Less than 24 hours after Billy Gonzales stepped down from his post to become the passing game coordinator for the LSU Tigers, Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer had Zach Azzanni locked up as his new wide receivers coach. Soon after that, Azzanni did a 360 on the recruiting trail, leaving the Central Michigan Chippewas‘s prospects behind and focusing on the Gators’ targets.

For the past week, Azzanni has been feeling his way around – going on recruiting trips, meeting his new coaching mates, getting to know Florida’s current players and finding a place to live as he survives out of his suitcase. On Friday, he participated in his first practice and is still trying to get his feet on the ground. “It’s been a blur to me,” Azzanni told the press Friday. “It happened fast. I got a call last week and got off the road for Central Michigan and got on the road for the University of Florida. This is a dream job and a chance of a lifetime to come and coach with the defending National Champions, and I’m going to take it.”

Since he left CMU, Azzanni’s former head coach Butch Jones also vacated his position, replacing Brian Kelly as the head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats. The media immediately named Azzanni one of the top candidates to replace Jones, even though he had just accepted his new position with the Gators. While he could very well be under consideration, Azzanni has yet to be contacted about the position.

“Hey, that’s flattering,” he said of the speculation. “It’s my alma mater and a great place. But I’m a Gator and I’m here, let’s go. I have not been contacted by them. It’s just rumors and things I can’t control. I don’t know [if they will contact me]. I’m not going to speculate. I’m here wearing a Gator on my shirt and coaching the wideouts as hard as I can.”

Cornerbacks coach Lance Bedford and quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler have also been rumored as candidates for head coaching and coordinator jobs, but Meyer said he has not yet been contacted by any schools asking permission to speak with them. “I just hired a guy and I hear his name is up [for a head coaching job],” Meyer said. “I’ve been blessed with some great coaches. Eventually coach [Steve] Addazio will be a head coach. Charlie [Strong], you knew that was a matter of time. We just have to keep going. This is Florida and you should have great coaches.”

As far as filling Strong’s open defensive coordinator position, Meyer said he has not achieved much on that front. “I’ve been on the road. I just got back,” he said. “I’ve been working the phones and getting bombarded [by interview requests]. There are a lot of things to consider. I don’t want to comment [on who I might hire]. I’m still at the ground stages of it. It’s the puzzle, the alignment.”

Tags: Billy Gonzales, Brian Kelly, Butch Jones, Central Michigan Chippewas, Charlie Strong, Cincinnati Bearcats, Lance Bedford, LSU Tigers, Scot Loeffler, Steve Addazio, Urban Meyer, Zach Azzanni

1 » The University of Florida is considered one of the best football traveling schools in the country. However, you would never know that if you looked at the ticket sales for the upcoming 2010 Sugar Bowl against the No. 4 Cincinnati Bearcats. Out of the No. 5 Florida Gators’ 17,500 allotted tickets, the team still has almost 5,000 remaining. In fact, the University Athletic Association usually only allows boosters and students to order tickets, but they opened it up to alumni and regular fans via Ticketmaster almost two weeks ago. Should fans wish to attend, they can choose to sit in the Gators section.

2 » Getting ready for a trip to Sunrise, FL, for the 2009 Orange Bowl Basketball Classic, the No. 13/13 Florida basketball team (8-1) is dealing with a rash of injuries. Junior forward Chandler Parsons (torn leg muscle), sophomore F/C Kenny Kadji (back spasms) and freshman F Erik Murphy (shoulder) are all missing practice while sophomore guard Ray Shipman (foot) just recently returned to action. “We’re about at a point where we’re playing 3-on-3 in practice,” head coach Billy Donovan said. “You’ve got 10 guys and you’re down to six right now, so that makes it challenging, especially with exams going on.”

3 » The Gators football team keeps racking up honors as six players were named to the Sporting News All-SEC Team on Thursday. On offense, senior quarterback Tim Tebow, junior tight end Aaron Hernandez and junior center Maurkice Pouncey all received the nominations; senior middle linebacker Brandon Spikes, junior cornerback Joe Haden and junior defensive end Carlos Dunlap represented the defense. Haden was also named the 2009 Defensive MVP by the publication.

4 » Speaking of honors, soccer’s Erika Tymrak was named to the 2009 Soccer America All-Freshman team as a second team selection. She has already been listed on the NSCAA All-South Region second team and SEC All-Freshman team.

Tags: Aaron Hernandez, All-SEC, Billy Donovan, Brandon Spikes, Carlos Dunlap, Chandler Parsons, Cincinnati Bearcats, Erik Murphy, Erika Tymrak, Joe Haden, Kenny Kadji, Maurkice Pouncey, Orange Bowl Basketball Classic, Ray Shipman, soccer, Sugar Bowl, Tim Tebow, UAA, University of Florida

1 » The 2009 Heisman Trophy will be awarded Saturday at 8 p.m. live on ESPN from the Nokia Theater in Times Square. Finalists for the trophy include Stanford Cardinal running back Toby Gerhart, Alabama Crimson Tide RB Mark Ingram, Texas Longhorns quarterback Colt McCoy, Nebraska Cornhuskers defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh and Florida Gators senior quarterback Tim Tebow. Tebow, the winner in 2007 and third-place finisher in 2008, is expected to finish fifth in the voting. OGGOA will not be covering the Heisman ceremony live on Saturday, though we will post a message about the winner on twitter soon after the ceremony.

2 » Tebow sat down with a number of reporters and beat writers on Friday in New York, allowing them to informally ask questions regarding a number of topics including his Heimsan ballot. Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald broke down Tebow’s thoughts on who should be the 2009 winner and came to the conclusion that he voted for Suh. (This would be the correct vote, in OGGOA‘s opinion.)

3 » Losing former offensive coordinator Dan Mullen to the Mississippi State Bulldogs and then former defensive coordinator Charlie Strong to the Louisville Cardinals in back-to-back seasons, Gators head coach Urban Meyer‘s greatest test my be perfecting his coaching turnover, writes Gene Frenette of The Florida Times-Union. Couple that with the loss of a large group of seniors and several big-name juniors, and Florida’s transition to 2010 will have to be seamless in order to keep them at the top.

4 » Speaking of Strong, the new Cardinals coach spent his first two nights in Louisville sleeping at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium as he got acquainted with the program and university. “It’s kind of a whirlwind,” Strong said. “There are a lot of things to be done. The best thing is just catch your breath and take your time and make sure I do the right things.” He even gained a commitment from quarterback recruit DeMarcus Smith, “arguably the state’s best junior” according to The Courier-Journal. Strong will leave the program at the end of the week and return to Gainesville, FL, to coach the Gators’ defense for the 2010 Sugar Bowl against the Cincinnati Bearcats.

Tags: Alabama Crimson Tide, Charlie Strong, Cincinnati Bearcats, Colt McCoy, Dan Mullen, Heisman Trophy, Mark Ingram, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Nokia Theater, Papa John's Cardinal Stadium, SEC, Stanford Cardinal, Sugar Bowl, Texas Longhorns, Tim Tebow, Toby Gerhart, Urban Meyer

1 » Florida Gators cornerbacks coach Vance Bedford visited the home of four-star CB recruit Cody Riggs (Fort Lauderdale, FL) Thursday night and earned the St. Thomas Aquinas High School product’s commitment, according to a report from Rivals. Bedford still taking visits and bringing back commitments is a strong indication that he may not leave the Gators as was previously reported by other sources.

2 » Former Cincinnati Bearcats head coach Brian Kelly, who has now accepted the same job with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, will not coach his former team in the 2010 Sugar Bowl against Florida, according to university administrators. In the few hours since Kelly’s announcement, Cincinnati players have already begun bashing him in the press. “I didn’t want to hear it,” star wide receiver Mardy Gilyard said. “I’m fairly disgusted with the situation – him letting it last this long. Hopefully he’ll pack his things up and get to South Bend in a hurry.”

3 » Gators players, including redshirt junior left guard Carl Johnson, are making sure the team is up and ready for the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1. “Winning [22] straight games in a row is not much of a letdown,” he said. “We had the nation’s [longest] win streak there for a while. We’ve still got a BCS bowl game. We’ve still got another opponent. It’s not much of a letdown.”

4 » Golfer Greg Norman will host a 12-team golf tournament on Friday at the Tiburon Golf Club and two of the main competitors in the contest are former Florida players. Mark Calcavecchia and Brian Gay will pair together in the $3 million tournament.

Tags: Brian Gay, Brian Kelly, Carl Johnson, Cincinnati Bearcats, Cody Riggs, golf, Greg Norman, Mardy Gilyard, Mark Calcavecchia, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, St. Thomas Aquinas, Sugar Bowl, Tiburon Golf Club, Vance Bedford

Speaking with reporters at the end of his introductory press conference, Louisville Cardinals head coach Charlie Strong said he has no plans to poaching assistant coaches or incoming recruits from the Florida Gators. “As of right now, no. I’m not going to raid Urban Meyer’s staff,” Strong said. “What I want to do is take my time with the staff. The key thing is to make sure you get some good recruiters, some good teachers and make sure they have good character. I want to make sure I get the right people, the right fit for the University of Louisville.”

“I won’t talk to [the Gators' recruits] because I don’t feel that is right. If they call me, then I will talk to them, but I’m not going to pick up the phone. There are some guys they are recruiting that I know they are not going to take that I’m going to call. Their guys that are already committed, and that I know they really want, I am not going to touch.”

Strong, who signed a five-year contract with a base salary of $1.6 million per season, also said he plans to stay in Louisville, KY, through the week before returning to Gainesville, FL, to help prepare the Gators for the 2010 Sugar Bowl against the Cincinnati Bearcats. “I have been there for awhile and I am the coordinator there, so I feel like I still owe it to them,” he said.

He also acknowledged that Florida did not make him a lucrative counter offer as was originally expected. “What happened was, I have been at the University of Florida so long,” Strong said. “When I sat down with Jeremy or Urban said, ‘This is what I want to do,’ and everything kind of stops and it’s like, ‘Okay, Charlie, I know that’s what you want and we aren’t going to stop you because you are going to an outstanding program and you are going to work for an outstanding athletic director.’ The thing about Urban is that he and I have grown so close and we are kind of like brothers. It is like anything else, where you do not want to see no separation, but he finally realized that this was a great opportunity for me and that I need to take it. I even sat down with our athletic director, Jeremy Foley, and Jeremy said the same thing. When I said that I wanted to become a head football coach, the conversation kind of stopped.”

At the beginning of his press conference, Strong made it a point to thank Florida’s athletic director Jeremy Foley and head coach Urban Meyer as well as Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier, who he also coached under. When speaking of the Gators, Strong was exceptionally emotional. “It is so special to when you’re able to go back to a program that you have been with four different times,” he said.

Tags: Charlie Strong, Cincinnati Bearcats, Jeremy Foley, Louisville Cardinals, Sugar Bowl, Urban Meyer

Falling to the now-No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2009 Southeastern Conference Championship on Saturday, the No. 5 Florida Gators also lost their shot at the 2010 BCS National Championship. Instead, the Gators have been awarded a berth to the 2010 Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1, 2010, against the No. 3 Cincinnati Bearcats. While Cincinnati is not a common opponent for Florida, the Bearcats are quite familiar to one member of the Gators. Head coach Urban Meyer spent his college football playing career as a walk-on defensive back at Cincinnati from 1983-86. Only the second meeting ever between the Gators and Bearcats, the previous contest took place on Oct. 20, 1984, with Florida toppling Cincinnati 48-17 on homecoming.

This is the Gators’ eighth all-time Sugar Bowl appearance. Florida is only 2-5 in their previous seven games in this bowl: 1965 (L – Missouri), 1974 (L – Nebraska), 1991 (L – Notre Dame), 1993 (W – West Virginia), 1994 (L – Florida State), 1996* (W – Florida State), 2000 (L – Miami).

* National Championship

Tags: Alabama Crimson Tide, BCS National Championship, Cincinnati Bearcats, SEC Championship, Sugar Bowl, Urban Meyer

From time to time, OGGOA will come across too many news items we want to share with our readers. In those instances, we present a special post: Gator Bites. Enjoy.

- Reports were released early Sunday that Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer was hospitalized late Saturday night with chest pains. However, Meyer actually checked himself into Shands hospital in Gainesville, FL, early Sunday morning. He was treated and released for dehydration. The Orlando Sentinel reports that Meyer “worked late recruiting Saturday night after the Southeastern Conference Championship game loss to Alabama, which may have contributed to his dehydration.” ESPN has the story:

- Four-star linebacker Jeff Luc (Port St. Lucie, FL), a recruit who was highly coveted by the Gators, committed to the Florida State Seminoles on Saturday according to Aaron Shepard, one of his high school coaches. “He said he’s been a fan since he’s been a little kid and it just felt like home since he went up there this weekend,” Shepard told The Orlando Sentinel on Sunday.

- Defensive coordinator Charlie Strong told reporters on Saturday that he has not yet spoken to the Louisville Cardinals and had no planned meeting with the school on Sunday. Sunday morning, the Cardinals spoke with Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley and received permission to speak with Strong about the job opening. According to ESPN’s Joe Schad on twitter, Strong and Louisville AD Tom Jurich have plans to meet Sunday night in Gainesville, FL.

- The Gators will likely face the Cincinnati Bearcats in the Sugar Bowl. Meyer played defensive back for the Bearcats from 1983-1986.

- Former Alabama Crimson Tide running back Shaun Alexander, a close friend of senior quarterback Tim Tebow for some time, was seen consoling him late after the game in the Georgia Dome.

– Prior to the Miami Dolphins game on Sunday, former middle linebacker Channing Crowder ran out of the tunnel and gave a huge Gator Chomp to the crowd (which received a surprising ovation). Crowder was responsible for the game-clinching interception with 0:35 left in the fourth quarter as the Dolphins defeated the New England Patriots.

- Also a huge day for former Florida wide receiver Louis Murphy with the Oakland Raiders. Murphy caught four balls for 128 yards and two fourth quarter touchdowns against the Pittsburgh Steelers to give his team a 27-24 win.

- Competing in the 2010 Under Armour All-American Game are the following Florida commitments: Joshua Shaw (CB; Palmdale, CA), Jonathan Dowling (S; Southeast, FL), Demar Dorsey (S; Boyd Anderson, FL), Solomon Patton (WR; Murphy, AL), Leon Orr (DT; Gulf, FL), Mack Brown (RB; Martin Luther King, GA), Ian Silberman (OT; Fleming Island, FL). These recruiting prospects (among others) will also be playing in the game: Chris Dunkley (WR; Pahokee, FL), Kadron Boone (WR; Trinity Catholic, FL), Lamarcus Joyner (CB; St. Thomas Aquinas, FL), Cody Riggs (CB; St. Thomas Aquinas, FL), Chaz Green (OT; Tampa Catholic, FL), Devin Gardner (QB; Inkster, MI), Eric Mack (OG; Calhoun County, SC). For the star ratings of the Gators commits found in this list, visit OGGOA‘s recruiting page.

OGGOA will continue to update you with news throughout the day, so stay tuned.

Tags: Alabama Crimson Tide, Channing Crowder, Charlie Strong, Chaz Green, Chris Dunkley, Cincinnati Bearcats, Cody Riggs, Demar Dorsey, Devin Gardner, Eric Mack, Florida State Seminoles, Ian Silberman, Jeff Luc, Jonathan Dowling, Joshua Shaw, Kardon Boone, Lamarcus Joyner, Leon Orr, Louis Murphy, Louisville Cardinals, Mack Brown, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers, SEC Championship, Shands, Shaun Alexander, Solomon Patton, Sugar Bowl, Tim Tebow, Under Armour All-American Game, Urban Meyer

University of Florida men’s basketball head coach Billy Donovan will be honored with the John R. Wooden “Legends of Coaching Award” in April 2010. This award recognizes successful coaches who exemplify Wooden’s high standards of integrity on the court. Winners are selected based on character, success, student-athlete graduation rate and coaching philosophy. Donovan will be one of only four active coaches who have both guided teams to multiple NCAA National Championship titles (20006, 2007) and received this honor. The others are the Duke Blue Devils’ Mike Krzyzweski (3), North Carolina Tar Heels’ Roy Williams (2) and Connecticut Huskies’ Jim Calhoun (2). Donovan is 310-126 (.711) in 13 seasons as coach of the Gators with 11 consecutive 20-win seasons, nine NCAA tournament appearances and three SEC Championships.

Two Florida Gators defenders have been nominated for the 2009 Rotary Lombardi Award. Given annually to the nation’s top college football lineman, the trophy is awarded for not only on-field ability but also discipline resembling that of Vince Lombardi. Middle linebacker Brandon Spikes and defensive end Carlos Dunlap were nominated this year in a group that is very defense-heavy. Nebraska Cornhuskers defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is considered the overwhelming favorite to win.

In this week’s Scripps Howard Heisman Trophy poll, senior quarterback Tim Tebow earned eight of the 10 first-place votes. The rest of the top five – Texas Longhorns QB Colt McCoy, Cincinnati Bearcats QB Tony Pike, Notre Dame Fighting Irish QB Jimmy Clausen and Houston Cougars QB Case Keenum – did not receive a single first-place vote. Scripps is simply a straw poll conducted to determine the sentiment among college football writers throughout the country.

Tags: Billy Donovan, Brandon Spikes, Carlos Dunlap, Case Keenum, Cincinnati Bearcats, Colt McCoy, Connecticut Huskies, Duke Blue Devils, Houston Cougars, Jim Calhoun, Jimmy Clausen, John Wooden, Mike Krzyzweski, Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska Cornhuskers, North Carolina Tar Heels, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Rotary Lombardi Award, Roy Williams, Texas Longhorns, Tim Tebow, Tony Pike