With spring football finally in sight, Gator Country is here to get you through these final few days until the Gators are back on the gridiron.
Before Florida football returns, we will preview where each position group stands as the team transitions into 2021. Continuing with linebacker, we will give an in-depth look at who returns and players to watch and pose three questions we need answered before the end of spring.
The good news for UF’s linebackers is everyone is back except for two, and they add an early enrollee freshman this spring. The bad news is that they weren’t very good last year. They weren’t physical enough to get off of blocks and make tackles, and they weren’t fast enough to hold up in coverage. The result was one of the worst defenses in school history.
The group looks to rebound from the struggles of 2020 and lead the defense into greener pastures this spring.
Who’s Leaving: James Houston, Jesiah Pierre
Houston played in 35 games in his UF career and amassed 103 tackles. However, his lack of speed rendered him essentially useless in coverage, and he saw his playing time gradually dwindle throughout the 2020 campaign. With younger players passing him on the depth chart and a pair of newcomers on their way, Houston opted to enter the transfer portal in early January. As of the time this story was published, he still hadn’t decided on his new home.
Pierre, meanwhile, played in 11 games last season but primarily on special teams. He made only eight tackles in his two seasons in the orange and blue. He transferred to Texas Tech in pursuit of more playing time.
Who’s Back: Lacedrick Brunson, Amari Burney, Mohamoud Diabate, Ty’Ron Hopper, Ventrell Miller, Derek Wingo
Miller was the lone bright spot at an otherwise disappointing position. He started 10 games in the middle and led the team with 88 tackles. He also added 3.5 sacks and 7.5 tackles-for-loss. He has a nose for the football and hits running backs like they stole his lunch money. He made several stops in short-yardage situations. While he’ll never be confused with an elite coverage linebacker, he was better than advertised in that area last season. Perhaps most significantly, he was the one defensive player who looked like they knew what the heck was happening when offenses challenged them with tempo.
Diabate enters the spring as the favorite to start alongside Miller. He struggled for most of the 2020 season in his first year playing a more traditional linebacker position but shined a little bit down the stretch. He made 11 tackles against LSU and 10 against Alabama. He’s long and athletic, but he needs to improve at the nuances of the position. Getting off of blocks better and improving in coverage should be his goals this spring.
In what’s a recurring theme at this position, Hopper is extremely athletic but isn’t a great linebacker at this juncture in his career. He started his high school career at defensive back, and he needs to play more physical against the run now that he’s a linebacker. He’s stuck in an awkward position right now where he’s too big to play defensive back but isn’t physical enough to play linebacker.
Burney, a converted safety, was a punching bag for fans early in the season, and much of the criticism was warranted. He looked lost out there at times, taking poor angles and losing running backs and tight ends too easily in coverage. He rebounded at the end of the season to lead the Gators with 10 tackles against Alabama and seven against Oklahoma. He’ll look to win his starting job back with a strong spring.
Brunson has played primarily on special teams throughout his career, while Wingo made just two tackles as a highly touted freshman.
Breakout Watch: Is it possible for someone to break out twice in their career? If so, Diabate is a candidate to do just that.
As a situational pass-rusher in 2019, he recorded three sacks against Vanderbilt, including a strip-sack that resulted in a touchdown. He added another sack three weeks later against Florida State.
Rather than grooming him to be Jonathan Greenard’s replacement at BUCK, the defensive staff instead opted to shift Diabate into a more traditional linebacker role with run stuffing and coverage responsibilities last season. At first, he looked like somebody trying to learn a new position on the fly, but he looked much more comfortable by the end of the season.
He has all of the traits you want in an outside linebacker: length, speed, physicality and tenacity. If he can put it all together this spring, he could be in store for a breakout season this fall.
Newcomer of Note: Freshman Chief Borders is the only early enrollee. Aside from having the perfect name for a linebacker, he also possesses an excellent combination of size (6-foot-5 and 242 pounds) and athleticism. He’s known for being an extremely physical player who will give maximum effort on every play.
His size and speed combination gives him the ability to play BUCK as well as outside linebacker. It’s unclear which position he will play this spring.
Like all freshmen, there will be a learning curve for him, especially given the complexity of Todd Grantham’s scheme. However, he shouldn’t have any trouble picking it up quickly, as Florida had to withstand a furious push by Stanford to flip him late in his recruitment.
The relentless effort he displayed in high school should allow him to quickly earn the respect of his new teammates and become a fan favorite.
Questions: These are the three things we want to know before the end of spring.
- 1. How will the competition for the starting job alongside Miller play out?
It appears to be a wide-open competition. Diabate and Burney have the edge in experience, but Diabate still only started half of the games last season. Hopper showed promise at times in 2020 and is probably their best coverage linebacker. While Wingo didn’t play much, he was one of the top linebackers in his class and probably has the highest ceiling of any linebacker on the roster. However, all four of the aforementioned players have huge flaws in their games that they need to iron out. This will likely be a close competition that extends into fall camp.
- 2. Will anyone step up as leaders other than Miller?
This sort of goes hand in hand with the first question. Linebackers are supposed to be the traffic cops of the defense. The other eight or nine players follow their instructions. It looked like Miller carried the group when it came to communication last season. That needs to change. You can’t have one guy barking orders while the guy standing next to him has his hands in the air trying to figure out where to line up. Whoever can grasp the defense better and emerge as a leader will have the inside track to the starting job.
- 3. Will Borders prove the recruiting rankings wrong?
Despite his defensive end size and linebacker athleticism, Borders was ranked outside the top-300 in the 247Sports composite. Even so, UF’s staff continued to recruit him hard until the very end when it looked like Stanford might swoop in and steal him. Obviously, he’s not going to prove anything to the outside world in closed spring practices, but he’s got a chance to earn himself some special teams action in the fall.