Will Muschamp started Florida media days off on Thursday afternoon with his opening press conference to start of the 2013 Florida football season.
GatorCountry.com was live from Media Days and will have plenty of coverage of everything that happened on Thursday at Media Days.
First things first, Gator Country has a notebook on the key things that head coach Will Muschamp said in his opening press conference.
- Muschamp said he loves this time of the year because you’re able to see the improvements of players.
- Muschamp met with the players earlier Thursday to talk about the goal for this season and starting fast against Toledo and Miami.
- Selfish and “stupid” penalties are what worries Muschamp. He said selfish penalties will get you on the sidelines because the depth chart is better now.
- Muschamp is excited about the offense this year because Brent Pease and the staff is back for the second year in a row, the first time that has happened since 2009.
- Muschamp said that the team is improved at every position but they are still worried about the tight end position.
- Muschamp is very concerned about the safety position.
- Place kicker is an issue. Muschamp said both Phillips and Hardin can do the job, but they don’t have the experience.
- Duke Lemmens, Chris Leak and Mike Peterson are all going to be back on the staff this year.
- Trip Thurman and Alex Anzalone will both be slowed this fall due to injuries.
- Matt Jones is out indefinitely with a serious viral infection.
- Jon Halapio will be back but he has a torn pectoral muscle.
- Max Garcia will meet with the back doctor on August 6th and should be back after that.
- Kyle Koehne will miss Friday’s practice due to attending a funeral.
- August 19th is the date when Jordan Sherit should be back.
- Antonio Morrison is not back with the team and will not be in fall camp right now.
- There will be no split squad practices right now due to the limited numbers on the offensive line.
- Right now Tyler Murphy is the backup quarterback.
- Ronald Powell and Alex Anzalone are cleared for camp.
- Matt Rolin is cleared for fall camp.
- Muschamp wants to see the knowledge of the safeties in the fall.
- Muschamp has confidence in Mack Brown and they recruited the position well.
- This is a huge opportunity for Mack Brown to get touches this fall camp.
- Driskel will be involved in the mental side of things until he is ready to practice.
- Muschamp said he needs to find out how good the five freshmen receivers are this fall.
- Purifoy needs to continue to work on technique at cornerback.
- Ronald Powell has put himself in great position to have a good season said Muschamp.
- The leaders of the team are grounded guys. Muschamp signaled out Ronald Powell, Jeff Driskel, Dominque Easley and Jon Halapio.
- Andre Debose had a really good spring and Muschamp said he is excited about his senior season.
- Muschamp has a lot of confidence in Quinton Dunbar and Muschamp thinks Debose will have a good year.
- Muschamp said Trey Burton is a forgotten guy on the team but he will play in the slot this year.
- Kent Taylor has improved at blocking and Muschamp is excited to get Colin Thompson on the field following his redshirt year following an injury last year.
- Muschamp says he doesn’t care about where the team is ranked in the preseason because it’s where you end that matters.
- Twitter is important because that’s how the young guys communicate and it’s a good tool for recruiting.
- The three Jacksonville guys are smart football players.
- Football is very important to Daniel McMillian.
- Ahmad Fulwood is going to have every opportunity to play as a freshman this year.
- Nick Washington will play multiple positions, similar player to Cody Riggs and Jaylen Watkins.
- Darrin Kitchens and Mike Taylor will play some. Neiron Ball will move inside to help with depth.
- Jarrad Davis has been impressive this summer.
- Florida will have a Trey Burton package like last year.
- No better kid in the locker room than Matt Jones. Jones will be fine says Muschamp.
- Morrison will miss some of fall practice but not all of it. Muschamp stresses the importance of teaching him a lesson.
- Roderick Johnson is in meetings and everyone reported to fall camp as scheduled.
- Not being in camp is killing Antonio Morrison because he loves the game of football.