The 2026 Orange and Blue game was not televised and took place about 5,000 miles from where I live now, but enough of it made it to YouTube (for now) that I was able to assess some things about the new-look Florida Gators.
The usual spring game caveats apply. It was the first public scrimmage for new schemes on both sides of the ball, and the coaches talked after the game about how they didn’t get all that deep into the playbook. It’s also the team playing itself, so any play that looks good for the defense might actually just show a weakness of the offense and vice versa. Some known star players didn’t play a ton of snaps, the quarterbacks weren’t allowed to be hit, and so on and so forth.
Perhaps the single biggest highlight of the game was Micah Mays’s 75-yard touchdown catch on a pass from Tramell Jones. It was a cool play, with Mays jogging a little on what looked to be some sort of in-breaking route before hitting the jets and going deep. After the game, Jon Sumrall referenced Buster Faulkner using double moves like that to “burn” the secondary — alluding to the fact that the defensive backs still have some things to work on in advance of the fall — and the corner he cooked wasn’t one of the ones in contention for a starting or backup job. Spring games are supposed to be fun, so sometimes you just have to let the big plays be their own exciting thing without overanalyzing them.
That said, there are still things that can be learned from watching the basics in a spring game.
For one thing, the offense is going to look a lot different. In a very, very good way.
The offense has three different wide receivers who could be the first option on a P4 team with Vernell Brown III, Dallas Wilson, and Eric Singleton. The next tier of Mays, Bailey Stockton, and T.J. Abrams looks pretty good too. Faulkner has a lot of toys to play with there.
Fortunately, it looks like he’s willing to do just that. It was refreshing to see just how many four wide, one back sets the offense rolled out on Saturday. There weren’t a ton of them that were true four-receiver sets, as a tight end, often Amir Jackson, was usually one of the four. This harkens back to the Dan Mullen offense, which lived in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, and three receivers).
Another similarity to the pre-Billy Napier days was the way the offense used the whole field. Napier employed a lot of football-in-a-phone-booth strategy and rarely used the whole field in the horizontal dimension outside of a couple of stock plays like jet sweeps and bubble screens. Falukner did use some bunch sets with his four-wide formations, but the offense made the defense mind most of the field in both dimensions far more often.
And furthermore, Faulkner’s passing plays usually had multiple things going on. There was often a safety value, which the quarterbacks were more than happy to check down to when the defense dropped way back to play things safe. And beyond just those fallback options, which aren’t exactly cutting edge in football schematic theory, there was seldom a time when a quarterback ran out of options. One annoying thing about Napier’s offense, particularly on plays designed for deep shots, was that there would be only two and sometimes even just one real option on the play. I didn’t see every play, but I didn’t see that happen with Faulkner running the show.
Now, the biggest duck-rabbit situation in spring games is always line play.
The defensive line had a much better day. Sumrall said the defensive line is something he feels confident in. This, despite the team probably being a nose tackle short after Michai Boireau transferred out with no true nose transferring in to replace him. The offense had a rough time running the ball, and the quarterbacks experienced more pressure than you’d want.
On the other hand, Faulkner said in his postgame comments that the offensive line was the most improved group from where they started in spring until now. That’s probably damning with faint praise, since it hints, intentionally or not, that it was a complete mess at the start of spring. And with only one entrenched starter back, several transfers working their way in, position battles almost everywhere, and a lot of shuffling to try out different lineups, it probably was.
UF has some ways to deal with offensive line issues. For one thing, they can have Jadan Baugh carry the ball more than four times. There was no need for him to do so and risk injury on Saturday, but he can make up for line issues. Spreading the field and the quick passing attack we saw early on Saturday from the Air Raid-bred Faulkner can also make up for some things to a point. Gator great Phil Trautwein has his work cut out for him from here, but his track record from Penn State indicates he’s up to the task.
All in all, a picture begins to emerge about how the Gators will try to win games in the fall. The offense will be scheming around an offensive line that probably will be average in the SEC at best, but it has the tools to do so. The great crop of receivers will force defenses to have to cover all the acreage, and quick horizontal passes will substitute in as “extended run” type plays — including passes to the running backs. If the line can give the quarterbacks a little extra time here and there, there will be someone with the speed to get behind the defense for explosive plays.
On defense, the strength of the team is up front and in the middle with the line and inside linebackers. Again, Sumrall called both those units out for praise. They will need to snuff plays out with regularity because the secondary, while not bad by any stretch, is still finding its way. It probably will give up some explosive plays, which is why it’s such a good thing that the offense appears to have the ability to generate explosives of its own.
Overall I come away with the impression that the plan for winning is more sound than it used to be. We can still see “complementary football”, but it’s more in the vein of the offense generating big plays and points to make up for potential weakness in the secondary instead of the offense playing it safe a lot to try to avoid putting the defense in a bad spot.
I trust that Sumrall will get the defense into good shape, because he’s been a great defensive coach everywhere he’s been. The main thing I wanted to see was Faulkner coaching like he didn’t have a restrictor plate, and I don’t think I saw that. I will call my current state cautiously optimistic, but I’ve been burned before, and even the coaches say they have a long way to go. The tests that matter most are still five months away, but Sumrall has passed another of the interim tests along the way.