Gator Country brings you our Friday prediction podcast as we continue to preview the Florida Gators vs. Florida State game on Saturday night.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down the keys for the Gators on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball for Saturday.

Andrew and Nick also predict several big time games around the country, plus give you three players to watch for the Gators on Saturday.

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, what’s up?

Nick:                         Just getting over some Thanksgiving hangover. A lot of turkey, lot of mashed potatoes, lot of sweet potatoes. Lot going on on Thursday.

Andrew:                 Yeah. Had to get you out of the coma just to get you to tape this podcast.

Nick:                         You’re lucky I’m here.

Andrew:                 Frank fed you well.

Nick:                         Absolutely.

Andrew:                 Well, Thanksgiving is come and gone, and that means one thing. That means rivalry Saturday, and it’s a big one. It’s a big one, Nick. #14 versus #15. It’s back to what we said last week, and that is this is huge. It’s huge for recruiting. It’s huge because it’s the next step, and it basically gets back the state for Florida. It gets them that win over Florida State. It stops that streak, and it sets you up to have momentum to go into Alabama. If you’re going to play Alabama, you want to play them on a high note, not on a low note after getting beat like they did last year to Florida State.

Nick:                         Yeah. That last year was just a dark depressing spiral towards that last game. I think the way you beat LSU changes that though.

Andrew:                 Agreed.

Nick:                         But if you come out and lay an egg, everything’s forgotten. That momentum you had from LSU doesn’t carry over if you come out and don’t bring it Saturday. Make no mistake about it, Florida can’t show up, they can’t just roll the ball out there, roll the helmets out there, and beat FSU.

Andrew:                 No, and that’s something to be said about both teams. Neither team, I think it’s, I do think it’s a lot closer, no matter what our good friend Bud says, I do think the talent level is much closer than it has been. Florida is still lacking a little bit offensively. Florida’s a better defensive team, even with the Davis and Anzalone and Maye not playing. They’re still a better defensive team than it is. One thing that I’ll say, and I’m sure you’ve heard the same thing, Coach Mac even said this, they had a great week of practice, and I think that that’s carryover from the LSU game, but it’s carryover for something else, and you and I touched on this one day this week.

That is, guys like Quincy, guys like Tabor, Caleb Brantley, those guys that are in state kids that are going to have to live, that are going to live in the state, they don’t want to end their career never beating Florida State. They don’t want to be the first class to lost four straight to Florida State. They don’t want to be that class. I just don’t think people are giving that as much talk as they should. That means a lot to these guys.

Nick:                         It absolutely does. That was something that Quincy and Tabor talked about a lot amongst each other, and even talked about it in the media.

Andrew:                 Right.

Nick:                         Don’t want to go to LSU and lose three. Listen, Jalen Tabor’s not getting a fourth chance to beat LSU.

Andrew:                 Right.

Nick: