This GatorCountry podcast, focuses on the Florida Gators recruiting news as we recap the 2016 class one more time, plus we give out some awards for most likely to play next year and more.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre. also start to look ahead at the 2017 recruiting class, as we break down what the Gators need at each position for the class of 2017.

Andrew and Nick finish off the podcast by previewing the rest of the week for basketball, softball and baseball as the Gators get ready to take the diamond.

TRANSCRIPT:

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? This is your man, Andrew Spivey, with Nicholas de la Torre. What’s up, Nicholas?

Nick:                         Not bad. I’m all over the place today. Did a little basketball. Did a little bit of softball. They start on Friday, the three-peat on their mind, and we got basketball tomorrow, on Tuesday, and then baseball coming up in less than two weeks now. So there’s no football, but there’s always recruiting, and there’s some good sports, some good stick sports coming up in Gainesville.

Andrew:                 The diamond really has a chance to be owned by the Gators this year. Baseball and softball really have a chance to go to Oklahoma City and Omaha respectively and come back with gold.

Nick:                         Yeah. It would be a third for the softball team. That’s unprecedented, and baseball, everyone kind of gets on them for not getting over the hump. Softball maybe winning back to back championships isn’t helping them at all, but it’s actually really hard to win a championship. There’s only one team a year that gets to win it in their respective sport. It’s not something that everyone gets to do. So baseball is loaded though. Sully has got the arms. They’ve got some power. I mean really you look at Pete Alonso and JJ Schwarz you might have 40 home runs in the 3-4 hole from those guys. That’s not an unrealistic expectation or a goal with Pete going into his junior year, and JJ going into his sophomore year.

Andrew:                 Softball is legit as well. #1, #2 player in the country come in on a stacked team already. As they say in Tuscaloosa for football, the rich get richer. Wednesday’s over with from last week. Signing Day’s out of here for 2016. The recruiting world goes on. 2017 guys are already starting to get offers. The coaching staff is back from their little mini vacation, and the movement, the Swamp ’17 movement is out there. That’s the hashtag for this year, and it’s out there already.

Nick:                         It’s quickly. It’s that quick. This class kind of gets to, or this coaching staff kind of gets a one to two day reprieve, and then they’re back at it. So recruiting never sleeps. Recruit daily or die, and the big thing for me with the signing class of 2017 is that the state of Florida is really loaded. I kind of wrote about it last week. I think Jim McElwain and the coaching staff did a very good job specifically in Alabama. Obviously getting Tyrie Cleveland from Texas, from the Houston area. He does have ties to the state of Florida, and they did a good job in Georgia as well, but I think that there will be a little more emphasis on the state of Florida this year with the 2017 class.

Andrew:                 It will be. You and I talked about this when you were writing the story. Florida lost some guys in state in 2016, but outside of the receiver position it was kind of a down year in the state of Florida, for the majority of the class. Offensive line is one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time.

Nick:                         That’s kind of been a typical thing of the state.

Andrew:                 Yeah, but 2017 is really good. You got two of the top guys in the country in Orlando and Pensacola