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🐊 Bowl Game Day 🐊

Gator Sports
Jason Higdon • 1standTenFlorida

 

The Storyline: Florida & Central Florida – On The Mic

Florida and UCF match up for the third time in what will be the first-ever neutral site and postseason meeting between the two programs.

• The all-time series dates back to 1999 with the Gators owning a 2-0 record against UCF.

• Florida has an all-time record of 24-22 in bowl games including a 3-1 record across the team’s last-four appearances.

• The Gators are 8-3 in bowl games since 2009 and 10-4 dating back to 2006.

• This is Florida’s fourth-straight bowl appearance and seventh in the last-eight seasons.

• Florida is 3-0 against Florida-based teams in 2021, having defeated Florida Atlantic, South Florida and Florida State.

• In two previous games vs. UCF, the Gators have outscored the Knights by a combined score of 100-27.

• The Gators totaled 500-plus yards and 350-plus passing yards in each of the previous-two meetings with UCF.

• Across the previous-two meetings, UF has outgained UCF, 1,138 yards to 600 yards (+538, +269 YPG).

• Special teams coordinator/running backs coach Greg Knox will serve as Florida’s interim head coach vs. UCF. As a veteran of 20-plus seasons in the SEC including four at Florida, Knox previously served as interim coach at Mississippi State in 2017, leading the Bulldogs to a 31-27 win over Louisville in the TaxSlayer Bowl.

• Knox is 2-0 in his career as an interim HC after leading UF to a 24-21 win over FSU on Nov. 27 of this season.

• Florida is already 1-0 at Raymond James Stadium in 2021, having defeated USF, 42-20, in Week 2.

• UF totaled 666 yards of offense — the sixth-highest total in school history — in that Week 2 game.

• The Gators rank seventh in the FBS with 5.4 rushing yards per carry.

• Florida is one of five teams in the FBS averaging over 470 YPG and 200 rushing YPG.

• UF ranks 11th in the FBS with 470.1 scrimmage YPG and 21st in the FBS with 209.0 rush YPG. The Gators rank third in the SEC in total scrimmage YPG and fourth in rushing YPG. UF ranks seventh in the Power Five in scrimmage YPG and 13th in the Power Five in rushing YPG.

• Florida’s 5,641 total yards is the team’s second-highest total through 12 games in the last 20 seasons, trailing only the 2020 campaign — while the team’s mark of 470.1 YPG is on pace to rank sixth in program history.

• Florida’s 2,508 rush yards is its second most through 12 games since 2009 and fourth-most since 1990. UF’s 5.4 rush YPC is on pace to rank fourth in school history, while its 209.0 rush YPG is on track to rank 11th all-time.

• UF’s 209.0 rush YPG represents an increase of 77.7 rush YPG from last year’s mark of 131.3 YPG.

• The Florida offensive line has surrendered just 12 sacks all year, which is tied for the fourth fewest in the FBS and second in the SEC — earning the UF OL a spot on the Joe Moore Award Mid-Season Honor Roll for the first time ever.

• Florida has scored in 422-consecutive games dating back to 1988 — an NCAA record and 55 games longer than any than any other college football team in the history of the sport.

New Strength & Conditioning Coach

Gator Sports

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Florida head football coach Billy Napier announced Wednesday that Edward Thompson will serve as an assistant on the Gators strength and conditioning staff.
 
A native of Houston, he joins the Gators after spending the 2021 season as the head assistant strength coach and director of speed development at Louisiana.   
 
Thompson, who was a defensive back with the Ragin’ Cajuns from 2014-16, started his strength coaching career at Louisiana in 2017 as an intern. His resume includes stops at Houston, Georgia Tech, Austin Peay State, LSU and the New York Giants.
 
Thompson is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), and is a certified coach by USA Weightlifting, the national governing body for weightlifting in the United States. He is also certified as a speed specialist by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). 

Great Insight on Coach Napier

Gator Sports
From Gatorcountry, a great Gator Website……
 

Billy Napier’s overhaul at Florida includes program messaging and communication

By

 David Wunderlich

 – 

  

Florida officially hired Billy Napier on November 28. Today is December 21.

During the 23 days since the hire, Florida has announced 17 hirings to the football program on top of the retaining of some existing staff like Vernell Brown. The newest came today with staffer Kyle Kazakevicius. If it at times has felt like there is a new staff member announced every day, it’s because there almost has been.

That feeling appears to be something UF is creating on purpose. Some of the announcements have come days after the staffers have reportedly started work.

Instead, there is a message getting out there on a near-daily basis: Florida hired. Florida hired who? I don’t know. It’s hard to keep up with everyone. But that’s the point: Florida is hiring so many people, it’s hard to keep up. 

Florida hired. Florida hired. Florida hired.

It’s a marked change in the communications strategy for Gator football. The program is taking control of its own narrative and not merely reacting to things as they happen.

Dan Mullen has never been a good communicator. There are sections in Buddy Martin’s book Urban’s Way, published after the 2007 season, that talk about how awkward and off putting he could be back then. Nearly every account of someone meeting him tells of that person not liking him. Plenty came to like him over time, but it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that he’s something of an acquired taste.

 

On top of lacking the ability to read the room, he has an uncanny ability to say things in just the wrong way to allow them to get spun into something they don’t mean. The latest example of that was his “recruiting season” statement, which, when taken out of context, could allow someone to erroneously believe that he didn’t recruit during the football season.

There’s a famous quote from The Reagan Diaries by former President Ronald Reagan that gets repeated as gospel across both sides of the political aisle: if you’re explaining, you’re losing. Mullen had to do too much explaining as a result of his misstatements and general lack of effort on messaging.

Again, recruiting season. He had to go clean up that mess a couple of days later. Pulling the camera back, when the pandemic closed off most of the normal avenues of access to the program, Mullen walled off those avenues instead of trying to find alternate routes. He did little to craft a narrative for his team and project it to the world, instead receding into secrecy. With no alternate messaging coming forth from his program one way or the other, Mullen had no ability to try to get on top of the narrative once it started to turn against him this fall.

Napier hasn’t spoken publicly too many times as Florida’s head coach yet, but he’s been measured and precise with his language. Look up clips of him at Louisiana, and aside from his famous “scared money don’t make money” quote said off the cuff in a halftime interview, he comes off that way there too. If there’s one thing that anyone ever said about Napier, it’s that he’s a person who believes in preparation and attention to detail. His messaging has followed that to a T.

It’s for those reasons that the near-daily hiring announcements appear to be a real strategy and not, say, a consequence of the public relations department being short staffed from the coaching transition and the holidays. There hasn’t yet been time to put together attention-grabbing video content or glossy photo-laden profiles of coaches and players, but they’re doing what they can with what they’ve got to put forth a message.

Napier is still in the honeymoon period, especially after a strong finish to early National Signing Day. Gator fans won’t always celebrate hiring people they’ve never heard of to perform a role that’s ill-defined by their job titles. But for now they will, especially since the early hires started coming before that good NSD performance.

Even if you can’t name most anyone hired two days after the press release went out, you still can understand the narrative arc here:

  1. Napier said he’d hire an army to improve the program on the field and in recruiting.
  2. He began hiring that army.
  3. Members of the army helped him deliver an early NSD signing group that was well above expectations.

The through line is clear. No one has to explain anything, and therefore Napier is winning.

There will come a time when Napier puts his foot in his mouth or otherwise has some kind of mess to clean up. He’s human after all, and we all make mistakes.

The early returns suggest, however, that he’ll have a lot fewer messes to clean up than the past several coaching staffs had to. Message discipline and winning communications appear to have returned to Gainesville.

 

Recruiting News……

Gator Sports

Florida really couldn’t have asked for a better early signing day than it had on Wednesday. Despite still building the new staff under coach Billy Napier, who had only been on the job for 10 days, the team didn’t lose any of its current commits and added three more blue-chip prospects, including five-star safety Kamari Wilson, who Georgia was considered the favorite to land until the IMG Academy prospect took an official visit to Gainesville last weekend.

Florida’s class still needs a lot of work before the regular signing period on Feb. 2, as it still ranks just 50th in the nation on the 247Sports Composite and last in the SEC, but CBS Sports still considers them “winners” from the early signing period after a tremendous effort in a short amount of time.

Despite the idea that Billy Napier might punt to start the early signing period, the Gators played offense and pulled in two stunners with top 100 linebacker Shemar James and five-star safety Kamari Wilson, who most pegged for Georgia. The Gators also landed four-star defensive back Devin Moore to start the day. That’s the kind of recruiting effort Florida fans have craved from their coach and a great way for Napier to endear himself to the fanbase.

James, who was initially committed to Florida before decommitting in October and was considered a Georgia lean with Alabama close behind, was a big recruiting win for Napier and defensive coordinator Patrick Toney, who was his primary recruiter. Moore is also a very talented defensive back that eased the pain of losing out on Julian Humphrey, a one-time Gators commit who stuck with his pledge to the Bulldogs.

The signing day haul was especially impressive considering the fact that, by his own admission, Napier didn’t have a relationship with any of the prospects who signed — except for offensive lineman Christian Williams, who was originally committed to Napier at Lousiana — prior to Thanksgiving.

One of Napier’s main selling points as a coach was his recruiting prowess, and that’s already been made clear even as he’s less than two weeks into the job. Florida had never signed a five-star from IMG Academy before Wilson, and it will be interesting to see what other surprises this staff has in store over the next couple of months.

Danny Wuerffel’s Heisman Anniversary. Has it been 25 years?

Gator Sports

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Heading into his junior season in 1995, Gators quarterback Danny Wuerffel had two full seasons and 16 months in front of him before winning the 1996 Heisman Trophy.

Still, after leading the Gators to a thrilling 24-23 comeback win over Alabama in the 1994 Southeastern Conference Championship Game, Wuerffel was one of college football’s biggest names.

In a preseason feature in August 1995, current FloridaGators.com colleague Chris Harry, the UF beat writer for the Tampa Tribune at the time, did a question-and-answer segment with Wuerffel to complement the story.

One of the questions stands out in retrospect.

Q: A century from now, how do you want to be remembered?

A: There’s only two things that last, and those are the relationships you have with people and the relationship you have with God. I’d like to be remembered as a guy who got along well with everybody and someone who took the word of God seriously.

More than a quarter-century later, Wuerffel has upheld that legacy and more.

This weekend, 25 years after he heard his name called and stood to accept the Heisman Trophy at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City, Wuerffel will attend the 2021 ceremony. The candidates are Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud, Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett, and Michigan edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson.

One of them will join the game’s most exclusive club and experience a life-changing event.

Wuerffel can attest to that. He still remembers Jerri Spurrier, the wife of Wuerffel’s college coach and 1966 Heisman Trophy winner Steve Spurrier, telling him the night after he won the award about the impact of the Heisman on his life.

“You’ll learn more and more as the years go by,” she told him.

“Certainly, she was very prophetic in those words,” Wuerffel said this week.

Spurrier-Wuerffel (2021 vs. Tennessee)
Steve Spurrier and Danny Wuerffel during the 25-year reunion celebration of Florida’s first national championship team at the Florida-Tennessee game in September. (Photo: Courtney Culbreath/UAA Communications)

Seated between Arizona State quarterback Jake Plummer and Iowa State running back Troy Davis, two of the other three finalists, and Ohio State offensive lineman Orlando Pace, Wuerffel was considered the favorite. However, he believed Davis had a chance.

The Iowa State star rushed for 21 touchdowns and 2,185 yards, his second consecutive 2,000-yard season.

“You never know until you know,” Wuerffel said. “I did win, earlier in the week, some of the awards that are indicators of who might win the Heisman. I was not presuming anything. I was just very grateful to hear my name called.”

The Spurriers and Wuerffel’s family were on hand when Wuerffel became Florida’s second Heisman winner. Tim Tebow became the third Gators quarterback to win the award in 2007.

The trio has stood in bronze together outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium since 2011.

While the award solidified Wuerffel’s place in Gators lore and college football history, true to his character, the son of an Air Force chaplain has parlayed the Heisman Trophy into much more meaningful endeavors.

Following his professional career, Wuerffel joined Desire Street Ministries in New Orleans. He became the organization’s executive director in 2006, and under his direction, Desire Street moved its headquarters to Atlanta following Hurricane Katrina to expand its outreach. Wuerffel is also involved with The Wuerffel Trophy, which is part of the National Football Federation’s Collegiate Awards and the first significant award honoring the character of service to others.

Wuerffel’s ability to impact so many others positively over the years is in many ways because of the award he won on a December night 25 years ago.

“It was an incredible experience at the time, but it’s one of those things that just never ends,” he said. “You could win the Nobel Peace Prize, or you could end up in jail, and either way, you would still be known as the Heisman Trophy winner.

“For me, the Heisman Trophy is this amazing platform. It has been a tremendous value to raise awareness and funds and support to help a lot of different people over the years. I believe a lot of success that Desire Street has had and the Wuerffel Trophy has had is, in large part, is to the fact that I did win the Heisman Trophy.”

Wuerffel remains a favorite son of Gator Nation. At his introductory press conference on Sunday, new Gators head coach Billy Napier referenced Wuerffel by name, recalling his days watching Wuerffel play on TV growing up in north Georgia. Wuerffel and Napier exchanged messages this week.

Following a year in which the Heisman ceremony was held virtually due to COVID-19 protocols, Wuerffel is excited about returning to New York and seeing the Spurriers and other past winners.

It’s an event that lasts a lifetime for a lucky few.

“My wife [Jessica] and I love going up there and being a part of it,” he said. “My wife’s favorite part of the Heisman ceremony is getting to hang out with Jerri Spurrier. That’s what makes it fun for her.”

Like Jerri Spurrier told Wuerffel 25 years ago, it’s a life-changing gift that keeps on giving.

Congrats Lomas Brown

Gator Sports

Las Vegas — Former University of Florida offensive tackle Lomas Brown was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame Tuesday during the 63rd National Football Foundation Annual Awards Dinners in Las Vegas.

A member of the 2020 class, Brown became the 12th overall Gator and the ninth Florida player to enter the College Football Hall of Fame.

The anchor of the Gators’ offensive line known as “The Great Wall of Florida,” Lomas Brown remains one of the most dominant blockers in SEC history.

A consensus First Team All-American in 1984, Brown received the Jacobs Blocking Trophy that season as the SEC’s top blocker. The senior team captain was a two-time All-SEC selection, earning first team honors in 1984 after taking home second team laurels in 1983. During his stellar 1984 campaign, Brown guided Florida to nine consecutive wins to finish the season 9-1-1 while anchoring an offense that helped three different backs each gain nearly 700 rushing yards

Position: Offensive Tackle

Years: 1981-1984
Place of Birth: Miami, FL
Date of Birth: March 30, 1963
Jersey Number: 75
Height: 6-4
Weight: 282
High School: Miami Springs HS (Miami Springs, FL)The anchor of the Gators’ offensive line known as “The Great Wall of Florida,” Lomas Brown remains one of the most dominant blockers in SEC history. The Miami native becomes the ninth Florida player to enter the College Football Hall of Fame.

A consensus First Team All-American in 1984, Brown received the Jacobs Blocking Trophy that season as the SEC’s top blocker. The senior team captain was a two-time All-SEC selection, earning first team honors in 1984 after taking home second team laurels in 1983. During his stellar 1984 campaign, Brown guided Florida to nine consecutive wins to finish the season 9-1-1 while anchoring an offense that helped three different backs each gain nearly 700 rushing yards.
 
Florida’s Offensive Lineman of the Year in 1983, Brown led the Gators to three-straight bowl berths, including a win in the 1983 Gator Bowl. He started 31 of his last 33 games, guiding Florida to top 10 national rankings in 1983 (No. 6) and 1984 (No. 3). The Gators beat in-state rival Florida State all four years Brown was in Gainesville, and he capped his stellar collegiate career by playing in both the Hula and Senior bowls. A member of the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame, he played for the Gators alongside fellow College Football Hall of Famer Wilber Marshall.
 
The sixth overall pick by the Detroit Lions in the 1985 NFL Draft, Brown played 18 seasons in the pros with the Lions (1985-95), Arizona Cardinals (1996-98), Cleveland Browns (1999), New York Giants (2000-01) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2002). The seven-time Pro Bowl selection appeared in two Super Bowls, retiring on a high note after helping the Buccaneers win Super Bowl XXXVII. Brown returned to Florida during the NFL offseason to complete his bachelor’s degree in 1996.
 
While still playing in the NFL, he founded the Lomas Brown Jr. Foundation benefitting educational institutions and related activities focusing on scholarships, student financial aid and awards programs. Noted for his generosity, Brown has hosted free football camps in Detroit for local high school students among many other charitable endeavors. He currently serves as the CEO of LBJB Sports, a sports marketing firm in Detroit, and he can be heard as the color commentator on the Detroit Lions broadcast team for flagship radio station WJR-AM.

 

Gators Defeat the Seminoles

Gator Sports

Florida State (6-3) fell to Florida (9-3) by a 69-55 score this afternoon in Gainesville, FL.

This game was tight early but Florida ended the first quarter on an 11-2 run to take a 19-11 lead after the first quarter. The Gators would never look back from there. Florida led 60-35 after the third quarter. FSU made it a bit more respectable in the fourth quarter winning that final quarter by eleven points but the deficit was too much to overcome.

The Gators were able to impose their will on FSU from almost the opening tip. The Seminoles struggled with UF’s pressure defense for the entire game. That pressure led to a whopping 23 turnovers for FSU while the Gators committed only seven. Florida State actually outshot the Gators from the field (40%-36.2%) but with all of the turnovers FSU only had 55 shots while UF had 69.

River Baldwin had a double-double with 15 points and 10 boards. Morgan Jones was the only other Nole in double figures with 12 points.

With the win, Florida snapped a five losing streak to Florida State. The last time UF beat FSU before today was in 2015.

This was an extremely disappointing performance from the Seminoles. FSU did continue to play hard until the end. However, the Noles were never able to fully get comfortable in this game due to UF’s pressure defense.

FSU really needs to get the point guard situation figured out. Bianca Jackson played today but she clearly isn’t 100%. The Seminoles are very vulnerable if their floor leader isn’t fully ready to go and that was proven in a big way today.

Florida State will try to regroup on Thursday, Dec. 16th when they welcome Houston to Tallahassee. The game will tip at 7pm and will be broadcast on the ACC Network Extra

Saturday Practice Report

Gator Sports

SATURDAY PRACTICE

They have already practiced today.

Once again, they were in shorts and a helmet.

I was told it was once again a laid-back atmosphere.

One big addition today, after being absent (along with all the other transfer portal players) yesterday, linebacker Mohamoud Diabate was at practice today (but in a sling).

As Inside the Gators reported yesterday, we were told that he entered his name in the portal to keep his options open but wasn’t 100-percent leaving.

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