A new Florida head football coach inherited a team with a veteran offensive line. The line performed well, if not best-in-the-conference well, but then four of the five players on it left. The following season’s line was a dramatic drop off from its predecessor, and the offense suffered some for it. The line was noticeably better, if still not perfect, the next season, which allowed the offense to really take off.
A lack of names in that paragraph tells you I’m probably doing one of those blind-item comparison things, and indeed I am. That description, at least until the final sentence, could apply to either one of Florida’s past two head coaches.
The results of the third season, of course, are still unwritten for the present guy in the gig. Still, the similarities are striking, even if there are signs-of-the-times differences among them.
Dan Mullen inherited a line that had a lot of snaps under its belt. He chose to swap out TJ McCoy for Nick Buchanan at center, but otherwise things went about according to plan. Former 5-star recruit Martez Ivey and future NFL Draft pick Jawaan Taylor anchored the two sides of the line, and seniors Tyler Jordan and Fred Johnson held down the guard spots.
Three of those linemen ran out of eligibility, and Taylor declared for the draft. With only Buchanan returning, the 2019 line had a much different look to it. Now it was Stone Forsythe and Texas transfer Jean Delance on the edges, with the previously oft-injured Brett Heggie and redshirt freshman Chris Bleich at guard. At least, that’s how things started. Bleich struggled, and he chose to enter the transfer portal in November before the season was even over.
The Gator offense in 2019 still came out statistically good, thanks in no small part to the emergence of Kyle Trask. However, the team actually scored fewer points per game than it did in 2018 with the older and better line.
The line in 2020 still had its issues, but Trask’s excellent pocket presence overcame most of the protection issues it still had. Forsythe was in his final season before heading to the pros, and Heggie was an upgrade at center over Buchanan. Richard Gouraige improving in his third year and Mississippi State transfer Stewart Reese’s arrival helped overall at guard, especially compared to the Bleich/redshirt freshman Gouraige piece of the lineup in ’19.
Despite Delance still having his ups and downs at right tackle, the line overall was much better. It helped Trask, Kadarius Toney, and Kyle Pitts power the Gators to easily their best offensive showing of the post-Tebow era.
Billy Napier didn’t have as much experience on his first line, but it too was a fairly good one. It also had a new center in Kingsley Eguakun, but Gouraige was the anchor at left tackle with Michael Tarquin manning the right side. Eventual All-American O’Cyrus Torrence was a brick wall at right guard, and Ethan White bounced back from injuries to perform well at left guard. Between the line’s skill and the mobility of Anthony Richardson, the Gators saw remarkably few sacks that season.
As after Mullen’s first season, the top of the depth chart quickly emptied out. Torrence and Gouraige left to declare for the draft. Tarquin and White hit the portal with eventual commitments to USC, though White never made it to Los Angeles due to injury problems. Just like before, only the center was to return.
A potential future draft pick filled the hole at left tackle again, this time it being Austin Barber. A former career backup in Richie Leonard filled in next to him at left guard. Two transfers dropped in on the right side with Baylor’s Micah Mazzccua at right guard and Damieon George at right tackle. Neither was a turnkey solution, and George has since moved to guard while Mazzccua hit the portal again. And then in the middle, Eguakun couldn’t stay healthy and gave up a lot of playing time to a very inexperienced Jake Slaughter.
The 2023 line was better than the 2019 line, though not by a lot. It didn’t seem like it at times because Graham Mertz simply doesn’t have the pocket awareness that Trask did. Trask could feel pressure and move to avoid it quite well despite being a huge dude with a lumbering running gait. Mertz is a bit smaller and faster, but last year at least, he took a lot of sacks because he never saw the heat coming while he was shopping downfield.
Word out of the program is that parts of the line are looking great. Barber didn’t play as well as expected last year due to persistent nagging injuries, but he’s reportedly back at full strength. Slaughter grew a lot from his unexpected playing time a year ago and is a rock in the middle. Knijeah Harris has locked down the left guard spot after rotating some as a true freshman a year ago.
Not unlike Mullen’s third line, Napier’s third line has questions on the right side. George and transfer Brandon Crenshaw-Dixon are your penciled-in starters at guard and tackle, but younger players are pushing them. The press conference comments, practice reports, and whispers from scrimmages are occasionally contradictory, but it sounds like it’s more a case of younger players excelling than the older players disappointing.
You’d still like to hear that the veterans have used their experience to lock those spots down, but at least the Gators have real competition there. One thing that is clear is that it’s not like a season ago when, later-season Slaughter aside, you really didn’t want to see any backups in the game no matter how much the starters may have struggled.
Florida needs to see a marked improvement on the line given its murderous slate and the pressure on Napier. Mertz probably can’t bail them out as much as Trask did for his lines, and the shiftier star running back from a year ago left for redder pastures.
But if history does rhyme sometimes, the Florida lines under Mullen and Napier appear to be one such instance. If the latter can get as much or more third-year improvement out of his line as the former did, it’d be a good start for the 2024 Gators.