John Ruiz Speaks on Florida Gator Collective
Profile photo of Malik Bryant from Orlando (Fla.) Jones; credit Brian Smith.
There probably have not been many times that Miami Hurricanes alumnus and booster John Ruiz has come to the defense of much, if anything, that’s revolved around the Florida Gators.
After all, he’s been rooting for Miami to continue to beat Florida along the recruiting trail, which has certainly been common of late (Malik Bryant being one of the first this year).
The two schools have been through a history of not getting along on the gridiron, and it’s spilled over into trash talking in many forms at the local watering hole, golf courses, and beyond. That being said, there are exceptions. Ruiz went to Twitter to offer the following retweet and it held some merit, quite frankly.
In today’s Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) world of college football, it’s important that institutions have gathered the interested boosters and make sure things are on the same page. Obviously the tweet above showed that not all has been well in Gainesville, but that does not mean that a fix cannot be provided at some point.
If the big-money donors did bail, however, that could be a disaster and quite frankly not just for the University of Florida. That could have lasting impacts on the SEC, as well as college football in the state of Florida and beyond.
College football has usually been more fun when the Gators have shown to be a quality program competing at least in the top 20 of the polls. Now, it’s probably not easy to have convinced many (if any) Hurricanes fans of that point, but without competition, college football just doesn't hold as much interest. That's especially the case with those cool in-state matchups and recruiting battles.
Will Florida get the Gator Collective figured out so that its NIL situation works better? It’s hard to imagine that it does not transpire even if that’s a process over a year or two. The Gator Collective has been like a small company, and that means there have been squables that needed to be fixed, and yet somehow, those fixes didn’t take place just yet.
For everyone involved, let’s hope that the people that have operated the Gator Collective listen to Ruiz’s plea and start to get that situation rectified. Then, after it’s taken care of, Canes fans can go back to hating the Gators once more, and vice versa.
Just like nothing has changed.
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