The Florida Gators held their first scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday. With less than 20 days until opening kick, it’s imperative that the Gators get as many game reps as possible to prepare for #7 Utah.
First and most importantly, the Gators escaped the scrimmage relatively healthy.
“I think the big thing is we had a very physical scrimmage, but we were able to stay healthy and make progress,” Napier said.
Napier believes the team is heading in the right direction but says there’s plenty to work on.
“Really good work, both sides of the ball, we have taken steps forward, the film is much cleaner maybe than spring practice,” Napier said. “I think fundamentally we are a lot further along. I do think the communication is improving. We still have quite a few plays where maybe we were nine or ten out of 11 from an execution standpoint…But overall good energy, I thought the intangibles were there, but overall, a lot to learn,” Napier said.
The defense was a step ahead of the offense in Saturday’s scrimmage.
“I thought the defense did a good job of limiting explosive plays,” Napier said. “I think that we didn’t score touchdowns in the red area, that was an objective that we didn’t meet on offense, and I think that the defense obviously contributes to that.”
“We did turn it over a few times, so the quarterback efficiency wasn’t what we want it to be,” Napier said. I think that a lot of things contribute to that, when you are playing with a mixture of lineups, different positions, different players. But it can be better.”
Although the offense wasn’t where Napier wanted it to be, he isn’t overly concerned.
“We threw it to the defense in a couple situations where it happens, 3rd in long, two minute, nothing alarming here. We get it, it’s going to happen,” Napier said. “The good thing is our defense is creating some of that, we are playing well, we are affecting the quarterback, we are playing well in the back end.”
“Part of our formula here is we got to protect and affect, we got to protect our quarterback and affect the other quarterback, and you do that in lots of different ways,” Napier said. “You push the pocket, you tip balls, you hit the quarterback, you sack the quarterback. The element of disguise, right? I mean there’s so much that goes into that, but it’s a big part of playing winning football. Creating those passing downs, creating those advantage opportunities for the defense. I think the interceptions from the other day happened in those situations,” Napier said.
Napier mentioned last week that the team goal is to have one penalty in every 30 plays. He wants them to be technical and not discipline oriented.
“The first offensive unit was the only team that didn’t meet their quota, didn’t meet their goal for the day. I think those are all very correctable, if that makes sense, procedurally,” Napier said. “Outside of that I thought it was pretty clean. We had a full crew in here, all college officials that had a good set of eyes on everything.”
Napier believes there is a huge benefit in having a full crew to referee the scrimmage.
“We agreed to call it just like it was game day. We wanted to know if we have issues, we wanted to expose those,” Napier said.
“Next Saturday we got a full SEC crew coming into town for practice Friday and also the scrimmage Saturday. Putting a premium on that, and I think we’re heading in the right direction there,” Napier said.
The offensive line is one unit that Napier isn’t concerned with.
“I’m very comfortable with that group, I think there is competition there. I think we know who six, seven, and eight are,” Napier said.
“Who’s nine, who’s ten. Who’s going to get reps in a game week, who’s not. Who are rotational players? I think we’ve got 8 players that would deserve to play if we had a game today,” Napier said.
This next week of practice will be very competitive, according to Napier.
“This week in particular here, practice 10-15 is going to be very competitive on our football team,” Napier said.
“We got to get the game changers, game ready. We got a competition at kicker. We’ve got to improve our operation. We’ve got to get really good at covering kicks and certainly got to get ready to make some game changing plays,” Napier said.
There’s a lot of competition on the depth chart regarding who’s with the first team and who’s with the second team, according to Napier.
This next week of practice will determine who earns playing time.