The biggest question mark on the Gators’ roster all offseason has been the secondary. The Gators produced one of the worst passing defenses in school history last year, and now they’ll be one of the youngest groups on the team this season.
Kaiir Elam is the only cornerback with significant experience. Trey Dean is the only safety who’s been in college for more than one season. There are nine true freshmen and redshirt freshmen at the corner and safety spots combined.
With junior Jaydon Hill, a projected starting cornerback, out for the year due to a torn ACL he suffered in the early stages of training camp, there’s even less experience in the back end now.
Coach Dan Mullen said the young defensive backs have made progress over the past few weeks, but there are some things that you can only learn through game experience.
“I think that they’ve grown up a little bit, but there’s a lot of scenarios guys haven’t been in,” Mullen said. “There’s a bunch of guys in the secondary that haven’t been in scenarios. Kaiir’s been in situations. Trey Dean’s been in situations. Rashad Torrence’s been in situations. Tre’Vez Johnson’s been in some situations. None of the other guys have really been in those situations much before.
“We have some young, talented guys that I’m really excited about, but you see them make mistakes that are not as much physical but mental mistakes that we’ve got to get corrected and fixed up.”
With Hill out of the picture, the competition to start opposite of Elam is wide open. Avery Helm is the current favorite. He’s one of the fastest players on the team, and he can jump out of the gym. Jason Marshall is a five-star freshman who already has the body of an NFL first-rounder and shined in each of UF’s two fall scrimmages. Ethan Pouncey made an interception in the second scrimmage and seems to be healthy after undergoing hip surgery last year.
Missouri transfer Jadarrius Perkins has also produced some encouraging moments in camp, and Texas A&M transfer Elijah Blades is a wildcard after he joined the team a week into camp.
Blades is trying to play catch-up in a short amount of time. He started six games for the Aggies in 2019 and broke up three passes. He also played a couple of seasons at the junior college level. Still, he’s having to learn an entirely new defensive scheme and a new set of terminology in just a few weeks.
“He’s got length, and he’s got experience,” Mullen said. “Obviously, he just got here, so he’s a little bit behind, and he’s trying to get himself caught up both physically and mentally to help us. We’ve got a couple of weeks still before we have to play that he has the opportunity to get caught up and go do that.”
Mullen said he’s noticed an increased sense of urgency in the cornerback room since Hill’s injury. The players understand that they’ve got a tremendous opportunity in front of them that they might not have been expecting a month ago.
“Competitively, I think the guys just know there’s an opportunity there to go do it,” he said. “I think guys are stepping up. Guys want to play. Nobody comes [here] and is like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to play.’ Our guys want to get on the field, and now there’s opportunities for more reps out there, and I think that guys are excited about their opportunity. Obviously, nobody likes it coming that way, when somebody goes down, but I think guys are excited about the opportunity that it presents them to get on the field.”
Ultimately, though, Mullen doesn’t want his players to concentrate on who plays the first snap of the game. Playing time is fluid. Just because you start a game doesn’t mean you’ll be out there when the game’s on the line in the fourth quarter, and who those top players are can fluctuate from week to week based on performances.
He wants his players to adapt the mindset of competing for reps every day, and that goes for all positions. Who starts the game and how many snaps everybody plays will work themselves out.
“We’re going to play a lot of guys [in the secondary],” Mullen said. “I think everybody gets caught up in who starts or who’s doing what. I talked to guys at last night’s scrimmage, again, no one’s competing for a starting job. Everybody’s competing for reps.
“Guys are doing that, so there’s guys earning reps, and there’ll be a bunch of guys that will play in the secondary, and … they get that opportunity to show they can translate not just from practice but then translate on to game experience. The better they do on game day, the more reps they’ll get next week.”
The secondary isn’t a finished product yet by any means, but they’re getting there one step at a time.