups Justin McMillan and Lowell Narcisse after landing Joe Burrow last year. Ohio State lost Tate Martell and Matthew Baldwin after taking Justin Fields this year. Oklahoma gave up Austin Kendall to get Jalen Hurts this year. But all three programs made the Playoff, and all three QBs became Heisman finalists.” Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network on why Alabama’s 10-2 season is a failure: “This season was a failure for one important reason: This season was about getting back to the national championship game and undoing what happened a year ago to Clemson. If you go back to August, there were two teams above everyone else: Clemson was No. 1 and Alabama was next. Every single pundit predicted they would meet again for the fifth straight year. This time, Alabama would get revenge. Well, it didn’t happen. Alabama’s measured by national championships. Fair or not, that’s the standard Nick Saban has laid down.” RANDOM THOUGHTS: Brit Hume, who was at a White House Christmas party attended by former Florida and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer, says Meyer told him, “I think I’m done coaching. Indiana offensive coordinator Kalen Deboer is expected to be named head coach at Fresno State … New Mexico has hired Arizona State defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales as its head coach … Graham Harrell turned down Texas to remain as Southern Cal’s offensive coordinator. Harrell got a new deal from USC that will pay $1.2 million for each of the next three years … Josh Gordon has been suspended by the NFL for the sixth time since 2013 for violating the substance abuse policy. How many chances is this guy going to get before someone in the NFL figures it’s like throwing money down a rat hole because he’s going to do drugs? … Major League Baseball owners approved a rule that will require pitchers to either face a minimum of three batters or complete the half-inning. Could this be the end of managers parading what seems like 10 pitchers out there every game?

Early Signing Day is less than 24 hours away and the Florida Gators are poised to hold steady in the Top 10 while signing a majority of their 2020 recruiting class. GatorBait TV's Kassidy Hill is joined by Gator Territory's Jacquie Franciulli to preview what the day should hold for the Gators.

AS THE MIND MEANDERS (1) Wasn’t it about two weeks ago that Florida’s recruiting sky was falling, that the Gators couldn’t possibly catch up with the big boys in the Southeastern Conference unless Dan Mullen fired some coaches, hired some better recruiters and started landing highly regarded recruiting classes? Either Mullen and his staff have taken a crash course in recruiting in the past two weeks and put those lessons to work or else Dan had a plan all along and things are falling in place. Last time I checked, the Gators have the sixth-ranked class and they’re threatening to move up to the fifth spot by the time the dust clears on the Early National Signing Day on Wednesday. Florida could add more pieces to the puzzle before Wednesday, but already the Gators have filled holes on both lines of scrimmage and added vital depth in the secondary. There are needs at receiver and running back, but that seems less of a concern now than it did a couple of weeks ago. The bulk of the class will sign Wednesday but more will be added in February and we shouldn’t forget the grad transfer route the first week in January. Given all that Mullen has accomplished in two years on the job, Florida is going to be a very attractive destination, particularly for grad transfers who want to play in a high profile program that should have a chance to compete for the SEC and national championships next year. (2) Feleipe Franks graduated this past weekend. While he might not be able to participate in spring practice at his next place of business, he can at least transfer in and learn the intricacies of a new offense. I have no inside knowledge about where he is seriously looking but I would highly recommend Feleipe take a long, hard look at Duke, Washington State and North Texas. At Duke he could learn under David Cutcliffe, who has sent the Mannings (Peyton and Eli) and Daniel Jones to the NFL as top five picks. Cutcliffe needs a QB next year. At Wazzoo, whoever Mike Leach coaches will throw the ball a ton and get a long NFL look. He also needs a QB. North Texas may not seem like a great landing place, but Seth Littell needs a QB and the guy who just graduated threw 87 TDPs the last three years. (3) I wonder how many of the bluebloods at Southern Cal wish they had taken the interim label off Coach O back in 2013 when he took over after Lane Kiffin was fired and finished the season 6-2, 6-1 in the Pac-12? Although the USC players voiced their overwhelming support for Coach O to become the permanent head coach, the powers that be went with Steve Sarkisian who was treading water at Washington (34-29 record) and was whispered to have issues with the bottle. Sark was granted a leave of absence at USC after five games in 2015 and was fired two games later, replaced by Clay Helton, who is 40-21 and perpetually on the hot seat. Coach O, meanwhile, is 37-9 at LSU and has the Tigers ranked #1 nationally heading into the College Football Playoff. On the Rich Eisen Show last week, Bruce Feldman of The Athletic said, “They [USC] didn’t listen to the players. They didn’t listen to the staff. Ed Orgeron’s not a country club guy. I think he can relate to just about anybody. I think he can read people very well. I don’t think Pat Haden, who was the decision maker at the time, that’s just not the kind of guy he wanted and I don’t think he could get past it.” (4) Joe Burrow won the Heisman Trophy and is likely to be the overall #1 pick in the National Football League Draft in May. When I looked at the Athlon preseason magazine, Burrow didn’t even make fourth team All-SEC. Athlon’s top four – Tua Tagovailoa (Alabama), Jake Fromm (Georgia), Kellen Mond (Texas A&M) and Feleipe Franks (Florida). Phil Steele had Burrow on his third team behind Tua and Fromm. Lindy’s first three were Tua, Fromm and Kelly Bryant (Missouri). When it came to rating the quarterback units in the SEC, Phil Steele had LSU #4 while Lindy’s had LSU #6 and Athlon #7. I was sold on Burrow in 2018 when I watched him engineer LSU’s 36-16 poleaxing of Georgia and also when he threw for four TDs as LSU beat UCF in the Fiesta Bowl. (5) If you didn’t see Burrow’s emotional Heisman acceptance speech, then take 10 minutes out of your day and watch. You’ll have no problems understanding why it is his LSU teammates would take a bullet for the guy. As gifted as Burrow is as a quarterback, it’s fairly obvious that he’s an equally gifted leader. When he talked about kids from Athens County, Ohio who live in poverty and who go home to not enough food on the table, Burrow might as well have been talking to a good many of his LSU teammates who come from impoverished backgrounds. This guy just gets it. (6) Since the end of the 2017 season, seven of the 14 schools that make up the Southeastern Conference have new head coaches. I haven’t had the time to do the research, but I tend to think we’ve never had that kind of turnover in the league. I think there will be at least two jobs open up next year, one by firing (Derek Mason, Vanderbilt) and another by taking a job somewhere else (Joe Moorhead, Mississippi State). Nick Saban is the dean of SEC coaches. Next season will be his 14th at Alabama. Although it will only be his third season at Florida in 2020, Dan Mullen will be in his 12th straight year as the head coach at an SEC school. After Saban and Mullen, Mark Stoops of Kentucky and Gus Malzahn of Auburn will be tied for third at eight years. (7) Georgia fans overwhelmingly believe that the lure of leading the Bulldogs to that elusive national championship – it’s been 14,228 days since the last one but who’s counting? – will bring Jake Fromm back for his senior season. With Joe Burrow gone from LSU and Tua likely to be gone from Alabama, they reason that Fromm will be the best QB in the Southeastern Conference and that the Bulldogs will start the season as the favorite to win the SEC and make the College Football Playoff. Most of the NFL Draft gurus have Fromm going in the first round if he decides to leave Georgia. He wouldn’t be the first QB taken in the draft, but he won’t be next year either. He regressed from his first two seasons in 2019 and if he doesn’t get back to that 2018 level in 2020, he might find himself falling into the second or third round. So what will win out? Loyalty to Georgia or the ability to set himself up financially for life? I don’t think he stays if Georgia keeps James Coley as the QB coach/OC. If Georgia makes a wholesale change with its offense, I could see Fromm coming back although it would be risky. (8) Now that Ohio State co-defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley is the new HBC at Boston College will there be a reunion of Charlie Strong and Greg Mattison in Columbus? Mattison and Strong were the co-coordinators of the dominant Florida defense that destroyed Ohio State in the 2006 BCS national championship game. Ohio State HBC Ryan Day was Dan Mullen’s GA at Florida that year. Urban Meyer, the current associate AD at Ohio State, was Florida’s HBC. Urban, Charlie and Mattison are all very, very close and Day is Ohio State’s HBC because Meyer made him his successor. Maybe the stars and planets are not aligning but it certainly seems so. (9) Old friend Larry Vettel, living large in NYC these days, emailed with his thoughts about the College Football Playoff: “Four games on campus sites and then the final four as it currently exists. No guarantee for the Group of Five, but they still get a New Yea’s Six. Quarterfinals losers are also guaranteed New Year’s Six slots. If all the other levels [of the NCAA] can have a 16-team season for its top two teams, then the big boys can have it, too. Start the season a week (or two) earlier so each team has two weeks off to recuperate. Put the conference title games on Thanksgiving weekend, making great use of that Friday so fewer games are going on at the same time.” GOOOD QUOTES FOR MONDAY Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow addressing Coach O during his acceptance speech Saturday night in New York: “You have no idea what you mean to my family. You know, I didn’t play for three years. You took a chance on me, not knowing if I could play or not. And I’m … forever grateful to you. Can you imagine a guy like Coach O giving me the keys to his football program. He just means so much to me and my family. And to LSU, I sure hope they give him a lifetime contract. He deserves it.” Brody Miller of The Athletic on Joe Burrow’s journey that took him to Baton Rouge where he became the second Heisman Trophy winner in LSU history: “Burrow was raised in Ohio, but he finished growing up in Louisiana. It was at LSU where he finally learned how to cook, do laundry and service his car. It’s where he finally became a starting Division I quarterback. It’s where he went from an average SEC quarterback to one of the best in conference history. It’s where he became the man who can give that speech, let himself feel every second of the moment and embrace one of the most important moments of his life.” RANDOM THOUGHTS: Former Rutgers head coach Chris Ash is the new defensive coordinator at Texas … When Navy beat Army, 31-7, Saturday, there were seven passes thrown the entire game – by both teams! Army threw six, completed three for 25 yards and Navy was 1-1 for one yard and a TD … O.J. Simpson, we tend to forget, won the Heisman Trophy back in 1968. Since he won the Heisman, Simpson is a Heisman voter. He says Joe Burrow got his vote … The Oakland Raiders played (and lost) their last game in Oakland. Next year they’ll be in Las Vegas, which is kind of sad. I always felt the Raiders belonged in Oakland. I was sad when they left for Los Angeles way back when, happy when they came back to Oakland. Now they leave again and this time it’s for good … Urban Meyer watched from Dan Snyder’s skybox as the Washington Redskins dropped a 37-27 decision to the Philadelphia Eagles. That sparked off the charts speculation that Urban is going to be the Redskins’ coach next year. My guess is that Urban was there to watch his former QB Dwayne Haskins play. Haskins had a rather nice game – 19-28 passing for 261 yards and two TDs (0 picks) and 26 rushing yards. I’ll be shocked if Urban is coaching anywhere in 2020. I wouldn’t be surprised if he coaches again, just not this year and maybe not for another year or two … North Dakota State is in the D1AA semifinals. Again. The Bison are going for their eighth national championship in the last nine years. They also won eight DII national championships before they joined D1AA, their first in 1965 under the infamous Dr. Darrell Mudra.

Feleipe Franks noticed the little boy before the little boy noticed him. The child couldn’t have been more than seven, eight at most. He was standing on the edge of Steve Spurrier Florida Field with his family following the Florida Gators win over Vanderbilt, tossing a blue nerf football absentmindedly. Franks, still on crutches and in a boot from his season ending ankle injury, stepped over to the boy. “Hey man, wanna toss the ball around,” he asked. It took the kid a few seconds to realize who was talking to him and when he did there was a sense of awe as he timidly tossed the ball to Florida’s former starting quarterback. Feleipe threw back his crutches and walked the boy into the south endzone, where he had already made so many memories, and helped to give the kid one of his own. One couldn’t ignore the coincidence that this was all happening in the same spot that Franks had stood one day shy of exactly a year earlier and shushed his home crowd during a comeback win over South Carolina. As such, while there are a lot of Feleipe Franks moments that will last long after his time at Florida has come to an end, this was one of the best. It was a moment made of everything that Franks embodies; unassuming in a world that expects him to be outlandish, selfless in a position that would allow him to be selfish, working to make others smile during a time he could easily pout alone…and the man that Florida needed, grown from the boy that arrived. In that way, Franks and Florida have matured together, mirroring each other’s ascension while becoming inexplicably intertwined. At some point it becomes cruel to force a man to live within his worse time, so we won’t continue to recap the lows that Florida and Franks experienced in 2017. They’ve all been well documented. We’ll say only this…at a time when both were supposed to be flourishing, Franks and his program were searching, falling and flailing to find some sort of sense of who they were. The 18-year old who had perpetually been lighthearted and easygoing began to buckle under the weight of the world that was unjustly dropped on his shoulders. The arrival of Dan Mullen and thus a clean slate allowed Franks to start over. He did so by returning to who he had once been; the kid who entertains teammates with magic tricks, makes each act into a fun competition and unabashedly wears his heart on his sleeve. He healed and helped his beloved Gators heal in the process. There are many examples that can be given as favorite Franks moments at Florida, but here are the ones that made the biggest impact. Related: The measure of Feleipe Franks The “Heave to Cleave” If Feleipe Franks had nothing else, he’d have the 63-yard bomb to Tyrie Cleveland to defeat Tennessee as time expired. As a redshirt freshman with an opportunity to cement his place in Florida history, Franks scampered out of the pocket. He was supposed to get the team in field goal range. But the risk taker with a howitzer for an arm saw an opportunity and took it. He arced one to Cleveland in the endzone for the score that sent Ben Hill Griffin Stadium into “an insane asylum” and forever linked Franks and Cleveland to one of the greatest moments in Florida football history. The throwback pass vs LSU Franks was originally committed to LSU so there was an additive to beating them for the Wakulla native. The first big signature win of the Dan Mullen era at Florida will largely be remembered by the Brad Stewart Pick-6 of Joe Burrow in the waning minutes that sealed a Gator victory. But it was a trick play with Franks and tight end Lucas Krull that made it all possible. With nine minutes to go in the game and No. 22 Florida trailing No. 5 LSU 19-14, Franks gave the handoff to Krull on what looked like a sweep, employed some acting chops to hold for one second then took off towards the first down marker down the right side. The left-handed Krull turned back and tossed a perfect pass to Franks who muscled his way down to the 2-yard line. The next play, Lamical Perine pushed in for the go-ahead score. The 2018 Georgia loss Leading into the Georgia game, the Gators began to tentatively talk playoffs. A hard loss to their biggest rival ended those dreams quickly and the entire team took it hard. None more so than Feleipe Franks. But still the quarterback, with tears streaming down his face, walked his team over to the Florida band after the game to sing the alma mater. It was a humbling moment for Franks that saw the beginning of his shift towards emotional leader for his team. It was the biggest difference he helped wrought within the program. South Carolina game and shushing As Florida continues to find success, it could be justifiably argued that Franks heel turn was one of the defining reasons. Social media has created a world where athletes are bombarded ten-fold and in ways most can’t even fathom. For so long, Franks internalized every bit of that unsolicited criticism, harboring each word. Knowing that fans wanted Kyle Trask to start following the Missouri loss and knowing he received a second chance following Trask’s subsequent injury, Franks went out and played for his coaches, his teammates and himself. When he shushed his home crowd following a touchdown, it signaled essentially the end of his focus on everything outside the program and focused on building within. And strange as it may seem to say this about a quarterback telling off his own fanbase, it ended the mindset set in by the previous regime of “us against the world, even our own fans” because it finally meant any outside noise was being ignored, not fought. He said “be quiet, I’ve got this”, and the fanbase listened. He delivered on his promise. A year later, Trask shushed the South Carolina crowd during the 2019 win and said after the game, “yea I had to get that one in for Franks.” Peach Bowl MVP Presentation That South Carolina win in 2018 set of a streak of 10 straight wins for the Gators. The Peach Bowl win against No. 7 Michigan capped the Cinderella season for Franks and Florida. By that point, Franks had realized if he led this team as himself and not who others wanted him to be, they could find more success. It’s why, again with tears but this time of the joyful variety, Franks was able to stand on a stage and accept the offensive MVP trophy following the New Year’s Six win. It was the biggest bowl victory for the Gators since the 2009 Sugar Bowl win over Cincinnati. It featured two Franks touchdowns and a well-earned tip of the cap from Gator nation. The summer of 2019 The summer preceding Franks redshirt junior year saw him put his shoulders back and ask for the responsibilities that come with being the Florida quarterback. He arranged player only practices, took on SEC Media Days without shying from any questions, he stopped to meet fans when out and about and he introduced his family, like niece Jade, to the world. In short, he opened up to the fan base and willingly put himself out there, completely, for the first time since arriving in Gainesville. In turn, he helped reintroduce the Florida Gators to the national college football landscape and boldly proclaim their return to prominence. The speech after 2019 Kentucky Unfortunately for Feleipe Franks, the season that was supposed to be his magical year didn’t last long. In the third game, facing Kentucky, he went down with a season ending ankle injury. After being carted off the field, Franks was offered an early return back to Gainesville from Lexington. He asked instead to stay. He watched the rest of the game from the locker room with Dan Mullen’s wife, Megan, ignoring pain medication and extended treatment, just so he could be there for his team. And after the Gators came back from a 19-point deficit to win, Franks went on crutches to his teammates, told them how proud he was of them and made them promise to play every play like it was their last. Knowing that Kyle Trask was taking over the starting role, Franks elected to stick around because was this team’s leader, even if he couldn’t be on the field with them. The timing of his departure announcement By the time the 2019 regular season was coming to a close, Franks knew what his decision would be moving forward. This is Kyle Trask’s team now, Franks saw that it would be in good hands and he didn’t want to cause any uncertainty. But still he waited. Announcing his decision to leave the team before the FSU game would divert attention away from what the Top 10 Gators were doing on the field. So he quietly watched as Florida defeated FSU in the Swamp for the first time in a decade, a somber look on his face as he stood at the back of the crowd while the team sang the alma mater and then he walked off the field for what he knew would be the last time. The following morning, he returned and meandered through the facility as he said goodbye to the place that had shaped him. Then he made his announcement, the timing giving the coaching staff time to address the extra scholarship before early signing day. Feleipe Franks will be leaving Gainesville now, electing to either transfer or test the NFL Draft, but there is no bad blood, there should be no ill will and there will always be a door open to the guy who poured his heart, body and soul into the rebirth of a program.

BY: BUDDY MARTIN I’ve been around coaches all my life -- the majority of the last century. I’ve always found members of the profession mostly well-meaning, generous, bright, fun-loving, intelligent, giving, committed people. For the moment, we’ll sidestep the phony, egocentric, under-handed, cheatin’, hypocritical fakers/takers that we’ve all known. You know who I’m talking about, right? Well, meanwhile I’m getting a little concerned about the good ones. Because in addition to them fading away, so many seem on a collision course with self-inflicted pain and possible self-destruction. And while I’m not going to label them all as disasters, I’ve seen my share of coaching expirations and expulsions. Volatility comes with the profession today. Max pressure accompanies the mega-salary. There are no gold watches. Bear Bryant doesn’t live here anymore. The poster boy for modern coaches is Lane Kiffin, who just took his fifth head coaching job in 12 years at age 44. Steve Spurrier didn’t land the Florida job until he was 45. I take no joy in the site of a Mayflower van outside the home of an assistant coach or head coach packing for the next destination. And I can never forget the night I was attending a goodbye party for Florida assistants when one of them picked up a photo of a player on his piano and began weeping at the thought of not being able to coach him anymore. In recent years I have witnessed it from an up-close vantage point. It was while I was putting the finishing touches on writing Steve Spurrier’s autobiography, “Head Ball Coach,” that I learned he was stepping down at South Carolina. One day he went to his office, couldn’t remember the combination to something and decided he had reached his “expiration date,” as he called it. There were, of course, other extenuating circumstance -- like going 6-5 and nearly losing to his first non-Power Five opponent. But he knew it was time to go, even though he would take a mulligan for a year with the Orlando Apollos of the Alliance of American Football. Bobby Stoops was willing to walk away from huge dollars at Oklahoma over mostly personal reasons. And he was weary of recruiting teenagers. Urban Meyer’s meltdown at Florida caused him to step away, then come back, then resign from a program that, despite setbacks, was still on point to win more championships. I had just finished writing his biography. Nerves and exhaustion brought him to the mat, but in two years he was back up on the horse in Columbus, about to win another national championship. Until he wasn’t. All that did was make him the most desirable candidate for every job that came open. I was asked almost every week this season if Meyer was going to Southern Cal. And I couldn’t answer if Meyer would ever coach football again. I dunno, the Dallas Cowboys? There seems to be an abundance of jobs and paydays available. So let’s not have a pity party for these guys. Upon further review, we are not so much killing our coaches but maybe they are killing themselves. Some are falling by the wayside. Some are hanging on. And some are flourishing. Which brings to mind another reason for the coaching churn. Money. It gives them freedom to move about, to take a sabbatical, come back, retire and unretire. So far in 2019, 14 coaches have been replaced, some of their own doing. The other day, the highly regarded Chris Petersen resigned from Washington for personal reasons with no intentions of coaching again. All the signs of burnout were there. He admitted he had lost his love for the game. “It becomes a lot of frustration and anxiety and stress. And some of the excitement and positivity and optimism can be pushed away, and that's never a way to lead your life," Petersen said. Who will be the next Meyer or Petersen? And how tough is it for a guy to step aside from the profession he loves when he’s getting millions just to show up? And now this rush of new talent. Drinkwitz. Pittman. Lake. Never heard of them? Neither had I until they became head coaches of Power Five teams this week – two of them in the SEC. And so it also occurred to me: What happens when we run out of good coaches? That, of course, is a rhetorical question, but you get the idea. There are no more Belichicks, Sabans or even Mullens coming through that front door. Right now, Scott Stricklin is in Fat City at Florida. He hired the right guy two years ago and has a good chance of keeping him a while – unless, of course, Jerry Jones decides he wants Dan Mullen to be Dak Prescott’s head coach. Think about it: Though they got jobbed with a No. 9 ranking by the Selection Committee and low-balled with an Orange Bowl opponent in Virginia, Mullen’s team has a shot at winning a New Year’s Six bowl game and winding up in the Top 5-6 at season’s end. And Stricklin is cashing a big-time check after the SEC takes its chunk. No wonder the Gator AD looked so happy and sounded so giddy last week. We all know the story how Stricklin was torn about hiring Mullen away from Mississippi State, his old employer, after being turned down by Scott Frost and Chip Kelly. “No way Stricklin will take him from his old employer,” a UF employee assured me in late November 2017. Until he did. “Everything works out for a reason the way it’s supposed to,” Stricklin said in an Orlando Sentinel story by Edgar Thompson. “I’m really grateful that Dan’s at the University of Florida, and I’m grateful on a personal level that I get to work with him again.” Stricklin went on to ballyhoo the new $85 million James W. “Bill” Heavener Football Training Center set to open following the 2021 season and talked about upgrading the schedule with home-and-home series with Power Five opponents. “I think Dan’s going to be the head coach of the Florida Gators for a long time,” Stricklin said. And then Stricklin began to feel really, really good about the future at the University of Florida. Because he’s got his man. Maybe, as he says, “for a long, long time.”

SOUNDING OFF ABOUT THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF For once, it can be argued, the College Football Committee got it 100% correct when it came to the four teams involved. The order of the seeding could perhaps be debated but not the four teams that made it in – LSU, Ohio State, Clemson and Oklahoma. You have four conference champions, three undefeated teams and in the minds of everybody who’s paid close attention to the 2019 season, the best four teams. Four of the Power Five conferences are represented and the only one that isn’t – the Pac-12 – had a two-loss conference champion. Had Utah beaten Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship Game there would have been a debate over which one-loss team deserved that final spot – Utah or Oklahoma from the Big 12 – so the committee needs to thank Oregon for giving them a year without controversy. This year a four-team playoff seems exactly right. LSU, Ohio State and Clemson are unbeaten. Georgia looked like a lost ball in the tall weeds by the time LSU took a knee to end the SEC Championship Game. Once Ohio State woke up from its first half coma, Wisconsin didn’t stand a prayer against the Buckeyes. There are people doing hard time in Raiford for less than what Clemson did to Virginia in the ACC Championship Game. One-loss Oklahoma benefitted from Utah’s meltdown in the Pac-12 Championship Game, but the Sooners helped themselves by beating one-loss Baylor in the Big 12 Championship Game. To find another one-loss team in the top 25 you have to go all the way down to #17 Memphis from the American Athletic Conference. Memphis can’t argue it belongs because its loss was to four-loss Shirley Temple. Boise State (#19) is the other one-loss team and the Broncos lost to four-loss BYU. When you take a look at the four teams that are in the playoff it’s difficult to make a case for playoff expansion. The four that are in belong. You would have a hard time justifying the addition of four teams this year. Proof of that is #5 Georgia, which would get its doors blown off by every single team in the final four. Now, there will be years when an eight-team playoff could be justified without much if any controversy, but not this year and at least for the next six years there won’t be any rush to change the current four-team format. Here are some reasons why the playoff won’t be expanding any time soon: (1) The playoff is a result of a partnership between the bowls, the Power Five conferences and ESPN. The current College Football Playoff contract won’t expire for six more years. The money is so good that even when a league like the Pac-12 gets shut out for the third straight year the conference commissioners, school presidents and athletic directors aren’t about to complain. (2) Expanding to eight teams would add one more week of football which fans who plan to watch on TV would love, but it would be a nightmare for fans and boosters who plan to travel. Jeremy Foley once told me how difficult it is to accommodate basketball fans during March Madness but that’s with a limited number of tickets. “Multiply the tickets times ten,” he told me, “and that’s just for the fans and boosters. You still have to make travel arrangements for your team on short notice. You’re only dealing with 30 or so when you talk about a basketball team. With football you’re talking way more than 100.” (3) Adding another week to the playoffs would create untold chaos. Start with the Early National Signing Date. Because the ENSD is BEFORE Christmas, the playoff teams can get their recruiting done and get most of their allotted 15 practices in. Add that extra week and now you have to play BEFORE Christmas and that interrupts recruiting. There is also the teensy little matter of final examinations. Under the current format, a playoff team can get its finals out of the way, take care of recruiting and then have adequate time to get ready for the semifinals. It’s not so easy to simply tack on that extra week in January, either because you’re then going head-to-head with the NFL playoffs and that would create a problem with stadiums since playoff games tend to be played in NFL stadiums. (4) It would mean the teams that play for the championship would be playing their 16th game, which is the same as the NFL regular season. School presidents aren’t keen on the idea of another game and you might be surprised at the number of athletic directors and coaches who think the current system is too many because of the wear and tear on the players. Suggestions that the regular season be scaled back to 11 games will be met with deaf ears so that’s not a solution. That extra game represents revenue that athletic directors who have to balance budgets for a full slate of scholarship sports aren’t going to give up. And the five power conferences aren’t about to give up their league championship games, either. (5) At some point in the future, I think expansion to either a six- or eight-team format will happen but there are too many problems that will have to be worked out before a change is made. I think maybe four years from now when we’re nearing the end of the current four-team playoff some feelers will go out to gauge (a) the amount of interest in expansion and (b) the amount of revenue that will trump all the other arguments. Athletic directors faced with cutting sports will look at the amount of money that will be on the table for revenue sharing and they’ll vote their wallets to expand. I’m of the opinion that expansion will begin with the addition of two teams which would allow the five conference champions and one other team. That other team could be Notre Dame, a team that dominated the regular season then laid an egg in the conference championship game or perhaps the best team from the Group of Five. Under this format, I believe the top two teams would get a bye and the other four would meet at on-campus locations with the winners advancing to the semifinals. This format would buy time until all the kinks could be worked out to expand to eight teams. Eventually, I think eight teams will be the norm. The way the playoff is set, it makes it all but impossible for a Group of Five team to crash the party. That’s why I think the Group of Five should take a long, hard look at creating its own playoff. It would certainly give the smaller, less prosperous programs in Division I the incentive of a championship to play for. UCF, for example, could win a national championship on the field instead of doing something silly like declaring itself national champs for finishing a season unbeaten. We have national championships in D1AA, DII and DIII, so why not have a Group of Five national champ? It makes sense to me, but that’s probably why they won’t do it. SEC COACHING UPDATES AND OTHER STUFF Missouri: Charlie Harbison, most recently Eli Drinkwitz’s cornerbacks coach at Appalachian State, has joined the Missouri staff with duties to be assigned at some point in the future. Harbison has worked in the SEC at Alabama, LSU, Mississippi State and Auburn … UAB tight ends coach/recruiting coordinator Casey Woods is joining the staff as tight ends coach. He worked with Drinkwitz at Auburn and Arkansas State. Georgia: Linebacker Robert Beal has entered his name in the NCAA transfer portal. Beal played in 11 games as a true freshman in 2018, five in 2019. It’s unclear if he’s anywhere close to graduation since he could transfer anywhere and be immediately eligible. Texas A&M: Defensive tackle Justin Madubuike, who has already declared for the NFL, has announced he will sit out the Aggies’ Texas Bowl encounter with Oklahoma State. Ole Miss: The Rebels have agreed to a home-and-home with Oregon State. Ole Miss will face the Beavers in Oxford in 2027 and then travel to Oregon State in 2030. Mississippi State: Running back Kylin Hill will leave early for the NFL Draft but has elected to play in the Bulldogs’ Music City Bowl game with Louisville. Arkansas: Receivers coach Justin Stepp has been retained. COACHING STUFF FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Florida State: Mike Norvell got a six-year contract that will pay $3.75 million initially and will include $250,000 yearly raise. The total value of the deal is $28 million. The salary pool will be $5.25 million. New Mexico State: New Mexico State HBC Doug Martin calls allegations that he is a racist and forced players to play injured “ridiculous.” Martin says the allegations come from the parent of a player who has been “threatening me all year long.” Colorado State: Bowling Green tight ends coach Louie Addazio (Steve’s son) will coach tight ends and Ohio State quality control analyst Corey Dennis (Urban Meyer’s son-in-law) will coach the quarterbacks. COLLEGE FOOTBALL AWARDS NIGHT Maxwell Trophy: Joe Burrow, LSU Walter Camp Player of the Year: Joe Burrow, LSU Davey O’Brien Award: Joe Burrow, LSU Doak Walker Award: Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin Fred Biletnikoff Award: Ja’Marr Chase, LSU Outland Trophy: Penei Sewell, Oregon Chuck Bednarik Award: Chase Young, Ohio State Jim Thorpe Award: Grant Delpit, LSU Lou Groza Award: Rodrigo Blankenship, Georgia Ray Guy Award: Max Duffy, Kentucky GOOD QUOTES FOR FRIDAY Andy Staples of The Athletic on the chances Florida can make the big leap next season to make it to Atlanta: “Florida doesn’t look like it will have any huge changes, but the Gators will be coming off double-digit win seasons in each of the first two years of the Dan Mullen era. They’ll have an established starting quarterback in Kyle Trask, but whether they can ascend in the SEC likely will depend on what happens to LSU post-Joe Burrow and whether Georgia has an LSU-like offensive philosophy shift. If those two slip it could open the door for Florida.” Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports on how pairing Urban Meyer with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones might be a disaster: “There is no denying Meyer can coach college football. He is almost perfectly suited for it. The NFL may be the same sport, but it’s a different game and it would require Meyer to change not just the way he coaches the game, but his hardwired personality … The man is a control freak. He despises losing. He runs people around him into the ground. He abhors any voice speaking for the program other than his … If he ever was going to coach I the NFL, about the last place that would work is Jerry Jones’ Cowboys.” RANDOM THOUGHTS: Former Gator and Pittsburgh Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey and New York Jets center Jonotthan Harrison are finalists for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year Award given for outstanding activities in the community … Ten former NFL players including former University of Miami running back Clinton Portis and FSU receiver Tamarick Vanover have been charged by the federal government with defrauding the NFL Player Health Reimbursement Account of almost $4 million. It is being reported by the Washington Post that former Gator Reche Caldwell will also be charged … Anthony Rendon, who helped the Washington Nationals win the World Series, has signed a seven-year, $245 million free agent contract with the Los Angeles Angels. Rendon hit 34 homers and drove in 126 runs for the Nationals in 2019 … The Ladies European Tour will play a golf tournament at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in March with a $1 million purse. Will the women be allowed to wear skirts and shorts like they do on tour in Europe?

SOUNDING OFF ON A THURSDAY (1) The Silly Season approaches rapidly, magnified by recruitniks convinced Dan Mullen has lost his mind and is plunging the Gators farther behind Georgia because he doesn’t have a clue about recruiting. To those who think their world is about to end, I have this to say – take deep breaths, step back off the ledge, everything is going to be fine. This is not the same Florida football program that the previous coach was running into the ground. It’s not the same Florida football program that it’s going to be in a couple of years, either. What Mullen has done in two years is nothing short of remarkable but as much as he has accomplished, there is still a way to go. I’m not sure many people really have a firm grasp on just how wobbly the program was when Mullen took over. I’m not sure many really understand just how much Mullen has had to do – and continues to do – to repair ruptured relationships with high school coaches from one end of the state to the other. Where things are today and where they were when Mullen came to UF are light years difference and yet Florida is still playing catch-up. Florida is making progress on the recruiting trail, no question about that, but it’s a process. Anyone who thought this was going to be done overnight just doesn’t have a clue how far behind the previous coach had set UF back. It’s not simply a matter of firing assistant coaches to bring in guys who have reputations as stone cold recruiters. If you believe that’s the answer then take a look at Alabama and see how Nick Saban is paying the price for loading up his staff with recruiters who weren’t very good on the field coaches. All that staff turnover after the Clemson debacle back in January had everything to do with the fact that Nick sold his soul for recruiters and then had to endure getting hosed by a better coached Clemson team in the national championship game. The fact that Alabama is 10-2 this year and not in the College Football Playoff is a by-product of that error in judgment by Saban, who basically gutted his staff and brought in coaches who specialize in player development. One of the things overlooked by folks clamoring for assistants to be canned in favor of coaches who are viewed as brilliant recruiters is the internal value of the coaches currently on staff. I’ll give you two examples. (1) When Florida went from national power to middle of the pack in 2010, much of the demise had to do with the fact that Urban Meyer had lost Kenny Carter and Vance Bedford, who left for Louisville with Charlie Strong. Carter wasn’t a great recruiter but kids trusted him infinitely and went to him with their problems. Bedford was a better recruiter and a really good on the field coach, but like Carter, kids trusted him. The guys Meyer replaced Carter and Bedford with didn’t measure up and the Gators lost something valuable. (2) When you trace the demise of the FSU dynasty look at what happened when Chuck Amato and Dan Gladden left. Neither one of them were great recruiters but they were who the players went to when they had a problem. When they left, the dynasty began to crumble because Bobby Bowden didn’t adequately replace them. Mullen knows exactly the value of each member of his staff. If he’s not replacing some assistants it’s because he is fully aware what they bring to the table and that’s important to him. So to summarize, Florida recruiting is strengthening under Mullen and will continue to strengthen as he continues to (a) win football games and restore Florida’s profile as a player on the national stage and (b) rebuild the relationships that were fractured by the previous head coach and his staff. (2) I wouldn’t be surprised if Feleipe Franks has some serious discussions with Duke coach David Cutcliffe about going there as a graduate transfer. Cutcliffe has a well-earned reputation as a QB guru who runs an easy to grasp offense. Duke loses senior QB Quentin Harris (2,078 passing yards, 16 TDs; 510 rushing yards, seven TDs). Another place to consider is Tulane where Willie Fritz prefers dual threat QBs. Justin McMillan (2,229 passing yards, 14 TDs; 704 rushing yards, 12 TDs) graduates so there will be an open spot. Fritz has a reputation as a coach who does a great job adapting his offense to the skill set of his quarterbacks. (3) The American Athletic Conference placed three teams in the final College Football Playoff poll (#17 Memphis, #21 Cincinnati and #23 Navy) and for the third straight year placed a team (Memphis) in the available New Year’s Six bowl (Cotton Bowl vs. Penn State). If you want proof that this is the best Group of Five league then take a look at this fact: In the last five years NINE AAC coaches have become head coaches at the Power Five level. You can’t blame the coaches for leaving. There is substantially more money available for salaries and recruiting at the Power Five level so when jobs are offered they take it, but how much longer can the AAC remain the best Group of Five conference if it keeps losing its coaches? (4) For those who think we’ll see the College Football Playoff expand to eight teams anytime soon think again. If and when it expands it will be AFTER the current contract that calls for a four-team playoff expires. That is six years from now. (5) The New York Yankees signed pitcher Gerrit Cole to a nine-year deal worth a record $324 million. This comes on the heels of the Washington Nationals signing Stephen Strasburg to $245 million over seven years. I don’t blame Cole or Strasburg for signing such an exorbitant contract. Nobody held a gun to their heads and made them sign. I wonder if the people who give out these big contracts ever take into consideration they continue to pushing attending a Major League Baseball game farther out of the reach from average fans. (6) Maybe the New England Patriots explanation that their film crew didn’t knowingly break the rules when it filmed eight minutes of the Cincinnati Bengals sideline this past Sunday is legitimate. Perhaps, but given their history with playing fast and loose with the rules the Patriots have a whole lot of explaining to do. I am a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty but the circumstantial evidence lends the appearance that the Patriots are at it once again. (7) A committee of scientists has found that the baseballs weren’t juiced during the 2019 season in which home runs were flying out of Major League ball parks at a record pace. The scientists say there was less drag on the ball but there was no attempt at the Rawlings manufacturing facility in Costa Rica (baseballs are hand sewn there) to alter the ball in any way. I like home runs although I adhere to the old Earl Weaver philosophy: Baseball games are won by good pitching and 3-run homers. SEC COACHING UPDATES AND OTHER STUFF LSU: Defensive coordinator Dave Aranda was linked to the vacant UNLV job but apparently that was all smoke. Aranda is staying at LSU where he makes $2.5 million per year. UNLV was paying former HBC Tony Sanchez $600,000. Arkansas: New OL coach Brad Davis will make $550,000 as part of Sam Pittman’s new staff ... Barry Lunney Jr., who served as the interim head coach after Chad Morris was fired, is the new offensive coordinator at Texas-San Antonio. Ole Miss: The new offensive coordinator is likely to be Jeff Lebby, who is the OC and quarterbacks coach at UCF. Kiffin offered longtime Bama strength coach Scott Cochran an on the field coaching position. Kiffin is expected to hire former Bama DC (now Cleveland Browns DL) Tosh Lupoi and former Bama DL (now Detroit Lions DL) Bo Davis. Georgia: All-SEC corner J.R. Reed announced he is playing in the Sugar Bowl game with Baylor rather than skip the bowl game to prep for the NFL Draft. Kentucky: Special teams coordinator/secondary coach Dean Hood is leaving the UK staff to become the HBC at D1AA Murray State … Lynn Bowden Jr. has been named winner of the Paul Hornung Award, which goes to the nation’s most versatile player. Missouri: Appalachian State special teams coordinator Erik Link is following Eli Drinkwitz to Mizzou. South Carolina: The Gamecocks announced a home-and-home series with Virginia Tech. It won’t happen anytime soon, though. The Hokies will travel to Columbia in 2034 and the Gamecocks will pay a visit to Blacksburg in 2035. Auburn: The Tigers will host Mountain West opponent New Mexico in a 2024 paycheck game. Alabama: Defensive back Scooby Carter has withdrawn his name from the NCAA transfer portal and is back with the team. Carter has been seen participating in Alabama workouts. MORE COACHING STUFF FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Florida Atlantic: One day after FAU interviewed Kentucky offensive coordinator Eddie Gran, Florida Atlantic hired former South Florida/Oregon/FSU coach Willie Taggart. Taggart will probably do extremely well at this level. There is far less pressure and fewer booster responsibilities. Colorado State: In just three days CSU has gone from Tony Alford almost a certainty to Kevin Wilson trending rapidly to Steve Addazio is the new head coach. Addazio got a 5-year deal worth $1.5 million a year. UNLV: Whatever issues there were with hiring Oregon offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo have been worked out. They’re putting the final contract together now and Arroyo is likely to be named HBC today or tomorrow. Appalachian State: O-line coach Shawn Clark was the interim coach for three days. Wednesday, he had the interim tag removed and was named HBC. Florida State: Memphis defensive coordinator Adam Fuller will be joining Mike Norvell’s staff as FSU’s new DC. GOOD QUOTES FOR THURSDAY New Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin on the Dan Patrick Show, talking about former boss Nick Saban and when he thinks Saban will hang up the whistle: “I think he’s going to coach a long time. I do. What else is he going to do? He does golf, but he’s miserable. I mean that in a way in that’s why he’s good. He is singularly focused on the University of Alabama and football at Alabama, every minute of every day, even if he’s golfing, even if he’s on a boat. He has his recruiting calls to make every night, whether it’s Christmas or whatever it is. It doesn’t matter. Every day is the same. There are certain people like that. They’re almost like prisoners. You can’t go in the real world, like in ‘Shawshank Redemption.’ When Books Hatlen goes out in the real world he’s like, ‘I can’t do it. I need to be in prison.’ They come back.” Bruce Feldman of The Athletic on Rich Eisen’s radio show, explaining his theory why Ed Orgeron was bypassed at Southern Cal in favor of Steve Sarkisian after Lane Kiffin was fired: “I really think it’s a USC issue. A lot of people at USC, especially back in that Pad Haden (USC athletic director) regime couldn’t get past what Ed Orgeron sounded like. They didn’t listen to the players. They didn’t listen to the staff. I think at the end of the day, Ed Orgeron is not a country club guy.” RANDOM THOUGHTS: Major League Baseball announced that it will begin testing for opioids in 2020. This is a response to the death of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who had both alcohol and opioids in his system at the time of his death … The President’s Cup has begun in Melbourne, Australia. Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas won their first round match 4-and-3 over Adam Hadwin and Byeong-Hun An. Okay, I never heard of those two guys either, but Tiger and Justin did play well ... The New Orleans Pelicans are still without #1 draft pick Zion Williamson who had surgery for a torn meniscus back when the NBA season began. Reggie Miller tweeted out that he doesn’t expect Williamson to play this season.