By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:
HEALTHY COX SAYS HE HAS “MORE TO PROVE”
There wasn’t a time all last season when Brenton Cox Jr. felt 100 percent. He played on an injured foot and while he put up good numbers – 41 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss, 8.5 sacks and 12 quarterback hurries – he believes he can do much better.
“Last year was tough for me because of my foot, so I just felt I had more in the tank, more to prove,” Cox said after the Gators concluded spring practice Tuesday afternoon. He used the Florida State and UCF games as an example of what he’s capable of doing – four sacks for 33 yards in losses against FSU; a sack among his four tackles for 15 yards in losses against UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl. Those games, he believes are just an indicator of what he’s capable of doing.
A former 5-star edge rusher who spent his freshman year at Georgia, Cox will be back for a fifth year this fall. He is motivated by Alex Brown’s Florida season sack record (13), which he believes he’s capable of breaking – “Either a sack a game or a sack a half” will do it he says – but there is also the motivation of what the NFL scouts told him when he submitted his paperwork for evaluation after the 2021 season.
He got a decent evaluation, but certainly not what he wants.
“They gave me a third round grade, I think, a third or fourth round grade, and I felt like I could do better,” Cox said. “I feel like I can do more.”
Cox isn’t the only one who thinks he’s capable of doing more. Former Gator All-America linebacker Mike Peterson is the new outside linebackers coach. Peterson had 1,220 career tackles in the NFL, 896 of which were solo.
Peterson stays on Cox’s case and the case of every Florida linebacker that they have to chase the football relentlessly until they hear the whistle to signal the play is over. That’s something Cox is working on every day in practice.
“It’s been in the discussion that I don’t play hard, so he’s been preaching that if you’re not in the TV box by the time the play is over, then it’s a loaf, not running to the ball,” Cox said.
Reflecting on last season, Cox added, “I can honestly say I took off a couple plays but I’m here to make it up.”
GOLDEN ADDS KOREY MCRAY TO COACHING STAFF
Although there were multiple reports that Korey McCray was leaving Mississippi State for Florida as early as Sunday, it wasn’t made official until Wednesday when he was named Todd Golden’s associate head coach. McCray spent the last seven years on Ben Howland’s staff at Mississippi State. He’s an extraordinary recruiter, given credit for landing Kyle Anderson, Jordan Adams and Shabazz Muhammad when he was on Howland’s staff at UCLA. He is the son of Karl McCray, who along with Wallace Prather, started the ultra-successful Atlanta Celtics AAU program. Korey McCray coached the 2009 Celtics Under-15 team to the AAU national championship.
On Tuesday, Golden added former Richmond assistant Kevin Hovde to his staff. Hovde was on Golden’s staff at San Francisco from 2019-21 and worked with Golden when the two were assistants at both San Francisco and Columbia.
KELLY RAE FINLEY MAGGIE DIXON DIVISION I ROOKIE COACH OF THE YEAR
Kelly Rae Finley’s 21-11 debut season not only earned her the permanent job as the women’s basketball coach at Florida, but now earned recognition as the Maggie Dixon Division I Rookie Coach of the Year, announced by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association. The award is named after the late Maggie Dixon, the former coach at Army and sister of TCU coach Jamie Dixon, who died of a heart condition in 2006.
Finley was named Florida’s interim coach back in the summer of 2021 after Cam Newbauer was fired. She led the Gators to a 21-win season, fourth place in the SEC, 10 SEC wins and the first UF trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2016. The Gators beat five nationally-ranked SEC teams in the month of February.
UF BASEBALL: GATORS TRAVEL TO GEORGIA
Fresh off their 6-3 win over 5th-ranked Florida State (16-8), the 14th-ranked Gators (18-7, 3-3 SEC) travel to Athens to face 23rd-ranked Georgia (19-6, 3-3 SEC) in a critical 3-game series starting tonight (8 p.m., ESPN2). Florida will be going with lefty ace Hunter Barco (5-1, 1.41 ERA, 53 strikeouts in 38-1/3 innings) while Georgia Is likely to counter with Jonathan Cannon (5-1, 1.96 ERA).
In beating FSU in Jacksonville Tuesday night, the Gators used five pitchers with Brandon Neely (1-0) picking up the win and Blake Purnell going the last 2-2/3 innings to pick up his second save. The Gators broke up a tight game in the fifth on a Wyatt Langford triple, an RBI groundout by BT Riopelle and a two-run homer by Josh Rivera (3rd). Rivera had three hits and three RBI for the night.
The Gators are second in the SEC in home runs (49), fifth in pitching (3.79 ERA) and third in fielding (.980).
UF SOFTBALL: NO. 7 GATORS WHACK NO. 22 UCF, 10-3
The 7th-ranked Gators (28-5, 5-4 SEC)) jumped to a 9-1 lead in the first three innings Wednesday at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium and cruised to a 10-3 non-conference win over 22nd-ranked UCF (29-8).
The Gators erupted for six runs in the bottom of the second to put the game away. The big hits of the inning were a 2-run single by Katie Kistler and a 2-run double by Emily Wilkie. Hannah Adams and Cheyenne Lindsey had sacrifice flies in the second. Adams had a sixth inning homer to finish the night with three RBI. Skylar Wallace scored three runs and stole two bases. She has stolen 32 bases without getting thrown out.
Elizabeth Hightower (9-1, 2.03 ERA) went five innings to pick up the win. Natalie Lugo pitched two shutout innings to finish off the Knights.
The Gators hit the road this weekend to face 17th-ranked Auburn (28-4, 6-3 SEC).
Other UF sports: The 2nd-ranked Gators will open on floor in the evening session of the second round of the Auburn Regional in the NCAA Gymnastics Championships tonight. The Gators are the top-seeded team in the regional and will be in a rotation with 15th-ranked Denver, 17th-ranked Ohio State and Iowa State. The earlier rotation will feature 7th-ranked Auburn, 10th-ranked Kentucky, 23rd-ranked Georgia and 27th-ranked Southern Utah … The 10th-ranked Gators (7-4) got five goals from Emma LoPinto Wednesday afternoon as they took a 19-5 non-conference win over Mercer in Macon, Georgia. The Gators continue their road trip to Cincinnati where they will open American Athletic Conference play against Cincinnati.
SEC FOOTBALL/BASKETBALL
Alabama: Freshman guard Jusaun Holt (6-6, 200), a former 4-star recruit who scored 15 points and grabbed 35 rebounds this past season, is in the transfer portal. That makes four in the portal so far from Alabama ... All-America wide receiver Jameson Williams says he’s ahead of schedule rehabbing from his torn ACL. Even with the injury he still projects as a first rounder in the NFL Draft.
Arkansas: Trevon Brazile (6-7, 200), who averaged 6.6 points and 5.1 rebounds at Missouri last season, is transferring to Arkansas over Kentucky, Illinois and Oklahoma.
Auburn: Jabari Smith was named National Freshman of the Year and Walker Kessler was named National Defensive Player of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
Georgia: Georgia will pay Mike White $3.4 million, a $300,000 a year raise over what he was making at Florida.
Kentucky: All-American big man Oscar Tshiebwe, who averaged 17.4 points and 15.1 rebounds per game, has been named National Player of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
LSU: The exodus continues. Former 4-star guard Justice Williams (6-3, 170), freshman forward Bradley Ezewiro (6-8, 230) and Shareef O’Neal (6-10, 230), son of all-time LSU great Shaquille O’Neal, are in the transfer portal. That makes seven players who have departed since Will Wade was fired and Matt McMahon was hired … Murray State guard Justice Hill, who averaged 13.4 points, 2.3 rebounds and 5.1 assists is following McMahon to LSU as is assistant coach Casey Long … Safety Pig Cage, a former walk-on from Nicholls State, is in the portal.
Mississippi State: New hoops coach Chris Jans has retained George Brooks from the previous staff while adding David Anwar and James Miller from his former staff at New Mexico State.
Missouri: DaJuan Gordon (6-3, 190), who started every game and averaged 8.3 points, is the fourth to enter the transfer portal since Dennis Gates was named the new hoops coach.
Tennessee: QB coach Joey Halzle says Hendon Hooker has improved his ability to read defenses and is seeing the second and third options in the passing game.
Texas A&M: The Aggies (27-12) are a win over Xavier (22-13) away from winning the NIT. Texas A&M is a 4.5-point favorite … Former 5-star tight end Baylor Cupp is in the transfer portal.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: At some point in the very near future, our Congress is going to vote on the NCAA Accountability Act. If passed it will limit NCAA investigations to eight months and cut the statute of limitations from four years to two. Streamlining investigations is a good thing when you consider the amount of time it took for the NCAA to end its investigation of LSU and issue a Notice of Allegations. There is no excuse that it took a long time to investigate and issue the NOA to LSU since there was under oath testimony in Federal Court, but that is only one example. There are plenty others. Changing the statute of limitations to two years? There are experienced cheaters out there who can hide anything for two years. Bad move there.
These are matters the NCAA should have taken up long ago, but of course, with Mark Emmert and his bloated, overpaid bureaucracy in charge, efficiency is a pipedream. There is no good reason for Congress to get involved, either. Oh sure, Congress will claim it needs to since every single school that participates in NCAA sports takes Federal money in one shape or form, but since when do these guys know anything about sports? For that matter, since when does the NCAA? Rather than try their hand at screwing up sports, which is what they will do if they get involved in an attempt to reform the NCAA, I’d like to see Congress come up with some meaningful legislation that both Republicans and Democrats can agree on that can have a positive effect on the lives of every American.
I’ve been watching the NCAA since the days of Walter Byers, a man for whom I can’t think of anything good to say, and there have been numerous calls for reform that seem to land on deaf ears. They make new rules and pile them onto the old rules to make a bigger, more difficult to understand set of rules, but essentially, nothing ever changes. If anything, the NCAA invents new ways to make bad situations worse.
From where I sit there are only two solutions to the problem that is the NCAA: (1) Fire Mark Emmert and hire someone capable who can streamline the organization and its ridiculous set of rules; or (2) abandon the NCAA completely, start a new organization from scratch with an actual leader who knows and understands sports.
I’m of the opinion that while firing Emmert is a rather good idea, the NCAA is beyond reform. The times have changed and the NCAA has failed to change with the times, therefore it is time to start fresh. Hire someone who will use common sense and secondly, understands that socialism doesn’t work in college sports. Not all athletic programs, sports or conferences are created equally. For example, why should schools with athletic budgets of less than $50 million have a say in what goes on in the SEC? That makes no sense at all and the only way to rectify this problem is to take a flamethrower to the NCAA then start a brand new organization with new leadership and new rules.
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