Gators vs Vandy News and Notes

photo by ICON Sports Media

No, this season has not gone the way he has wanted it to, or for anyone in Gator Nation for that matter. But Coach Will Muschamp took a moment Wednesday to say how proud he was of senior quarterback John Brantley.

He spoke with regional reporters Wednesday morning on teleconference hookup on and said that practice has gone well this week in preparation for Vanderbilt.

But Muschamp's most telling comments on Wednesday revealed a gentle side which is not often highlighted in comparison to his sideline demeanor, which is now legendary.

"It really kind of hit me Saturday night, in the locker room, after an unfortunate defeat," the coach explained.

"[John Brantley] was really hurting, obviously physically a little bit, but mentally. You walk over to his locker and you just see a guy whose father played at Florida, his uncle played at Florida. Has been a Gator his whole life. He's over there hurting. He's fought through adversity. He's handled adversity like a true-class person does. And to see him hurting like that was very disappointing for me. But I'm very proud of him. He's pushed through everything. He's the leader of our football team. "

"I saw his parents as I was getting on the bus, leaving the stadium. I told them how proud I was of him and they ought to be proud parents because of the type of young man they've raised."

Branley's career at Florida will be over in two short months. It has been surmised here and elsewhere that Brantley may not a chance to play quarterback professionally. So an awful lot of people, including his coach hope he gets to go out with a sense of success even though his career a whole probably has not gone the way he had hoped it would.

Meanwhile, Brantley is practicing taking snaps under center this week, and the plan is to have him do so against the Commodores. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis was coy on exactly how the offense would line up Saturday.

If Brantley can take snaps under center, that alone should improve the Gators offense, including the run game.

Injury Front

Chris Rainey is said to be "probable to questionable" for Saturday's game against Vanderbilt because of a sprained ankle he suffered against UGA.

As of Wednesday Muschamp said the senior running back was "hobbled" and not at "full speed".

The most recent updates on running back Mike Gillislee (ankle) and kicker Caleb Sturgis (leg) were not given on Wednesday but both are said to be practicing week and their status for Saturday's game is to be determined based on this week's practices. Offensive tackle Chaz Green missed last week's game with an ankle injury but is expected to play this Saturday.

Gary Danielson

CBS College Football color analyst Gary Danielson has evolved into a polarizing figure among SEC fans depending on which side you root for. Danielson believes the Gators troubles have to do with the talent level on this current team compared to Florida's opponents in the SEC.

Danielson said via the Tampa Bay Tribune, "I believe Will Muschamp is doing about as good as he can. To me, I really think Will Muschamp has a butter knife, basically a dull butter knife of talent in a league that everybody else has steak and you need a steak knife to win in this league. He has no chance. He does not have a team put together to compete at the highest level at this league, especially with an injured quarterback.''

James Franklin has Vanderbilt headed in the right direction

The new Vanderbilt coach is not worried about past history against the Gators. Vandy hasn't won in Gainesville since 1948 and has not defeated the Gators anywhere since '88.

“We don’t talk about things like that," Franklin said via ESPN.com. "It’s not a focus for us. Where we’re at as a program, every win, every week is a significant win for us. We don’t look at one game or one venue, whether it’s out of conference, whether it’s in conference, as any more significant than the other. We try to be the best Vanderbilt we can be, week in and week out. We want to be at the end of this week. That’s our schedule and our philosophy in how we do things around here."

Vanderbilt comes into the contest 4-4 overall and 1-4 in the SEC having defeated Ole Miss on Sept. 17, 30-7.

Vandy is coming off a 3-point loss to No. 10 Arkansas, a game they let get away. The Commodores led by as many as 14 points in the second quarter last Saturday in Nashville, but allowed a 94-yard fumble return for a touchdown a late field goal to fall to Arkansas 31-28.

Vanderbilt is probably more skilled as a whole offensively than they are defensively. Against Arkansas they ran up 462 total yards. They rushed for 222 yards, and that is an area where Florida's defense has struggled the last four games (UGA rushed for 185 yards, Auburn rushed for 155 yards, LSU rushed for 237 yards and Alabama rushed for 226 yards against the Gator defense.

Vandy's quarterback Jordan Rodgers is the younger brother of another quarterback, by the name of Aaron. You may have heard of him from the Super Bowl winning Green Bay Packers.

Rodgers took over as the team's starter just two weeks ago prior to Vandy's 44-21 win over Army on October 22. He has thrown for 662 yards and three TD with five interceptions in two games.

Vanderbilt running back Zac Stacy has rushed for 707 yards and six TD. LB Chris Marve leads the defense with
61 tackles, including 6.0 tackles-for-loss, 1.0 sack and one interception.

Kickoff is at 12:21 p.m. ET Saturday from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and the game will air on the SEC Network.

A lot of truth coming from Danielson.

CaliZona_Gator said:

A lot of truth coming from Danielson.

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Yeah, I'm not a fan of his commentary/analysis, as rule--in fact, he usually pisses me off in uncountable ways during games--but I can't help but agree with almost every point he makes here. I was surprised no end by both the level of informed-insight AND fairness to Gator Head Coach Will Muschamp, and in fact comes quite close to at least implying culpability in his current ESPN colleague Urban Meyer & Co.'s recruiting efforts: evidently, the "expert's" pronouncements notwithstanding, the cupboard was not left so full here after all.
It's too bad so many of the shallower, "entertain me", jump-on-the-bandwagon-in-the-Tebow-years fans that are already screaming for Coach Boom's and/or Weis' head(s) can't look far enough past the end of their noses to see this simple, unavoidable reality: It has become starkly obvious that from the very start of this season, in fact going back a year or more before that, this was a poor team, short on heart, character and self-discipline; in physical terms, though fast, it was in fact undersized at virtually every position, doomed to incur the very mounting injuries that only heightened and confirmed the inevitably growing lack of depth. The result? By now, late in the season, it means that we will have trouble beating VANDERBILT (a relatively tough and well-disciplined edition, granted, but still the SEC lower tier at best, who last won here in G-ville in 1948) AT HOME!
This is HARDLY the new Head Coach's fault--he and his staff are doing everything possible to remake this team, this PROGRAM in his own image of what he calls "the Florida Way", and it will be the results of THAT effort on which his success or failure will be judged, if there is to be any sanity and/or fairness to any of this--and I believe Foley will make sure that he is given time and every opportunity to achieve it. Bigger, tougher, stronger, a disciplined and mutually-supporting team of character and depth on both sides of the line of scrimmage, with exciting playmakers at key positions, THAT'S what is on the way, but it will take some time, at least another season-and-a-half I suspect before the consistently overpowering TEAM begins to emerge.
NONE of us knew HOW bad things were on this team, with the whole PROGRAM, under the last couple of years of Meyer & Unnamable, how much UNdoing there was to be done. That set us back a full season, THIS season we are still suffering through. Let's all try to remember that, no matter WHAT happens between now and the (merciful) end (we still need that extra 5 plus weeks of work and public activity, however, so we go after those two more wins and a bowl bid, no matter how "unmerciful" the otherwise painful display of bumbling ineptitude may seem): we all now KNOW how bad we are, why that is and, though we can argue who and/or what is most responsible, we also all know what the consequences are likely to be--ie. this team is always ready to lose to ANYONE...so though we may still find it frustrating and disappointing, if and when it happens it shouldn't come as a big surprise. For the rest of THIS season at least, let's leave the knee-jerk over-reactions and hysterical scape-goating to the fools, the newbies, and the uninformed.

So tired of all this zook like comments coming out if the muschamp camp. Enough is enough. The football team is not getting better, they are not growing up. The offense is as awful as they,ve been all year. This was vandy, cmon! This offense is an embarrassment to the gator nation! Muschamp should step up and tell the fans the media and the team they suck! Plain and simple. Weiss has done an awful awful crappy job coaching this team. The offensive line is subpar and underachieving. Someone tell Xavier Nixon he was the number one rated offensive lineman coming out of high school and he has more lookout blocks then anyone. Nixon consistently is beaten over and over. The long haired mutumbo jumbo lineman should be made to cut his hair 4inches for every missed block he has. If that were the case he'd be shaved head by now. Which would be a big improvement over that selfish look at me doo he has now.

What I woul like to see, instead of this "hang in there" zook attitude muschamp shows, he should tell it as it is attitude, and tell the fans, the players, the coaches they suck!, they are playing awful, they are all dissapointing the gator nations expectations!

Maybe we should start a fire Weiss webpage cause he has dropped the ball big time. Wakeup gators this was VANDY! We are not Illionis, we are not Tennessee, we are Florida, we have the right to expect more. mediocrity is not acceptable muschamp! Please someone star up the FIREWEISS web site. I will gladly be the first to sign up,

Um, the most charitable thing I can say to you, sir, is that you are somewhat confused. NO decent coach with ANY sense of honor or personal responsibility is going to dismiss his whole team as, well, all that crazed crap you unloaded above. That's point one. Meanwhile, COACH Muschamp HAS actually been DOING everything he can as FAST as he can to change the make-up and NATURE of this team--and has made clear this is only the beginning. You ARE right about not accepting mediocrity, and THAT is exactly what the Head Coach has made the central theme of EVERYTHING he does and says about this team: not only was this his stated attitude since Day 1, but it has only deepened and accelerated in both word and deed since. As for that "hang in there Zook-attitude" you are going on about, I just have no idea what you're talking about; pardon me, but as I reread your post line-by-line, I become more and more convinced YOU don't EITHER. In fact, you demonstrate so much of the kind of mindlessly venomous mob-hatred that I despise on other sites that, along with your veiled-racism and rather troublingly deep-seated fury that go beyond common sense and good manners, I suggest you find somewhere else to spew your frustrated resentments--which, after all, really don't seem to have all that much to do with most of what we discuss here at GE. In fact, just in that one relatively short post you have made too many foolish assertions for me to bother to refute; the fact that they are mixed in with certain valid points merely adds to this overall impression of confused thinking.
I'm not going to argue with you, and I'm suggesting this as politely as I can at this point. I do think I am on rather solid ground here, and believe I have the support of my fellow long-time members and regular contributors when I say that you are out of your element here. Smarten up or move on, OK?
(PS If you had bothered to actually read members' various comments and posts on other current threads here, you would have found that we in fact HAVE been addressing and discussing EVERY one of the subjects you think you have a monopoly of insight on (for eg., not everyone here is all that sold on this coaching regime yet)--we just do it with humor, logic, even passion, and almost always with a certain respect and mutual support. Done civilly in the course of in-depth discussion at ongoing threads, you might have found you had common ground with some intelligent folks who have made some of the same arguments you seem to be trying to approach, only logically presented and fully developed. Your kind of self-righteous arrogance, however, so certain that you know more than everyone else, is widely available in its one-way abusiveness elsewhere all OVER the web. This is our refuge, and we won't tolerate any attempt to barge in and foist your personality problems on us.)
(PPS...And uh, good luck with that "FIREWEIS" website; that sounds like more your kind of thing...)

Thank goodness the University of Florida does not listen to every single fan's complaints and fire{insert name here}.com site. I cannot imagine that Jeremy Foley told Will Muschamp "Win the SEC in your first year or you are fired!". I cannot imagine that Will Muschamp told Charlie Weis "Give me the #1 offense in NCAA and the NFL in your first year or you are fired!". This takes time. We were fortunate in the past that the transition period between coaches was not this ugly.