What is it about the defense for the Gators that's been a problem?

You start in the secondary, but obviously that translates and communicates well to up-front as well.

They're just inconsistent everywhere.

Uh, they're not getting pressure whatsoever.

They can bring ...

Last week, they started aggressive and started bringing more numbers and started bringing six guys, and that affected Lenore Sellers pretty early.

Until they bring six again.

Yeah.

All right.

It, it, it, it will.

I mean, it, it, it is that bad.

It doesn't matter what they've tried to do.

It, it, they, they, they can't communicate very well.

Florida has tried to play soft coverage.

They get beat over the top anyway.

What do you expect in terms of atmosphere Saturday afternoon?

What's been your thoughts on Philo four weeks into the year?

You can certainly see why he's the guy.

And I don't think we really got that full picture until last week, Hacker, when they go on the road to Auburn.

And you're in that environment and you see how smooth the operation is.

And I think we now go back and look at the competition and And between him and Tramell Jones, who's going to win the job and why are they going to win the job? Well, I think that's what we've seen in this four and other stars.

And you just see it's calm, cool, collected.

And you see everything pre-snap that Buster Faulkner asked of his quarterback to get his offense into the right looks and the right checks.

I think the Gator defense, if they continue to play like they are, the Gators will be in good shape.

It's about what's the run blocking gonna look like and the pass protection from this offensive line.

Yeah, true.

And, and one stat, Mark, I found that I'll put out on Gator Breakdown this week.

Flor- uh, Auburn's only given up 100 yards to a traditional running back twice in the last three years.

I think it was, um, [lips smack] uh, Le'Veon Moss from Texas A&M last year, and then Quinshon Judkins back in 2023.

Uh, so as you said, they, they are a really good defense.

Jayden Ball's one of the best running backs in the country.

But obviously probably not the way you want your quarterback to approach every play.

But where would you say, even in those performances, where you think Florida absolutely must get better?

I would say where Florida must get better would be on the defensive side of the ball.

You go against a very, very fast – I mean, FAU was the fastest offense in the country last year.

We saw that game one, too, in game one for a brand-new defense under Brad White.

So you can certainly tell Florida played a lot of it safe.

They didn't get a lot of pressure up front.

Quarterbacks getting rid of it in about two seconds anyway.

But up to this point, describe the elation, the vibe with the Florida fan base and their new ball coach.

But where would you say, even in those performances, where you think Florida absolutely must get better?

I would say where Florida must get better would be on the defensive side of the ball.

You go against a very, very fast – I mean, FAU was the fastest offense in the country last year.

We saw that game one, too, in game one for a brand-new defense under Brad White.

So you can certainly tell Florida played a lot of it safe.

They didn't get a lot of pressure up front.

Quarterbacks getting rid of it in about two seconds anyway.

But up to this point, describe the elation, the vibe with the Florida fan base and their new ball coach.

But just your thoughts in totality of their performance in a week one blowout.

Yeah, kind of continued all the off-season momentum John Summerall built for Gator Nation to feel better about him as the head coach and finally got on the field and it kind of bared out that same way.

So obviously it was FAU, but Mark, you get to that point you made and it didn't really...

So there were times, you know, I think last year Florida opened up with LIU.

And yeah, it was like a 55-10 win or something like that.

But you still saw a lot of the struggles up front along the offensive line that you didn't really expect to see.

DJ Lagway was inconsistent and all that.

Where were the biggest holes on the defense, in your opinion?

And how much has ball security been a priority of his both on the offensive side of the ball and defense is taking it away because clearly if Florida wants to be able to pull off some upsets and I think they have the capability to do it, David, but they need to be super, you know, mistake free throughout much, much of this season.

Yeah, for sure.

I think on the defensive side, I found a metric since you brought it up.

It was sometime in the offseason.

Turnovers on defense go up immediately when he takes over a program.

So I think that's something to look out for if that continues because it happened to Troy, it happened to Tulane.

Will that continue to happen now year one at Florida? And also, look, turnovers were – you mentioned Lagway last year, but it was a big – conversation point throughout the all off season too, because you go back to spring and this quarterback battle that Florida had between Aaron Philo and Tramiel Jones.

But two, are they

I guess a better question is going to be, how much do both play the first two weeks?

Oh, no, definitely both play.

If it's, if it's me, the way I attack it, I mean, we'd go back a couple of weeks ago and John Summerall's was saying there wasn't really going to be an announcement for a starting quarterback.

Well, it didn't go that way.

He announced starting quarterback.

That was different.

So now I think what you do in doing this is you go let Aaron Philo get a lot of the one reps.

But as far as gamesmanship, as far as planning for the schedule, is there an advantage to waiting this long?

But what makes you think that Summerall's the right guy?

Yeah, we can all get tricked by the off-season, so you know, o- obviously we gotta wait till the games are being played.

But as you said, he's kind of won everything he's done since then, since the opening press conference and joking about Lane Kiffin because Florida was in the Lane Kiffin sweepstakes, and joking about that, and then also endearing himself with the fan base, and rightfully so.

And I do think he means it when he says it, "We're gonna lean into the offense.

We're gonna have an explosive offense.

I know what Gator fans want.

I know what Gator Nation wants." And now obviously that's what Gator, that's what Florida wins with.

Right.

How do you think that this is going to pan out and more explosive potentially than what DJ Lagway? Was it Lagway? We knew he had the talent, but it was so much the fact that it was the plays that Napier was trying to call or now having Philo there and the other competition that that is going to lend to a more explosive offense.

Yeah, I mean, Buster Faulkner's saying, look, this offense has got to be explosive.

That's the thing he wants out of it.

And, look, I think going to last week, there were some signs, I think.

And, no, look, I still think it's an open competition.

But I think going into fall camp next week, when fall camp starts, I do think Aaron Filo probably has a leg up, giving some things that – John Summerall said last week, and I go back to that pre-media scrum last week, and he was talking quarterbacks, and he told us, look, I sat both those guys down right after the spring, and I told one of them, or he told both of them that one of them would likely be the starter if they had a game that Saturday, but it's not set in stone.

And then there were some quotes that he told ESPN of how he kind of just shook out the quarterback battle between Aaron Philo being the more consistent and having the experience, and Tramiel just kind of being up and down and not as consistent.

Kind of work us through what is going to be maybe the strengths or maybe the Achilles of that defensive unit.

How do you think that this is going to pan out and more explosive potentially than what DJ Lagway? Was it Lagway? We knew he had the talent, but it was so much the fact that it was the plays that Napier was trying to call or now having Philo there and the other competition that that is going to lend to a more explosive offense.

Yeah, I mean, Buster Faulkner is saying, look, this offense has got to be explosive.

That's the thing he wants out of it.

And, look, I think going to last week, there were some signs, I think.

And, look, I still think it's an open competition.

But I think going into fall camp next week, when fall camp starts, I do think Aaron Filo probably has a leg up, giving some things that – John Summerall said last week, and I go back to that pre-media scrum last week, and he was talking quarterbacks, and he told us, look, I sat both those guys down right after the spring, and I told one of them, or he told both of them that one of them would likely be the starter if they had a game that Saturday, but it's not set in stone.

And then there were some quotes that he told ESPN of how he kind of just shook out the quarterback battle between Aaron Philo being the more consistent and having the experience, and Tramiel just kind of being up and down and not as consistent.

Kind of work us through what is going to be maybe the strengths or maybe the Achilles of that defensive unit.

Where are you on this group for the Florida Gators right now?

uh for me it's about the timeline how fast does it all come together i mean cole you you know you play the position and i've heard you talk about it for the last couple of years now with this transfer portal and it's hard to get a cohesive unit with all so many pieces coming in and out well that's exactly what florida's dealing with this year with a coaching change and now you got transfers from georgia tech and penn state coming in to maybe try to you know with phil trotline came from penn state he brought a couple guys with him buster faulkner brought a harrison moore who's probably the likely center from Georgia Tech.

So there are some pieces that are familiar with the coaches, but it's still new.

So my question is, you know, how fast does it all come together? I mean, we hear the timeline for naming a quarterback, but maybe even more so important is the timeline for the five guys in front of him to help protect him.

So we talked to Summerall about 30 minutes ago.

We got a little media scrum with him, and he said, look, he don't really have a timeline, but you guys probably heard the sound bite right after the spring game.

He said those guys have got to have a freaking great summer.

When he hired them, I'm like, I love the hire because I love Brad, but they don't seem the same at all outside of their being super physical and meathead stuff.