Over the last decade or so, positionless basketball has become the trend in the NBA. The idea is that by putting five players on the floor who can all drive, pass and shoot, you’ll space the floor and make it all but impossible for the defense to defend you.
A similar concept has taken the college football world by storm over the last few years. It’s become common to see skill players move all around the field and do a little bit of everything to create advantageous matchups. Think Kyle Pitts last year. He wasn’t a traditional tight end or a wide receiver, but he was highly effective.
Positionless players dominate football because most defenses don’t have somebody equally as versatile that can match up with them. If you put your best defensive back on them, they’ll run the ball and block you all the way back to the locker room. If you put your best run defender on them, they’ll torch you in the passing game.
Add in the breakneck tempo that many teams are utilizing that prohibits defenses from substituting, and it’s darn near impossible to play defense these days.
The only way to counter is by fielding positionless players of your own on defense. These types of players can blitz, cover and step into the box in run support on the same drive. They can counteract the advantage offenses get by going up-tempo. It’s essentially like having three different players on the field at once.
The Gators believe they have found one of these players in junior college transfer Diwun Black.
Black has the size (6-foot-3, 228 pounds) and physicality of a middle linebacker and the coverage skills of a defensive back. As a sophomore in high school, he intercepted 12 passes and returned three of them for touchdowns. He also played receiver in high school, and he recorded a double-double in a Florida state championship basketball game.
As the No. 1 rated JUCO player in the country in 2019, he made 46 tackles, 8.5 tackles-for-loss, one interception and five pass breakups.
Good luck finding a glaring weakness in Black’s game. On paper, there’s not a matchup or a scenario that the Gators wouldn’t feel confident with him on the field.
“He’s very long,” secondary coach Wesley McGriff said. “He’s got good run ability. He’s constantly improving his change of direction, constantly improving his demeanor in the classroom and knowing what to do.
“He’s a guy that certainly has a skillset and talent that he’ll be able to support us down the road when we get going in this thing.”
He’s primarily practicing at STAR, UF’s version of a nickelback. That’s a position usually reserved for cornerbacks in the 5-foot-11, 200-pound range, but his combination of athleticism and size makes him a fun toy for defensive coordinator Todd Grantham to play around with. Grantham can move him to safety or either linebacker spot whenever he spots a matchup that he likes.
“One word: a beast,” safety Rashad Torrence said. “That’s exactly what he is. You just gave me his measurables, so that there, that position, that’s nothing to play with. Y’all [are] going to see what he’s got to offer.”
As a newcomer who just arrived on campus over the summer, there will be some growing pains for Black. He’s having to learn a complicated defensive scheme at multiple positions in a short amount of time. He will undoubtedly be in for an eye-opening experience when he runs onto the field in a game for the first time and the opponent is just as big and freakishly athletic as he is.
Once he gets through those struggles, there’s no telling what kind of impact he could have on this defense this season and in the following one or two seasons to come.
“He’s a monster in the back end, something that we were really looking for on our defense,” edge rusher Khris Bogle said. “He’s fast, physical, bigger than most safeties and DBs. We’re just looking forward to having him.
He’s a one-of-a-kind player. Not every player in the country can have what Diwun Black has. He’s just been great. He’s just been working real hard [this] offseason and coming in now to play a role.”