As usual, the quarterback position was in the spotlight during the Orange and Blue Game on Thursday night.
Anthony Richardson showed some major promise as a redshirt freshman last year, and the estimated crowd of 45,000 wanted to see him show signs of progress as a passer.
Richardson didn’t disappoint. He executed what was likely a watered-down version of the offense to near perfection, as he took care of the ball and delivered accurate throws to his receivers.
He completed 18 of 24 passes for 207 yards and two touchdowns, and he also scored via a 12-yard rushing touchdown. He led the Blue team to touchdowns on all three of its first-half possessions and four of its first five drives overall.
Richardson’s efficient night through the air propelled the Blue team to a 34-0 blowout of the Orange team.
“I think Anthony is a production of a lot of hard work,” coach Billy Napier said. “I can’t say enough. His approach has been first class. When I think about a quarterback, we think about a person who represents everything of what the organization is about. Certainly, at the highest level of football, the quarterback is the face of the organization. They set the greatest example with their work ethic, their attention to detail, their self-discipline, their approach.
“He’s a product of his work. He’s learning a new system. Standing behind him back there, it wasn’t too big for him. He communicated well, and the ball went where it was supposed to go. The players around him played well. The pocket was clean. Guys [caught] the ball. It was a good day.”
Richardson said that one of the biggest things he worked on this spring was consistency. Fans were ready to start building him a statue after some of the jaw-dropping plays that he made early in the 2021 season, but he struggled enough down the stretch to give you a little bit of doubt as to whether or not this is going to work out.
He felt like he turned in a much more even performance on Thursday.
“I feel like it’s my decision-making, just being confident and deliberate with what I want to do,” he said. “I feel like I’ve always had a decent arm, but it’s just my thought process sometimes is terrible. I just tried to keep it dialed in and just understand where the ball was supposed to go in certain coverages. I feel like I did a decent job with that today.”
One of the defining characteristics of the offense on Thursday was the tempo that they played with. They didn’t get plays off as quickly as some of those Oklahoma teams have over the years, but they didn’t give anyone much time to fully process what had just happened on the play before or send out a tweet before they snapped the ball again.
Richardson admits that he still has room to grow in the new scheme, but he feels comfortable with the tempo.
“I love the tempo,” Richardson said. “I talk to the O-Line before every drive, every series. I let them know that we’ve got to play smart, we’ve got to play fast, we’ve got to be concise. In this offense, if you do one thing wrong, you mess up the whole play. I just tell them we’ve got to play fast and play concise. If we do that, I don’t think anybody can stick with us because our tempo is pretty fast. We should know the plays like that. Honestly, I love the tempo.
“I feel some of the plays I’m not that familiar with, that comfortable with. It’s kind of hard to say it was easy. It’s just a matter of my extra work on your own, getting in with the coaches and doing some things like that. I feel like if you put in the work and the time and the effort, then you’ll catch onto it pretty fast.”
Johnson leads the way
With Nay’Quan Wright sitting out as he continues to work his way back from a significant leg injury and Lorenzo Lingard leaving the game in the first quarter with a hamstring injury, Louisiana transfer Montrell Johnson carried even more of the load than was initially expected.
He played for both teams and toted the ball a combined 15 times for 62 yards and a touchdown.
He showed off his downhill, physical running style that allowed him to lead the Ragin’ Cajuns in touchdowns and earn Sun Belt Freshman of the Year honors in 2021. He ran through a defender to convert a third-and-7 late in the second quarter, and he also pushed the pile for extra yards on a couple of other occasions. He never got knocked backward.
“Montrell’s extremely bright, picks things up quickly,” Napier said. “He certainly was a very productive back for us last year. I think he rushed for 800 or 900 yards and was the conference player of the year. He belongs out there. I think he’s 5-11½ and weighs 217 pounds. He hit 21.5 miles per hour last year in a game on his GPS. He’s got a big lower half. He’s got contact balance. He can protect. He can catch.
“Montrell is what the doctor ordered. He’s certainly going to provide depth and production for our team.”
Johnson said that he arrived at UF in January with a chip on his shoulder. He feels like he should’ve gotten SEC offers when he was in high school, and he wants to prove that to the world now.
“I was a very under-recruited guy,” he said. “I feel like I can play with those guys. I’m going to say it felt the same as the Sun Belt. It’s a difference, but I felt very comfortable out there, very confident. I’m going to keep grinding and getting better.
“I think one of my strengths is I’m a very patient runner. I wait to see when the hole is going to open up. One of the things I can work on is my speed. That’s really about it.”
His Gators career is off to an encouraging start.
Black splashes
Linebacker Diwun Black was a breakout player on the defense this spring, and he put an exclamation mark on the spring with a solid showing on Thursday. He made three tackles and broke up a pair of passes, including one where he exploded out of nowhere and nearly intercepted Jack Miller in the first quarter.
“The guy’s got some height and length, very instinctive,” Napier said. “Even when he’s wrong a little bit, he can make it right and oftentimes makes plays. He is productive on a consistent basis. One thing I would say about Diwun Black, during identity program, I wrote his name down multiple days where he’s probably been the gold standard when it came to effort in the program.
“The guy’s really bought in, and I will say this: he’s completely changed his reputation in the building relative to his attitude, his work ethic, how he goes about his business. He’s really academically had a decent semester. He needs to continue to work hard, but I’m very pleased. What you saw out there today is what we observe every day in practice.”
Black is still very new to the position. He primarily played safety in high school and junior college, and he cross-trained at a couple of spots last year. Now, he’s a full-time inside linebacker.
Starting middle linebacker Ventrell Miller said that he’s been impressed with how Black has handled the position change.
“I feel like that’s a difficult thing to do,” Miller said. “Just coming from a DB, coming to linebacker, you’ve got to be a lot more vocal. You’ve got to communicate. You’re just the quarterback of the defense. So, I feel like he’s embracing that role a little bit, learning what he’s doing, and he’s getting better every day.
“I’ve just seen the progress. He always gets his hands on the ball. He’s just a playmaker. You just see him flying around.”
Tight ends surprise
Due to injuries, Keon Zipperer was the only scholarship tight end who played in the Orange and Blue Game who began the spring as a tight end.
So, surprisingly, two of the top-3 pass-catchers in the game were tight ends – and Zipperer wasn’t one of them.
Dante Zanders, who began his career as a tight end before switching to defensive end prior to the 2020 season, moved back to the position about a week into the spring. He played on the Blue team, which featured the presumptive first-string offense. He led both teams with five receptions for 56 yards.
“You can immediately see where he’s got a future,” Napier said. “I can’t compliment him enough. He’s been the story of the spring. Heck, we had three scholarship tight ends injured, out for the spring three, four, five practices in. We moved him over from defense, and the guy picked it up quickly. I saw him around the facility more than some of the coaches. He was in there grinding away, and he has ability.
“He’s loose. He can transition. He’s got good ball skills. Most importantly, he’s smart, and he’s consistent. The guy is heavy-handed at the point of attack. He’s a godsend. Not only did he make the move, that guy running out there is going to make a lot of plays for us. Extremely pleased with Dante.”
Richardson said that he’s been impressed with how quickly Zanders has picked things up and how selfless he has been for the team.
“First of all, just embracing new coaches, that’s hard,” he said. “Then trying to learn one playbook, then two to come play offense, that’s just a hard thing to try to grasp and take in. He’s been excellent to me. I remember the first day they told me that he was going to be out there, I was like, ‘Man, that’s different.’ Then I saw him walking. We were going to our cars. He was like, ‘Bro, I’ve got you.’ Since then, he’s had my back, and I’m thankful for that.”
Noah Keeter, a walk-on who transferred to UF as an outside linebacker in 2020, caught three passes for 53 yards and a score while also working with the first-string offense.
“Honestly, I thought [the transition] would be a lot harder, but I was lucky,” Keeter said. “I transitioned before spring break, so, over spring break, I was able to study the whole break and kind of figure out the offense on my own. I’ve been meeting with Coach [Ty] Darlington and Coach [William] Peagler pretty much every day trying to figure it out.”