GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we talk about the state of the Florida Gators during the bye week.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre are joined by Dan Thompson to talk about the Gators and the current quarterback situation and what could happen after this year.
Andrew and Nick also give you their take on the quarterbacks, plus we predict some games around the country for this week.
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, it’s Friday before the bye week. Very unusual not to be talking about an East, West directional school before Florida State, but whatever.
Nick:                         Yeah. I actually ran into Shannon Snell this week, and I guess he had forgotten that the schedule this year called for two bye weeks, and, of course, once the first game gets moved up you get three. A peculiar schedule, but there’s not many great games on this week, so take the bye. You’ve got a lot of pent up anger and aggression for Florida State getting ready in two weeks, or a week from today.
Andrew:                 It’ll be interesting to see how the guys come out. I think they’ll come out fired up, ready to go. You should have no issues getting prepared, getting up for this FSU game. It’s Senior Day. There’s a lot of things going on next week. You got the Thanksgiving holiday. School won’t be in session. Lot of things. One thing you can always guarantee, and that is this game will be heated.
Nick:                         Yeah. I surprised myself finding this stat. Florida hasn’t beat Florida State in Gainesville since Tim Tebow and Brandon Spikes Senior Day in 2009. Four straight losses in Gainesville. The first thing that came to my mind was last time they played in Gainesville it was Florida with Randy Shannon as the head coach. They were 4-6. Florida State didn’t feel sorry for Florida. Won the game, took care of business, and celebrated at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Some of the reporters were asking coaches and players yesterday, Florida State seems to be in the situation you were in two years ago, do you feel sorry for them? Absolutely not.
Andrew:                 No. You want to make the off season even longer for the Noles.
Nick:                         Kick them while they’re down. This is no love lost. This isn’t a rivalry built on respect. These are guys that have been playing against each other or with each other for, some of them for their entire lives. High school teammates, high school rivals. There’s no love lost between the fanbase. I mean, FSU, let’s just call a spade a spade. FSU’s dominated this decade.
Andrew:                 Yeah. We’re going to bring on Dan Thompson here in a minute to talk about the game and talk about the quarterback situation and all that stuff. Nick, you and I have been able to see the double side of this rivalry. We’ve seen Florida dominate. Then we’ve seen Florida State dominate. It kind of goes in those spurts where one team dominates.
Nick:                         It’s cyclical.
Andrew:                 Florida State’s had their moment. It definitely seems like Florida’s on their moment of starting to regain things. They’re better in recruiting right now, better on the field, that kind of stuff. It’s the way it goes. It kind of rotates a little bit. Most rivalries, I think, do, outside of Alabama-Auburn and Michigan-Ohio State. Most rivalries do. This is the Gator’s time to dominate.
Nick:                         This is one where, and we talked about this before. Dan Mullen, he won’t say it, like Urban really played into it, rivalry games. When I say that, I mean publicly, through the media. Spurrier did publicly through the media. He loved ribbing Tennessee. Urban Meyer loved ribbing FSU. Dan won’t do it publicly in the media, but I think these weeks, Georgia week, Florida State, Tennessee, LSU,