Brandon Spikes Opens Up About Florida's Culture?! Steven Harris Shares Inside Story

Talking about the UAE and we've had, we keep changing the guy with the clipboard. We're not asking the right questions. What hasn't changed? What Brett was, what Brandon's saying. That was his, his quote. There's no leadership. There's no standard set and it's beyond the coach. It's, this is beyond the players. This is what I was alluding to of like, how do you go 20 years where you haven't been able to win? Piper. He is just, he is, he is down in the dumps. This guy, he is. He's in a bad place. He doesn't come out and hang out with us anymore. I haven't seen him in years, so I don't even know if he exists. This might not even be him anymore. Could be a fake guy, as far as I'm concerned. I haven't even seen him. It could be someone else running his account. Did y'all listen to B-Spike's take today? I did not. I didn't see it. Did you see it? I didn't see it, no, but... How are you going to ask me and then say, why has all the coaches after Urban been terrible, even with elite players? Is the culture in Gainesville really that ----? I kind of understand what the question is. Was it a tweet? The culture, we do got to do, we got work to do, boss. First of all, we've been sucking, boss. But we do have work to do as far as the culture. And that's what this weekend with the guys coming back, a lot of guys haven't been back in a long time. So some of those guys have a renewed sense of commitment to the program. Moss spoke about it, talking to Tate. And even when he was talking to Tebow personally, I'll just tell you guys. He just told Tebow, hey, man, I'm coming back. I'm planning on moving to Florida. Moss lives in Denver. And I'm going to be around the program. I want to pour into these guys. And I want to be more involved. We have a lot of guys who have not been involved who want to come back and be involved now. We've had kids and we've had lives, wives, and families. But now these guys, you know, feel the need to be back. But not only to feel the need, we feel welcomed by this staff. This is by Coach Summerall and him, I guess, being a former player, understanding that we need guys being back in present and vocal and not saying we want to run a program or coach, but you got to have guys around that knows what it was like or not even know what it was like that actually got us back to prominence. Before we won in 06, it was 10 years before we had won in 96. So the old six guys and. Us being veterans and showing the younger guys, the 08 guys, how to do it. We know the recipe. We know what the vibe should feel like and the energy. And so with this staff being welcoming of that, it's going to do wonders with helping that transition. Like Moss had the chance to talk to Peyton, right? Those different interactions turn different light bulbs on. And so we got to get the culture back, even throughout the city. I went out all through Gainesville, and it's just not the same. From when I was there, not saying it should be the same, but I will say it's just lacking a little spark that makes people excited, make people go hard and make people play harder. And so I don't know exactly what Spike said, but I can agree that we we got to pump more juice into this. And in a lot of former greats being back, coming back first encourages the booster to want to give more. They're going to see you at the games. They're going to talk to you. They ask you different questions. Hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? What do you think we're doing so far? How do you think we did with this hire? They literally be asking those type of things. When I get around guys who got the money and do a lot for this program, they ask me my thoughts. I can't hold a candle to what some of these other guys, my teammates did on the field. I know what I did culturally for the university and for my guys. But production wise. Those guys have major voices and need to be around. And I believe we can get this thing turned around for sure. Congratulations, boys and girls, because this show is brought to you by PrizePicks. And I congratulate you because you finally made it to college football season, boys and girls. Yes, that is right. You can now get in on the action on PrizePicks with college football. It is time to get up after it. This week, we're rocking and rolling, feeling pretty good. But our guy, Micah Alahado from Hawaii. Then we've got, of course, King Miller with USC getting some rush touchdowns. I know we don't like FSU around these parks, but I think Ashton Daniels is going to use a little legs in this upcoming week for some nice football to get him more in his rushing yard. You can now get in on the action with PrizePicks for the rushing season. And individual games. And on the app, you can pick your team to just win the game outright when you use that code HMA. Download the app today using the link in the description. You play $5. You get $150 if you win that lineup for brand new users. And take advantage. Ride with the crowd. Okay? Use the great features that PrizePicks has to offer. PrizePicks. It is good to be around. So I have some quotes from what Brandon said. And this kind of goes back to my 10-goal-a-hat rant the other day, actually, where I said this exact line. It wasn't as cool, I guess, when I said it. All But when I was talking about the UAA, and we keep changing the guy with the clipboard, but we're not asking the right questions. What hasn't changed is what Brandon's saying. right. That was his quote. There's no leadership, there's no standard set, and it's beyond the coach. This is beyond the players. This is what I was alluding to of, like, how do you go 20 years? Where you haven't been able to win like there and that's what I meant by being muzzled right that and like obviously we've seen him change a little bit since that my rant has come out not saying that I made that but since that rant there was a lot of questions about him being muzzled but my theory was is like they're sold this dream them being the coaches and then they get here and it's like hey can we do this it's like yeah we can't do that hey can we try to do this yeah we can't do that and so like every move they try to get there was a A manager that I had when I first got into like the corporate world and his whole motto was hashtag break things, which I love. If you go to a corporate world and try to implement that motto, especially at the University of Florida, they will hate you. What he was trying to get you to do was do things that essentially break the process. Like, hey, we've always done it this way. He hated that. Hated that. And Florida, from my understanding, and I spoke to somebody today, and this is going to be an analogy that makes some of you uncomfortable, but I'm going to be honest with you. It makes me feel uncomfortable when I heard it. It's like when you, you know, it's like McDonald's. People who work there, it's like you never want to see how it's made because you won't like it anymore. If you understood kind of how the process is behind the scenes of Florida, you wouldn't be, you wouldn't be, you know. You wouldn't go home, you know, sleep at night because this isn't what I thought it was. I know we are deep into the tenfold theories right now, but Brandon started it, all right? So I'm not going to take any accountability for this. I'm a natural disruptor. I'm going to try to do things with integrity, but when it's not right for me, good luck trying to get me to follow the rules. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't. I'm going to push the limits almost 99% of the time because I know what needs to be done. And there are some things that we need to do better, for sure. And I believe we have the guy that's going to be able to get it done because he's going to have our support. Talking to all the former players and all that, we believe in Somerole, and he's going to garner more of our support. So whatever it is he needs to get done or wants to see done, he's going to have our support to make sure it gets done. And there's going to be a lot more people being a lot more vocal, showing up. and pressing different issues, but I think that's and that's kind of the key again Again, like people like yourselves and Brandon that were part of that championship team where it's like we got like us fans It's like oh these guys are just crazy. When people who are around it and saw it start asking questions right and are frustrated, it's going to change their perspective. Another thing he said, there's no leadership, there's no standard set, and this is beyond, I already read that. I remember a time around here, everybody knew exactly what the standard was and who was in charge and what we was working towards from top to bottom. We're not getting a big-time college quarterback. We need to build a culture-first soldier. Tom couldn't even change this, I think, speaking of Tom Brady. And then another thing about accountability is you're either coaching it or you're allowing it. There's nothing in between. Kind of spoke about his philosophy from Bill Belichick. So very, very loud and proud. Yeah, we got to put our foot down. Yeah. It's going to be, yeah. It's going to be a rude awakening. I know Coach Sumrall was just coming in. He had to get here and adjust. But his temperament and the personality and from being around him, he's seeing what we see. And he's trying to figure it all out. Well, I just want to let him know, Coach, we got you. And whatever you need to get done, stay on the gas. Continue putting pressure everywhere, and you have our support because we know what it takes, and we want to get it done just as bad as you. So you have all of our support. The other quote, he says, look, I look around there and I see the same team I saw two years ago, a year ago. I promise the effort, the body language, they just don't look like they would like to be there, which is a pretty big critique of the team as well. It is interesting, too, to see because, obviously, Brandon was part of Florida. Go ahead. Yeah. Spikes is probably one of the most honest people I know when it comes to this game of football. And I have to be honest, two years ago, all the way up to a year ago, when I would come back, Spikes would look at me, and I'd be excited. I'm like, oh, this is what they're doing. He'd let me say, Steve, we suck. I'm like, what are you talking about? Man, we trash. This person suck. He don't want to go hard. He think he better than he should be. Can't tell him nothing. He's getting his feelings. He used to tell me all this internally. In my mind, I'm like, Spike is being too hard on the guys. But he would say it to me because I'm a big bro, and he would just be honest with me. And I'll have to, in my mind, try to find a way to cope with me being excited about what I'm seeing, knowing that Spike just told me that they suck. It was the hardest thing to do. But when you've been there, if you're there every day like he has been, you're going to see it. And there were things that I saw when I came back, Couldn't talk to the players on this. And on the sideline in practice, I see them make a mistake, and no one says nothing to them. And then I go to say something to them, and then some assistant that works for the school come and tell me, hey, we can't have you saying nothing to the players. Well, damn, I would have never said nothing if a coach had said something. And that's not this current staff, but that's what's been going on. And so I've been assured. By this staff, that they want me there. They want me at practices. They want me everywhere, and they want me voicing every opinion I have and straightening everything that I see. Now, I live in Tampa, so it's hard to do that. But I would be willing to move. But just them being that inviting is encouraging that we're headed in the right direction.