SEC Media Days: Florida Gators [Coach Napier - Montrell Johnson - Shemar James - Graham Mertz]

Napier handled himself well, as always. Seems a little more determined this year and he’s learned first hand how physically and mentally tough you have to be to play in the SEC.

 

You made me spit out my Bourbon with that one !

 

My sincerest apologies. A good bourbon is a terrible thing to waste.

 

Thank Gawd! Hope it's also player driven.

 

Napier has a young coaching tree. Hired guys with whom he had relationships. Hope Sale and Hocke make a difference. If they work well together, our D staff could be much better. Not sure what to think of the situation Corey Raymond but looks like he pooped out on us. He seems quite overrated. To the "he coached a lot of great DBs at LSU", true but recruiting natural talent makes a position coach look great over the long run.

 

I can't wait to see the fall roster.

 

I really like CBN. I hope he can win enough to get his needed time here. He gets it. I think he can do special things here.

 

Some of those journalists ask the same damn question.

 

James was very impressive. Such a big key for this defense.

Mertz recently played golf with Spurrier and video games with Wuerffel....

Where ya at Tebow?

 

Love the video.

 

Why I pull for him so much. Win or lose, he certainly is a good ambassador for UF and the SEC. A class individual.

 

I didn't realize Billy was so close to the Kiffen's. Nice tribute he provided. A little SEC / Sanky love too.
Perhaps to much. He seems to have blessed the mess, that college football currently is. Heck, I think his
tenure and vision at UF has been derailed by all this insanity. By his own admission, the game is fundamentally changing every 6 months with all this whackiness.

 

The strength and conditioning coaches have been with them since the time when Napier couldn't be with them. They know how to build muscle on young men... from an NFL level of expertise.

 

What Shemar James said about who on defense we will be hearing about was news to me. He's said freshman Greg Smith, love that we stole that kid in recruiting, will be a surprise for Gators fans. I love it when these veterans mention the true freshman as players we will be hearing about, or players that will play as freshman... cool.

The others that were mentioned by these 3 players are Graham, Grimsley. I'll have to go back a re-listen to his interview because I may have misheard James speak. And then the two transfers he was excited about were D.J. Douglass and Trikweze Bridges. Other names were Baugh, Dike, Badger, Grayson "Pup" Howard and of course D.J.Lagway.

But when Montrell Johnson mentioned Jadan Baugh you can see his eyes light-up... You know Baugh is going to kill it even as a freshman because the best endorsement of a player is by another player in the same position he's commenting on. That's the best kind of endorsement, IMO.

I'll have to learn more about these players and get back here with what I found out. But that bodes well for how much more dynamic and stacked our Gators football team will be this coming year. I hope they're good enough to play and play often.

I see the quiet confidence in the team that feels like they're hiding something very good about this 2024 team. I can't put my finger on it, but it seems real to me. I've been reading everything I can on free boards (all I read) and even the free stuff out there is filled with stories of how much more improved this 2024 team will be. Some of this has to be true.

.

 

Probably because none got a straight answer....but they should expect that from head coaches by now.

 

Yeah, he definitely didn't give answers, but that's nothing new and after he dodged the first few why repeat over and over. Shit I'd ask him off the wall stuff like do you eat the same thing for breakfast on game days? Scotch or Bourbon?