Spring camp is underway in Gainesville as Billy Napier and the Gators look to build on their 8-5 record in the 2024 season. With injuries all over the defense, Florida’s defensive coordinator Ron Roberts is placing an emphasis on building depth throughout the spring period.
“It’s really developing depth more than anything. You know what I mean? That’s really my biggest goal,” Roberts told the media. “But our first goal for us is, really, there’s guys that we have in backup positions or maybe haven’t seen a significant time, these young players that we’ve got to get them in the candid category in spring practice. That’s just life in the SEC. You know, you’re not going to play with 11, you’re not gonna be able to 22, you know what I mean? So there’s some guys that our biggest objective is to get everybody on the same page.”
As seen from last season, depth can be equally as important as who you have in your starting 11. Secondary players such as Trikweze Bridges, Dijon Johnson, and Cormani McClain had to step up and play significant snaps down the stretch as Florida caught the injury bug in their secondary.
“The guys played really consistent. I thought we had some guys step in, obviously got thrown into bigger roles and bigger opportunities, and we saw those guys step up, which is huge,” Roberts said. It was a lot of guys that, you know, getting play at the end of the year, and we got guys out that you know, they’re gonna be fighting for positions as we go through spring and fall camp. So I’m excited about the growth we made. We’re obviously still not where we want to be, but I think we made serious growth going in the right direction.”
Florida’s defense ranked 76th in total defense last year. While that is nowhere where they want to be, it doesn’t tell the whole story. The Gators’ defense was very much a ‘bend, but don’t break’ unit, ranking 43rd in scoring defense. Florida’s defense didn’t start clicking until their 5th game against UCF. From that point forward, the Gators held six of their final eight opponents to 20 points or less at the end of regulation. In the final four games of the 2024 season, the Gators allowed just 13 points per game on average.
Roberts believes the Florida Gators defense is trending in the right direction.
“I think we have the players in place,” Roberts said on evaluation of the defense. “I’m going to be honest. Last year, we had the players in place. Could we have done better? Yes, you know, and it didn’t hit until, whatever, (week) five, (week) six, we started getting in that mode of doing those things. If I went back, I think we under achieved, you know, but I think we got the players in place, and I think right now, you’re already seeing guys, you know, know what to expect. My expectations is we need to be in that 1%. We need to be elite football. We got to play elite on defense.”
The Gators also saw a marked improvement in turnovers forced a year ago, ranking 13th in the country in turnovers gained with 25 after forcing just seven in 2023. While Florida was among the best in the country in snagging turnovers, it’s not enough for Ron Roberts.
“Our hunt would be in the 30,” Roberts said. “That’s the number we would like to hunt. So although, you know, it was good on the back half and what we did, overall body work is not what we need to be. So I think our kids feel that and they’re hungry.”
Spring football is a time to get back to the fundamentals and really drill in the goals for the upcoming season. Roberts believes Florida is in a much better spot compared to this time last year.
“Can we increase the intelligence level with what we’re doing? Can we get better at everything we’re doing? So how the technique, fundamentals of how we’re handling this thing, but we also got to increase the mind level and where we’re at. I think we made huge strides in February. We’re light years ahead of where we were here at this time last year. We’re light years ahead,” Roberts said.
The Florida Gators’ defense is a staple of this historic program. Under Ron Roberts’ direction, the Gators will aim for a more consistent season in 2025, and that starts with building depth at all three levels of the defense.