Last Saturday was a full circle moment for Gators’ quarterback Harrison Bailey. The former four-star out of Marietta, Georgia enrolled at Tennessee for his freshman season, where he would go on to make his first collegiate start vs Florida inside the Swamp in 2020. Fastforward nearly five years later, Bailey is back inside the Swamp, this time wearing the Orange and Blue.
“A real experience considering I grew up a Florida fan, watching Tebow and Chris Rainey, Demps and all those boys play, but it was pretty unreal, you know, running out the stadium, being able to compete and play against some of my teammates, with some of my teammates, it was an unreal experience, something I’ve dreamed up since I was a little kid,” Bailey said playing in Florida’s spring game.
Bailey did something not many quarterbacks in his position would do; commit to a backup quarterback role for his 6th and final season of college football. There’s no doubt that a healthy DJ Lagway is Florida’s starting quarterback after a promising freshman campaign, but that didn’t matter to Bailey, who simply wanted to finish his career as a Gator.
“It’s a dream school of mine,” Bailey said on coming to Florida. “I knew when the opportunity arose that this is the place where I wanted to be and finish out my college career and wherever it goes, it goes.”
As Gator Nation found out last season, having an established backup quarterback can be critical. Bailey certainly looked the part during Florida’s Orange and Blue spring game, completing 29 of 43 pass attempts (67%) for 363 yards and three touchdowns. After learning a different system at UF, Bailey believes his spring game performance will create some confidence moving forward.
“I would say it does a lot. It’s pretty big, especially heading into the summer where we’ll get a little bit of time off and head into OTAs, but it’s just good momentum to have,” Bailey said. “I think we played well. I think everybody… really, everybody on the Orange team’s offense we really performed.”
Bailey has been around a lot of quarterbacks having played at Tennessee, UNLV, Louisville, and now Florida. Sophomore DJ Lagway is one of the best he’s ever seen, and the two are looking forward to helping each other out any way they can.
“DJ’s a great guy. One of the best quarterbacks that I’ve been around from the perspective of, one, he’s very skilled, very great dude,” Bailey said. “We chop it up all the time, just about life in general, just a very down-to-earth guy, somebody I’m glad I’m in the room with. We just bounce ideas all of each. Any way I can help him in his career and likewise with me, any way that he can help me, we learn from each other, so, he’s a great dude, man.”
Bailey put on a show at the spring game, but it wouldn’t have been possible without Florida’s group of wide receivers. Freshmen receiver Dallas Wilson put the country on notice with nearly 200 receiving yards while Tank Hawkins and Naeshaun Montgomery combined for 128 yards on just seven catches. Team blue was mostly run heavy, but Aidan Mizell and Vernell Brown III displayed elite run after the catch ability.
“Told somebody earlier in spring that asked about our receiving group and I said it’s one of the best that I’ve ever seen in college football,” Bailey said. “Every one of those guys have speed, has range, surefire hands and run great routes and most of them if not all of them are just first year in the system trying to learn how to run routes, get a feel for the offense and, man, it’s a dangerous group for sure.”
Head coach Billy Napier recently stated that DJ Lagway will be 100% healthy by OTA’s in fall camp, which means Bailey will be competing for the backup quarterback role with Aidan Warner over the summer and into fall camp.