The cancelation of spring practice was a necessary step. Right now there are untold thousands of Americans with the novel coronavirus who don’t know it yet and won’t exhibit substantial symptoms for days — if they will at all. It’s a particularly dangerous time for the spread of the disease, so calling off large gatherings, including spring practice, is a must for the sake of everyone.
Please stay safe out there. Practice your social distancing where possible and wash your hands with soap regularly. It’s not about individuals. It’s about all of us working together for the sake of our communities and health care facilities and workers.
With that said, this is a football-focused newsletter. Bearing in mind that it’s not that important now, here’s the upshot of no spring practice: Florida could’ve really used it.
To be clear, the program doesn’t need it as much as some others. FSU has a new head coach and coordinators. Same for Missouri and rotating West opponent Ole Miss. Georgia and Miami are breaking in new offensive coordinators. LSU sort of is too while also replacing nearly everyone you could name off last year’s team except Ja’Marr Chase.
For the third straight year, the Gators will be running Dan Mullen’s offense and Todd Grantham’s defense. Here, continuity is a good thing. I’m not 100% sold on Grantham as a national championship-caliber defensive coordinator, but there are many, many worse options out there. None of this is like in 2017 when for the third straight year the Gators were running the McElwain/Nussmeier offense. Continuity in and of itself is not always salutary, but it is in Gainesville this year.
Furthermore, the quarterback spot is not in question. Kyle Trask will be the starter. He might even be preseason first team All-SEC. Emory Jones will have a role, and possibly a more prominent one than last year, but it’s Trask’s job until and unless he plays his way out of it.
Even so, Trask showed a lot of rough edges last fall despite his generally good play. That’s completely expected and understandable given his well-documented lack of starting since his freshman year of high school. Going through spring as QB1 would’ve been valuable to a guy who’s never done that before. He’ll leave UF having started most of two seasons, but he’ll never do that.
Plus, he could’ve used the chance to build chemistry with some of his targets. He clearly built a good connection with Kyle Pitts when both were second string in 2018, and he should be in good shape with Trevon Grimes, Jacob Copeland, and possibly to a lesser extent Kadarius Toney.
The Gators will need more than just those four guys catching passes, though, and the trio of 2019 signees will need to step up accordingly. How much has Trask practiced with them? I don’t know. Certainly not as much as he would if spring practice was happening. Those guys could’ve used the session too, and if things are a little rough when they appear early next season, we’ll know why.
The issues go far beyond pitching and catching.
Nearly every spot on the offensive line should be an open competition. I expect Richard Gouraige to have a spot, but spring could’ve told us if it was at tackle or guard. Could a younger player like Michael Tarquin beat out Jean Delance? We’ll have to wait to fall to find out. Will Brett Heggie be the new guy at center, and if so, how good is he there? I don’t know, and neither will you.
There are spots on defense that are critical too. Who will replace David Reese II? Ventrell Miller has the speed Reese lacked, but he too often used it to overrun plays. James Houston is a thumper with better athleticism than Reese has, but he hasn’t been nearly as good as Reese was at being in the right place at the right time. Could one of those two blossom into the linebacker leader? Or might it be Mohamoud Diabate, who is the best athlete of the bunch and is renowned for being smart but who played rush end last year?
And what about the star position? Trey Dean is out and will try his hand at safety. Who does it go to? You’d probably like to see Marco Wilson stay outside so someone a little bigger can do the run support stuff that star requires.
Will it be Amari Burney, moving back from linebacker? He did that at times late last year. Might it be the younger David Reese, who missed last season to injury? Or maybe it would just be Wilson. If so, which corner replaces him outside, Jaydon Hill or Chester Kimbrough?
Florida may have a lot of continuity in the staff and scheme, but this is a transitional year. Mullen’s first two teams were largely anchored by McElwain signees with a handful of transfers Mullen brought in. There aren’t many Mullen high school signees outside of Evan McPherson at kicker who won starting jobs because they were clearly the best guy and not due to some combination of injuries or thinness.
Some of that is the staff’s preference to redshirt players more than most power programs do. When Urban Meyer was around, he talked all the time about playing talented freshmen right away and the lack of necessity for redshirting. Mullen and his staff have redshirted a lot of guys — there are 18 rising redshirt freshmen or sophomores who didn’t have injuries play a factor in them sitting a year — which drives down the number of early contributors.
There are still a good number of McElwain signees who will play big roles this year like Trask, Heggie, Toney, Miller, Houston, Wilson, every safety except Dean, and the top five defensive linemen. Stone Forsythe too, if he keeps a starting job.
However broadly speaking, 2020 is the first season where UF will have to lean heavily on Mullen signees. This is the year they will need to shoulder a considerable load, and having a spring practice to work them into things would’ve helped with the transfer of responsibility.