FOUR BITS: Muschamp, volleyball, Sloan, Driskel

1 » Florida Gators head coach Will Muschamp apparently provided Pat Dooley, columnist for The Gainesville Sun, with a few minutes of his time at some point over the last week and dropped a couple tidbits of information about the program and where it is headed. Below are some of the most notable nuggets from the 2,000-word column, much of which makes excuses provides reasoning and perspective for Florida’s tough 2013 campaign. You can check out in full by clicking here.

* Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel, who just last year saw his team get ravaged by injuries before finishing the 2012 season 5-7 (2-6 SEC), called Muschamp personally to provide support. “He said he couldn’t imagine what we were going through. I got a lot of calls like that. Everyone has injuries, but I had guys in this league who called and said, ‘I don’t know how I would have handled it.’”

* Out of all the injured Gators, only sophomore running back Matt Jones (torn meniscus) and freshmen linebackers Matt Rolin (torn ACL) and Alex Anzalone (shoulder surgery) are expected to miss spring practice. Dooley reports: “Muschamp told me he plans to bump the start of spring practice to later in the year to make sure [junior quarterback Jeff] Driskel is completely rehabilitated after his leg injury.”

* Muschamp said he tried to be more easy-going this season in order to combat much of the negativity the players had to face each week. He regrets that decision. “I tried to make it fun for them and they were used to me being an [expletive] for two years.”

Check out four more BITS of Florida Gators news…after the break!

2 » Five-seed Florida Gators volleyball saw its 2013 season come to a crashing halt on Friday when it fell 3-2 at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville, FL, to the Florida State Seminoles in the second round of the 2013 NCAA Tournament. Florida allowed its unranked in-state rival to knock it out of postseason play as the Gators failed to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2004. The match was not only a disappointment for UF as a whole, it also was an unceremonious farewell to senior middle back Chloe Mann, who deserved better in her final season of college volleyball. Click here to read more on Mann’s last game from Gators in-house writer Scott Carter.

3 » Florida gymnastics will be looking to defend its national title – the first-ever NCAA Championship in program history – this season, and sophomore all-around Bridget Sloan will undoubtedly be a huge part of that plan. Sloan, already an eight-time All-American as well as the 2013 NCAA title holder in both the all-around and balance beam, debuted her new floor routine recently for Gymnastike.com. Check it out below.

4 » As much as some Gators fans may be down on Driskel, NFL.com senior analyst Gil Brandt believes he could very well be the second senior quarterback selected in the 2015 NFL Draft. Nevermind the fact that Driskel will actually be a redshirt junior in 2014 and could very well return for his fifth season in 2015 unless he somehow has a miraculous turnaround under Florida’s new offensive coordinator.

Extra BIT » Florida women’s basketball (6-3) has been up-and-down early in the 2013-14 campaign, but the Gators hit a major mark on Wednesday by scoring more than 100 points in a game for the first time in nearly 13 years. UF topped Troy 104-74 in the O’Dome and was led by 22 points each from guards senior Jaterra Bonds and sophomore January Miller in the effort.