Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham is always emphasizing the need to field a team of versatile players during his time with the media.
When offenses don’t substitute and hurry to the line of scrimmage, the defense doesn’t have the opportunity to substitute, either. So, it’s crucial that the defense has players on the field that can handle everything the offense might throw at them. Otherwise, the offense will just keep exploiting a mismatch over and over.
Plus, with nine true freshmen and redshirt freshmen in the Gators’ secondary, they don’t have as many trusted veterans back there as they would ideally like, which makes cross-training players even more important.
Junior cornerback Jadarrius Perkins has been huge in that regard so far this season. The former junior college transfer who spent the spring semester at Missouri is second on the depth chart at STAR, which is basically a nickelback position. He’s made seven tackles and broken up a pass.
He possesses a solid combination of strength, speed and tackling prowess that makes him a great fit at STAR. He hasn’t been beaten in coverage very often, and he’s been one of the better tacklers in the secondary.
While Perkins primarily played outside cornerback in high school and junior college, Grantham’s confidence in their young cornerbacks prompted him to try Perkins out at nickel in fall camp. He was simply too good of a player to have sitting on the bench.
“He played a little bit of [nickel] in junior college, so he had a little bit of feel for it,” he said. “Once he got here and you kind of saw his play strength, his quickness and some of the tools that you like in that position, we felt like it was a position that we could really hone in [on] and let him play because we felt good about Avery [Helm] and Jason [Marshall] outside.
“We felt like that we could just let him learn that position and play that position to give us some depth in there.”
Of course, should more injuries occur at outside corner, Grantham can always slide Perkins back out there. His strong start to the season at STAR also allows Grantham to move Tre’Vez Johnson back to safety in certain situations.
So, Perkins essentially provides UF’s defense with depth at every position in the secondary. That’s a tremendous value, especially since they can only bring 70 players with them to SEC road games.
Sometimes, you’re going to be a little thin at a spot or two due to injuries, recruiting misses, transfers, players not panning out, etc. But having players like Perkins on the roster is instrumental to overcoming those depth challenges.
“Those guys are interchangeable,” Grantham said. “Really, I think all the coaches have done a good job of cross-training guys to give us the flexibility to try to get the best 11 players on the field relative to whatever situation we have.”