GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we bring you our Friday preview for the Florida Gators vs. Kentucky game on Saturday.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre break down the keys for the Gators on both offense and defense on Saturday against Kentucky.
Andrew and Nick also give you three players to watch for the Gators on Saturday, plus we predict several games around the country on Saturday.
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, day before Kentucky. Time to start a new winning streak. I will say this. I am not as smart this year as I was last year, because I didn’t hear about what was going on in 1987 or 1986, last time Florida and Kentucky played.
Nick:                         I did some Kentucky radio, and they started talking about streak. I went back into listening to Major League, the movie, and he’s like, “We won yesterday. That’s one. We won today. That’s two. If we win tomorrow, that’s three. That’s a winning streak.” I was kind of like, if Kentucky manages to pull it off Saturday it’s not really a streak. You won a couple, but you’re not streaking yet. But I didn’t have to go back and look what gas prices were back in 1987 or what the most listened to song was. No history lessons this week.
Andrew:                 Yeah. I agree with you. You and I are big baseball guys, and the thing in baseball is when you win three in a row that’s a winning streak. One or two, that’s not a winning streak. Kentucky, wake me up when you’ve won three in a row. I know you’re not getting cocky, because you only lost, what, 40 straight before then, it seemed like. I will say this. All streaks have to end, obviously. I don’t want to say that it was a bad thing that Florida lost last year. I think that had Florida beat Kentucky last year I don’t know that they finish like they did.
Nick:                         I just wrote a story about that. I remember the Monday press conference with Dan Mullen. Of course, he gets asked about. It’s literally everyone. Every player or coach from both teams get asked about the streak for 30 years.
Andrew:                 Right.
Nick:                         He said on Monday, it’s bound to end at some point. That’s just sports. Then when they lost, I immediately remembered that quote, like you shouldn’t have said that. At some point it was going to happen, whether it was Dan Mullen or whether it was head coach Tim Tebow in the year 2047.
Andrew:                 Right. It had been close in the past. The Demarcus Robinson touchdown.
Nick:                         Yeah. I’m already back in Lexington. The last time I was here, if Kentucky covers two wide receivers, the streak ends.
Andrew:                 Right.
Nick:                         That Will Grier touchdown, or was it Jeff Driskell? The one in the triple overtime game.
Andrew:                 Right.
Nick:                         I think the play clock was zero.
Andrew:                 Yeah. There was several opportunities that they could have lost, and it could have been over with. Again, I think that you don’t overlook these guys anymore. Listen, I don’t think you should have overlooked them last year either. What Mark Stoops has done up there in Kentucky is slowly build a program that’s respectful. I don’t know that you’ll ever build Kentucky up to be an SEC Eastern contender every year, but I do think that they’re more respectful now.
I will ask you this. This is something that I’ve talked about with a couple of people on radio and different things. Does the transfer portal hurt or help teams like Kentucky more? Hear me out when I say this. Last year’s Kentucky team was so good because of the veteran leadership that they had. They had the senior in Benny Snell, the senior in, what was it? Josh Allen, right? That’s right?