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In this week's Swampcast, the Sun's Kevin Brockway, Noah Ram and Andrew Abadie broke down Florida football shaping its first roster under new coach Jon Sumrall and Florida basketball picking up its first SEC win over No. 20 Georgia.
The return of Florida Gators junior running back Jadan Baugh was the big news of the week for UF, Florida also signed Georgia Tech quarterback Aaron Philo to compete with returning UF quarterback Tramel Jones Jr. for the starting quarterback job vacated when DJ Lagway left for the transfer portal.
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Baugh, who rushed for 1,170 yards and scored 10 TDs (eight rushing, two receiving) will reportedly make $1.3 million to return to UF. Florida also got a commitment from Cincinnati running back Evan Pryor to back up Baugh.
"He will be the focal point of the offense, and he should be," Ram said of Baugh. "I think Florida will have the most success next season if they go run heavy, burn a lot of clock, run more of a ball control offense."
Sumrall also addressed Lagway entering the portal in a podcast, saying he didn't run off UF's former starting quarterback who went 10-9 in two seasons as a starter.
"I think it's telling of DJ in two ways," Abadie said. "First of all from the business side, yeah that makes sense, go get your money somewhere else because if you stay here you're going to have to compete and potentially lose out on a lot of money, right. So that makes sense. But at the same time, it kind of tells me my suspicion of DJ Lagway is and I like the guy, I thought he handled himself really well in every press conference, but kinda got the feeling he was a little soft."
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Later, Brockway, Ram and Abadie discussed Florida bounding back from an SEC opening loss at Missouri with a 92-77 win over No. 20 Georgia on Jan. 6. Florida will look to continue that momentum when it hosts Tennessee on Jan. 10 (ESPN, noon).
"Rick Barnes, pretty good coach, you know he's going to pack it in, force Florida to beat them from outside," Brockway said. "Like against Georgia when Georgia went zone, you can always offensive rebound rebound well against a zone. I think it's certainly easier to play physical at home because you get the benefit of the doubt with the whistles a little bit more than on the road."
Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1. Read his coverage of the Gators’ national championship basketball season in “CHOMP-IONS!” — a hardcover coffee-table collector’s book from The Sun. Details at Florida.ChampsBook.com
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida football transfer portal moves, Florida basketball topics on this week's Swampcast
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