Football is in the air. In about a month, the Gators will open fall camp with nobody knowing what to expect from them.
On one hand, the Gators came six points and a thrown shoe away from making their first College Football Playoff appearance in 2020. They improved one of the worst defenses in school history by adding a pair of transfers on the defensive line, hiring two new coaches and signing an excellent recruiting class in the secondary.
On the other hand, the offense carried the 2020 team, and most of the key players from that historically great offense are in the NFL now.
While we won’t know for sure what the 2021 Gators will look like until the opener against Florida Atlantic on Sept. 4, we should start to get some answers in fall camp.
In the second part of our fall camp preview series, we take a look at five storylines to watch for on the defensive side of the ball.
1. Depth at defensive tackle?
While record-smashing passing attacks draw most of the attention these days, the trenches are still vital to success in college football. The Gators’ 2020 season was a painful reminder of that.
In UF’s four losses, they gave up an average of 251.5 rushing yards per game and six yards per carry. Yes, those averages were skewed by the lifeless, short-handed effort in the Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma, but there’s little denying that the Gators need to be more consistent at stuffing the run in 2021.
The Gators may have shored up that deficiency this offseason by bringing in Antonio Shelton from Penn State and Daquan Newkirk from Auburn. They bring a combined seven years of Power Five experience and 638 pounds of beef to the middle of the defensive line. They both drew rave reviews from their new teammates and coaches in the spring for how they instantly stepped up as leaders rather than acting like the new guy in the room.
That leadership will prove extremely beneficial, as this has a chance to be Florida’s deepest defensive tackle group in about a decade if some young players develop quickly.
Gervon Dexter turned in a solid spring and could push Shelton or Newkirk for a starting job in fall camp. Jalen Lee, Jaelin Humphries and Lamar Goods return, and enormous freshmen Chris Thomas and Desmond Watson look like strong building blocks for the future.
Right now, however, all of the hype surrounding this group is based on speculation, raw ability and what Shelton and Newkirk did at their previous schools.
Every defensive tackle on the roster is unproven in a Gators uniform, which makes for an interesting fall camp. Will Shelton and Newkirk continue to impress, and will Dexter and others emerge as legitimate players to make this a strong four- or five-man rotation?
If the answers to those two proceeding questions are yes, then the rushing defense will be much improved and defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s blitzes will be more effective.
2. Battle at BUCK
Brenton Cox was seen at several of UF’s recruiting camps this summer with his left foot wrapped and using a cart to wheel his way around the practice fields. The severity of his injury is unknown.
If healthy, Cox figures to be the starter at BUCK and finish near the top of the SEC in sacks. Though there are some serious concerns about his ability to set the edge in the running game, his combination of strength and speed will allow him to pile up the statistics, especially in Grantham’s pass-rush-friendly system.
What the rotation will look like behind Cox is unknown.
Jeremiah Moon opted to return for a sixth season, but injuries have limited him to just 28 games and 5.5 sacks in his career.
Khris Bogle finished last season strong, with 2.5 sacks in the final four games. Many fans and reporters are projecting him as a potential breakout star on this team.
Andrew Chatfield can play both end spots, and he sacked Alabama quarterback Mac Jones in the SEC Championship Game.
David Reese looks to get back into the mix following back-to-back season-ending injuries.
Lloyd Summerall was a top-250 recruit in high school but has played in just four games in two years, while Antwaun Powell could be more of an option as a redshirt freshman.
That’s a whole lot of bodies for what likely winds up as a three-man rotation, but you’d certainly rather have that problem than the alternative.
It’ll be interesting to see who rises and falls at BUCK during fall camp.
3. Help needed at linebacker
The Gators have one all-SEC-caliber linebacker in Ventrell Miller. Now they need one or two guys to competently play alongside him.
They have several talented options to choose from but no one who has established himself as a solid player in college.
Mohamoud Diabate’s transition from BUCK to linebacker was a little rougher than hoped for last season, but that can likely be attributed to the decreased practice time last offseason. He looked much more comfortable during his final few games and finished second on the team in tackles. He played well in the spring, which suggests that he could on the verge of stardom.
Amari Burney, meanwhile, is trending in the opposite direction. He was hailed as a jack-of-all-trades playmaker when he signed with UF in 2018 and flashed at safety as a freshman. However, he struggled a little bit in his first year at linebacker in 2019 and was unplayable for most of 2020. He struggled to keep up in coverage, and he wasn’t physical enough against the run. To put it frankly, even figuring out what he was supposed to do was a challenge for him at times.
The physical skills are there, so it may still be too early to count Burney out.
Ty’Ron Hopper is a former high school cornerback who is UF’s best coverage linebacker but needs to improve his run defense to be an effective player in the SEC. He earned praise from his teammates this spring, so he could be in store for a breakout year.
Derek Wingo was the highest-ranked recruit of any Florida linebacker, and he’ll look to earn more playing time as a sophomore.
For the defense to make the huge jump that many fans are expecting this season, the Gators need one or two linebackers to separate themselves on the depth chart in fall camp.
4.Secondary rebuild
You’d like to think that the secondary has to be much improved this season after producing one of the worst passing defenses in school history a year ago. But then when you look at the roster, it’s hard not to be at least a little discouraged by how much youth and inexperience there is.
Junior cornerback Kaiir Elam will lock down one half of the field and possibly challenge for All-America honors. Unless a competent sidekick emerges on the other side of the field, though, nobody’s going to throw his way.
Five-star true freshman Jason Marshall looked the part in the spring, but the coaches may prefer to bring him along slowly. If that’s the case, junior Jaydon Hill will start the opener. He started five games in 2020 and was solid but unspectacular.
Behind those three, redshirt freshmen Avery Helm and Ethan Pouncey, true freshman Jordan Young and Missouri transfer Jadarrius Perkins will compete for snaps. They’ve played in a grand total of one Division 1 game.
Trey Dean and Rashad Torrence should be a strong tandem at safety, but depth is also a major concern at this position. Redshirt freshman Mordecai McDaniel and true freshmen Donovan McMillon, Corey Collier and Dakota Mitchell are the top reserves.
Sophomore Tre’Vez Johnson is expected to start at STAR after an uneven rookie campaign. Kamar Wilcoxson, who only played in one game as a true freshman last season, will be his backup.
On top of all of that inexperience, the group’s only gotten 15 practices in with new coaches Wesley McGriff and Jules Montinar. There’s a whole lot that has to go right in a short amount of time for the secondary to experience a quick turnaround.
For the Gators to contend for the SEC East title and a playoff birth, it’s critical that the new-look secondary grows up quickly and meshes in fall camp. And the starters absolutely have to stay healthy.
5.Coaching differences
McGriff and Montinar brought noticeably different emphases to the secondary during the spring. They spent a bunch of time working on the fundamentals, such as proper tackling technique, using the sideline as an extra defender, scooping up loose balls and wrapping up the ballcarrier prior to going for the strip.
Those seem like things that would be second-nature to players at this level but nonetheless plagued the Gators last season. It’s clear that Dan Mullen and Grantham want the defense to be more disciplined, aware and fundamentally sound than whatever that was that we had to suffer through watching last year.
It’ll be fascinating to see where things go in the fall. Will McGriff and Montinar continue to put their players through a fundamentals boot camp, or will their teaching become more scheme-specific now that the players have a basic understanding of what their new coaches are looking for?
The talent is there for this defense to be elite, and Grantham’s scheme can’t possibly be as bad as the statistics from 2020 suggest. The players need to make the plays that are right in front of them to be made and play like a well-oiled machine instead of a chaotic mess. The progress they make toward the former will be one of the biggest things to watch in fall camp.