Michael Hickernell, a Gators alum, recently walked through campus and took a video of the lot outside of the Heavener Football Training Center. There were no less than 10 Dodge cars parked right in front!

The assumption here is that all of them were presented to the athletes as part of an NIL deal. That may not apply to every vehicle in the lot, but it would certainly explain the abundance of Dodge cars.

Gainesville Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram has partnered with multiple football players in the past, so there is a basis for the assumption. Should this be true, the lot (and the associated video) serves as a remarkable marketing tool for the local dealership. Everybody on that team is, apparently, driving in style!

Now, let’s also be clear that this is not uncommon these days. Many NIL collectives across the country work closely with local dealerships. A lot of athletes at the same school are driving the same brand.

Heck, Shedeur Sanders has four cars worth no less than $100,000 and Alabama football players were driving Chargers long before Name, Image and Likeness came to exist. This is not an earth-shattering revelation.

However, the video of the Gators’ parking lot really puts things into perspective!

These athletes are practically expected to get the keys to a new car upon arrival to campus at this point. They are driving on the dealership’s dime for as long as they are enrolled with a specific program, in this case Florida, and their teammates are doing the exact same.

People will debate whether this is a good thing or ruining college sports. Those who say the latter care far too much about a college kid’s car. They are capitalizing on their worth! That’s the American Dream!

Gators show in-state WR Naeshaun Montgomery how much he’s wanted

The Florida Gators hosted a deep group of prospects on their campus this past weekend. The big attraction for these prospects was getting a chance to view the Gators first scrimmage f the spring. One name that made their way to campus for the first time this year was Miami (Fla.) Central composite four-star wide receiver Naeshaun Montgomery. The South Florida pass catcher last visited The Swamp for a game this past season, and enjoyed getting back around the staff once again.

“I had a great time getting back on campus,” Montgomery said. “I got to sit in on the meetings and see how those go, watch their walkthrough, watch the scrimmage they had in The Swamp, and then I had some meetings with different coaches and people on the staff. Everyone was really excited to see me back there, and they showed a lot of love.”

GAINESVILLE — Florida didn’t quite play like the superior team throughout its three-game homestand against No. 21 Mississippi State.

In totality, the Bulldogs pitched better than the Gators did and scored more runs, too, allowing them to lead for 15 of the series’ 27 innings.

But it hardly stopped the Gators, who earned their third-straight SEC series victory with bookend wins over Mississippi State, both of which required ninth-inning, walk-off heroics. It marked the first two-walk-off series for Florida since 2014.

Here is Swamp247’s in-depth recap of the weekend, which includes key stats, analysis and important quotes from head coach Kevin O’Sullivan:

Notes: Florida’s closer dating back to the start of the 2023 season, junior righty Brandon Neely made the jump back into the Gators’ starting rotation for the first time since the Gainesville Regional in June of 2022, a byproduct of head coach Kevin O’Sullivan’s pursuit of the most streamlined version of his pitching staff, something he’s said quite publicly he hasn’t found yet.

And for the first three innings of Neely’s series-opening start, the move looked perfect. The highly regarded 2024 MLB Draft prospect allowed just one run. But, be it due to fatigue or any other factor, Neely couldn’t find his footing in the fourth as he recorded just one out and was responsible for four earned runs.

It was far from a perfect outing for a Gator team desperately looking for at least six innings out of a Friday-night starter. But it was also far from discouraging.

“I thought the first couple of innings Brandon looked really, really sharp,” O’Sullivan said. “I mean really sharp.”

So Florida will stick with its new-look rotation for at least another week. O’Sullivan said not doing so would be a “knee-jerk reaction.”

The environment could be a perfect launching point, too, as the Gators are set to travel to Columbia, Missouri to take on the Tigers, who are widely viewed as SEC bottom-dwellers this season.

Southpaw Cade Fisher, who opened the year as Florida’s Friday-night arm, will again pitch from the bullpen, a role that saw him allow just one earned run on two hits and three walks over 3.1 innings while striking out five.

Notes: Liam Peterson’s talent is apparent. The quality of the true freshman’s stuff is beyond his years.

But in no way is Peterson’s youth more apparent than in the consistency of his execution. And against the Bulldogs, it was that volatility that plagued him.

Like Neely a night earlier, Peterson dictated the pace for the first three innings of his outing. His fastball was sharp and his changeup, which he threw more than in any other outing this season, was as effective as it’s ever been in his young collegiate career. But Peterson spiraled in the fourth, allowing a pair of solo home runs before allowing three more runs to score on a combination of walks and singles.

Peterson has been stung badly by the home run this season. After Saturday’s game, 34.3 percent of the fly balls hit against him have left the yard, an incredibly high rate, especially for a pitcher who has induced balls in the air at a 45.5 percent rate.

Notes: Kevin O’Sullivan was adamant on Saturday night following Florida’s 12-2 loss that the best version of his group includes two-way star Jac Caglianone starting on Sundays despite pitching far better than anyone else on staff.

With Caglianone closing out weekends, the Gators would theoretically position themselves to win series so long as they took one of the first two games, something O’Sullivan said they should be capable of most weeks.