Florida play-by-play guy

[ProudUte]

Notes from an interview with the Florida play-by-play guy, Shane Matthews:

He believes that the Gators are much better than last season (this surprises me).

He likes the new QB even though his stats at Wisconsin are not amazing. He said that his stats say more about Wisconsin’s offense.

Two solid running backs returning this season.

The offensive line is enormous and should be better.

The receiving group is the best they have been in 10-15 years (that’s saying a lot).

There are 53 new players on the team.

The front 7 on defense was not SEC caliber the last two seasons. He thinks that they are now. They are much bigger than they have been.

He admits that playing at Utah is going to be difficult, but he thinks they can win. He doesn’t think that there is a possible way that Rising can play, less than 8 months after surgery.

Shane Matthews obviously is biased. He said he is typically not an optimistic guy, but he believes in this team and says he believes that most people underestimate what Florida has this season. If you believe this guy – Utah doesn’t have much of a chance without Cam Rising.

He will be spending a lot of time golfing while he is here. He is staying three extra days after the game.

[tanute3]

Yeah, just a little bit biased 😉 I’m concerned about their RBs – I think they are legit. Not overly worried about the QB. Don’t know much about the WRs. Sounds like their OL has had some injuries already and they lost a fair amount of last year’s production. If Utah can pressure their QB early and often, I like our chances at forcing a couple big turnovers and winning in any ugly game.

[Rick]

I like our chances of them running out of gas in the 4th quarter and us winning by a slim margin if Cam can’t go and by double digits if he can go.

[Yergensen]

Shane Matthews is a former Gator QB, he knows what he’s doing. I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic cuz I can’t forget:

1) We haven’t beaten a P5 team outside of the PAC in years
2) Blue chip teams can out athlete us and Etienne is a problem
3) Blue chip teams more often than not beat us or at least neutralize us in the trenches
4) We are painfully slow starters

Even with Cam this would be a great win for us, much needed and well earned if we can get it.

[RoboUte]

He’s probably right. Florida was atrocious last year. But we managed to play worse.

Programs that good don’t stay down for long usually. Not THAT down anyway.

[22Ute22]

It’s obviously a bit biased, but from what I’ve seen, their DL is going to be better, even with the loss of expected key contributor Justus Boone. Their LB’s are supposedly going to be better, but I don’t think it’s going to be by an extraordinary amount. They did lose one of their best LB’s in Ventrell Miller to the draft. Their corners should be good as well, and that’s expected. Florida is generally a good CB school, even if they’ve been a bit down for the past decade. Their safeties are definitely the concern from what I’m seeing. It doesn’t seem that their starters are good, let alone their backups. As for their WR corp and O-line, I’m going to make a post about each of those groups separately, but I personally think that’s pure bias on their end, and that Utah really should not be worried about either, at least if our defense is as good as we expect them to be.

I also want to add, that Florida is expecting a lot of their younger players to step up, and they may have some growing pains. I also don’t think they have been going 100% live in practice, so you might be able to take their defensive info with a grain of salt.

[Anfernee]

loving the unbiased insights by him! so to recap:

– mertz would have been all american if wisconsin cheese wasn’t so delicious and weighing him down.
– defense comparable to 85 bears.
– offensive line is similar to cowboys in the 90s.
– both running backs are being compared to gator great emmitt smith.
– wide receivers are breathtakingly breathtaking.
– florida doesn’t do push ups at practice. they do earth downs.

[chinngiskhaan]

Florida has been mediocre to bad for years, but this year… This is the year they’ll finally not suck.

[Author]

Posts