Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Florida Gators (5-6) have a chance to save their season and ruin a rival's Saturday night when they take on fifth-ranked Florida State (11-0) in the 2023 finale at Spurrier/Florida Field. The Seminoles are in the thick of the College Football Playoff hunt and will be looking to stay unbeaten. 

Brandon Spikes, meanwhile, will be looking to stay unbeaten against FSU. 
 
In the 10-year history of the honorary "Mr. Two Bits" tradition, no active UF football player or coach has ever been tabbed to do George Edmondson's famous pre-game cheer. Spikes is in his first season as a student assistant coach after returning to school to finish his degree. So since he's going to be in the house anyway, he might as well come out of locker room, make the walk through the tunnel he knows so well, run onto the field that he used to call home, only this time donning khakis and a yellow shirt when he sends the sell-out crowd into a pre-kickoff frenzy. 
 
"The [Florida State] game was always a big one on my calendar," Spikes said. "I'm going to be the guy getting everybody going before the battle. That means a lot to me."
 
Spikes was a 6-foot-3, 255-pound inside linebacker during his two-time All-America hey day. He was one of many Gators who got everybody going; mostly his teammates.  He arrived here as a true freshman in the 2006 class alongside Tim Tebow and some of the greatest players in program history. He left four years later with 46 victories (to just seven losses), two Southeastern Conference championships and two national titles. Spikes was a second-round draft pick of the New England Patriots in 2010 and played six seasons in the NFL, the final two with Buffalo.
 
He'll be the third player from that two-time championship era – joining Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy – to get the "Two Bits" call. 
 
"I know the history behind it," said Spikes, who never got to meet the real Edmondson. "We could definitely hear him getting the crowd going when we were in the locker room, for sure."
 

Now that assignment will go to Spikes, which means he'll basically be pulling double-duty. 
 
Since Spikes returned to UF last summer, his charge has been to do whatever he can to help instill the kind of culture and mentality that made Florida football a national power in what now seems like a long time ago. His legacy (not to mention cred with the band of current-day players) enjoyed something of a renaissance in August when Spikes was one of the half-dozen players prominently featured in the "Swamp Kings" documentary on Netflix that profiled those great (and colorful) Urban Meyer-era Florida teams.  
 
"I want the Gators to be back and elite again," he said. "We did lot of things when I was here to be the No. 1 team in the country. I want to be a part of getting us back to that. Obviously, I'm also here to finish school, but I believe I can communicate to the guys a little bit better. I've been in their shoes and been to the places they're trying to go. I feel like I can relate to them on and off the field."
 
On Saturday, just watch how he relates to the crowd of 90,000 or so. 
 
"I'll keep it traditional," Spikes said. "I'm a traditional guy."
 
With a lot of great history (and success) on his orange and blue resume. 

[Rick Hurtado, director of football communications, contributed to this report]