Brandon Spikes is FSU ‘Mr. Two Bits’

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…