GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we discuss the latest news around the Florida Gators football program as the Gators enter the offseason.

Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down what it means for the Gators defense after they lost several key players to the NFL draft.

Andrew and Nick also discuss the national championship game, plus the latest surrounding the basketball team at Florida.

TRANSCRIPT:

 

S1                    What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, I don’t know about you. I’m feeling much better. We’re, broken schedule again a little bit this week, because the National Championship. We wanted to wait until we could discuss that, and it was a good one. It was one of those games that I think we’ll all remember for a long, long time, and props to Clemson.

S2                    Clemson deserved it.

S1                    Bring your own guts.

S2                    Deshawn Watson’s tweet from, I think it was 2012, was surfacing around, and he wrote, I guess he must have been watching the 2012 game, but wrote, “If I ever get a chance to play in one of these games, then I’m going to go off.” He had a chance last year. Didn’t really go down the way he wanted it to, but it certainly went his way last night, and that’s instant classic game. No one’s ever come back from 14 points in a National Championship game like that. That was the largest deficit to come back from, and I think I talked to you about it. Kind of had a sinking feeling that Clemson could have had the kind of offense and the kind of players to be able to do that, to be able to beat Alabama.

S1                    Yeah. I don’t know about you, Nick, but I was watching that game, and even when they went down 14-0, I’m sitting here to myself thinking, “I like Clemson,” and It was just that I didn’t think, after watching the first few drives noticing that just really how bad of a passer Jalen Hurts is. I really liked, I really thought they had a good shot at that. It was interesting to see. It was definitely interesting to see, but, like you said, the passing game that Clemson had with the big receivers is exactly how you had to attack. If you were going to beat Alabama, you had to go right at their DBs. You weren’t going to win up in the front seven. You weren’t going to run at them. You weren’t going to run sideline to sideline against them. You had to attack the DBs. Something Florida tried, and Florida doesn’t have the playmakers that Clemson does.

S2                    No. I think really what, we talked about that already. That was the way you beat Bama. If that defense has a weakness, it’s the cornerbacks, and you got to be able to go at them. Does Florida have, first off, you can just say it. Florida does not have the skill players that Clemson does on offense, but it’s not just having the skill players. Leggett, the tight end, made some great plays last night. You’ve got Tay Scott, Deon Cain, Mike Williams. Florida doesn’t have a guy that’s as good as Mike Williams. I don’t think they have a guy that’s as good as Deon Cain, and then what is the former walk-on’s name? I’m blanking on his name right now. Caught the winning touchdown.

S1                    Hunter Renfroe.

S2                    Hunter Renfroe. To me it’s kind of, the difference they had was the quarterback, the guy that can get the ball to those guys to take advantage of that. They were able to run the ball a little bit, but a big thing is that they spread Alabama out, and when you look at the teams Alabama’s lost to, like Ole Miss, Ohio State, they run that spread out offense, where you’re going to make sure that if Alabama’s going to try to stop the run, then you’ve got man on the outside, and th