Will the Florida Gators test Texas on Saturday?

Craig takes a look at the Florida Gators as we prepare for Saturday's game...

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we'll be taking a look at the Florida Gators.
You know, if you look pretty closely. We mentioned this
earlier in the program, but if you look pretty closely
at Florida, you'll see they've been far more competitive than
you might imagine, given the fact that they had the
struggles and Billy Napier's name being brought up as whatever

(00:25):
on his job on the line, that sort of thing.
So it might surprise you to know that they've been very,
very competitive in a foreign four season with some of
the games that you would kind of went for example,
overtime loss in Knoxville to Tennessee. Now, yes, they were
blown out by Miami to open the season, and then

(00:46):
of course they had the injuries afterwards. First of all,
Graham Mert starting the season, and then DJ Lagway, the
freshman from Willis High School at Texas High School product,
coming in playing really really well. Then he struggled and
Merch went back in, and then of course he had
the season ending any knee injury. And now all of

(01:07):
the expectation is that Lagway won't be able to go
on Saturday because of that hamstring injury, and we're probably
going to be taking a look again at the freshman
transfer from Yale, the red shirt freshman Aiden Warner in
all probability, and we had that. You heard the conversation

(01:27):
that we have with Sean Kelly in the first hour
of the program. So, but this is a team that
has surprised some folks with how competitive they've been of late.
And that includes the game last Saturday in Jacksonville against
Georgia where they led at the half and it was
twenty twenty into the fourth quarter before the Bulldogs pulled
away with a couple of late touchdowns. So this is

(01:49):
not a team that's going to roll over. And you've
already heard from head coach Steve Sarkisian how physically tough
and imposing that they can look like and can be.
You know, they look and act and play, so to speak,
like an SEC team. So we'll talk more about it

(02:09):
with sark coming up tonight on Longhorn Weekly, Coming your way,
and again we record the program at six o'clock tonight,
So if you want to be there for the show,
I know that it airs on Thursdays, but we record
the program on Wednesday evenings at six, So that's your
appointment thing. If you want to be there to hear

(02:30):
from Sart and we'll recorded at six o'clock. There are
question cards. He addresses questions from the fans as well
and the special guests. As we mentioned Nate Boyer, who
was such a great story as a Persian Gulf War
veteran and a guy who special forces that whole thing

(02:54):
and then came back at age thirty two and made
the football team and worked on special teams and deep snappers.
It was great to see, you know, It's always good
to see Nate Boyer, and we'll see him tonight. He's
our special guest to see me. College basketball will come
your way on Friday night and that will be the

(03:18):
home opener for the Texas Longhorns and they'll be taking
on Houston Christian the Huskies and the Longhorns would be
looking to bounce back after the loss against Ohio State.
And I don't know if you noticed this. You know,
Texas A and M of course went into its game

(03:39):
with UCF ranked thirteenth in the country and lost on
Monday night, say night that the Longhorns lost as number
nineteen in the country to Ohio State, and A and
M went down to Orlando, they lost to UCF number thirteen,
and I don't know if you saw it, but the

(04:03):
fans stormed the court. They did there and they were
picked to finish. UCF has picked to finish eleventh out
of the sixteen teams in the Big Twelve. And Wade Taylor,
the fourth who was first team All SEC last year

(04:24):
and A and M projected finished fifth in the league.
Johnny Dawkins was excited about He's an unbelievable environment. Who
wouldn't want to be here playing in front of this crowd.
Our student section is amazing. I'm just really really happy
for our guys. Our fans come out and they support us.
Just seeing the evolution of our program over the years,
I'm just really excited to see where this program can go.
And Darius Johnson a big returning veteran. He hit a

(04:48):
big game last year when UCF defeated Texas at Moody Center.
He had twenty four points for of the Knights in
that win over Texas A and M. And then I
thought this was rather humorous well that the Big Twelve
used the opportunity the conference to kind of take a
little poke at the SEC on social media with the

(05:11):
phrase it just means more. How about a conference, uh
tweet saying it just means more not not not an
individual school. Uh, you know, because you have the social
media students and or employees who are in charge of

(05:35):
tweeting out and you know whatever, putting out on x
and and uh you know other other platforms as well,
Instagram and so on. Uh. The you might say, extolling
the virtues and the exploits of an athletic program, now
that happens pretty regularly with virtually every athletic program in

(05:59):
the country. In the University of Texas is you know,
no exception to this rule. So but for a conference
to do it, that was the thing I think that
surprised some folks that a conference would do that. So
anyway it came out, there was a good little poke,

(06:22):
you might say, at the SEC, since the thirteenth ranked
team in the country did lose to one of what's
projected to be one of their bottom feeders. On that
coming up on Friday night, there's a pretty big college
basketball game that'll be going on in addition to the
games going on across the country. And as we mentioned,

(06:42):
of course, Texas in action against Houston Christian at seven
o'clock at Moody Center. Will be on the air at
six thirty with the pregame start time and the tip
off at seven o'clock. Also going on Friday night is
top rank Kansas and number nine North Carolina, two of
the real blue blood programs literally and figuratively in college basketball,

(07:05):
and both are coming off wins. North Carolina got pushed
for a little while by Elon. The Target Hills had
like an eleven point a half time lead. Elon had
a big second half run, I think a fourteen oh run,
took the lead. Carolina close with a big run down
the stretch and pulled away. Kansas had no such drama.
They won pretty. They won by thirty points over Howard

(07:26):
Hunter Dickinson back on the court. He's the guy who
I think is probably the odds on favorite to be
the Wooden Award winner, the Natesmith Award winner. He sat
out the Jayhawks two exhibition games because of a minor injury,
but he was back in the lineup for their opener
of the other night. He had sixteen points in that one,
and he was five of eight from the field in

(07:47):
twenty one minutes, added six rebounds, three steals, two block
shots as well, so that's going to be an interesting
game to take note of on Friday night, with North
Carolina playing at Canns. Normally when those two schools meet,
it's in like early season tournament play or classic play,
like say at Madison Square Garden or in Brooklyn where

(08:10):
Texas will be later on this month, or in some
of the other places like that Las Vegas. You know,
Usually it's not an on campus thing between the two,
but it is going to be an on campus deal,
so it'll be on Friday night. So that'll be at
Allen Field House. That'll be quite interesting to see. All right.
When we come back, we'll wrap up today's edition of

(08:33):
the program on Sports Radio AM thirteen hundred zone in
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