re: 2022 Football Discussion Thread General Thoughts & Comments

Posted on 8/25/22 at 4:51 pm to Partha

Posted by Partha

Member since Jan 2022

6148 posts

Posted on 8/25/22 at 4:51 pm to Partha

Napier: Potential of Florida's defensive line is clear despite lack of experience outside Dexter
GRAHAM HALL Aug 24, 1:55 PM

quote:

With UF’s fall camp now in the rearview, Gervon Dexter Sr. appears to be the only guarantee when it comes to Florida’s starting unit along the defensive line.

After Dexter, the rotation becomes much less clear, as the Gators will have to count on an abundance of players with potential yet lacking significant game experience when the season opens Sept. 3 against No. 8-ranked Utah.

Although, as Florida approaches a week of preparation to face the Utes, UF head coach Billy Napier has seen those around Dexter continue to make the necessary improvements. As a result, Napier is confident Florida has multiple players capable of starting in the trenches despite lacking a wide body of in-game evidence to support the notion.

“That group, that's one of the areas where we have some inexperienced players, and I think they’ve made progress,” Napier said Wednesday. “Those guys needed to make progress. I think they have made progress and I do believe that they're going to continue to improve.”

Earlier in his comments Wednesday, Napier singled out a pair of Gators – Tyreak Sapp and Austin Barber –as players he viewed as capable of starting at their position. Regardless of their actual role when kickoff arrives, the participation report ultimately doesn’t reflect their capabilities in the eyes of Napier.

The mention of Barber as a player who’s on the cusp yet is on the outside looking in shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering Florida returned a majority of its starting offensive line from last season, added O'Cyrus Torrence and has received elevated play from Michael Tarquin at right tackle.

There are proven, experienced players around Barber, and his second-string status is indicative of just that.

The same can’t be said for the defensive line.

Whether it’s Sapp, Justus Boone or Princely Umanmielen, the Gators are poised to start at least one defensive lineman alongside Dexter who will lack significant in-game experience. Umanmielen, widely considered another possible starter, has earned just one start in his UF career and it came in UF’s loss to UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl.

Florida freshman Chris McClellan, who arrived on campus weeks later as an early enrollee, has also worked with the first-team defense at several points during fall camp, as has redshirt junior defensive tackle Jalen Lee. In a hit to Florida’s potential depth, Desmond Watson, who saw the field briefly as a freshman, hasn’t taken as significant of a leap as many hoped he would make in his second season at UF, and the belief is he isn’t in a desirable place from a physical standpoint to see a high amount of consecutive snaps.

Whether Sapp, who didn’t see the field in 2021 as a true freshman, starts or not for the Gators, Napier indicated he will play a sizable role moving forward given UF’s depth in the room.

Not that it’s an indication Sapp has reached his full potential – his second year at UF may be marked by improvement thus far, but the former standout from St. Thomas Aquinas still has much to work on after his second fall camp in Gainesville.

“They're nowhere near where their growth is going. But I think all those guys have improved, Tyreak in particular,” Napier said. “Princely also has really impressed me. But there's a lot of examples. Like, when you look at the participation chart, we got a lot of players that are going to be playing that haven’t played much in games before. Those guys are examples of that.”

The learning process for Sapp and his fellow defensive linemen may have received a boost in the form of Sharrif Floyd’s return to Gainesville. A former standout with the Gators and a first round NFL Draft pick in 2013, Floyd spent the preseason working with the Dallas Cowboys as part of the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship after spending the previous year with the Gators under coach David Turner as a student-assistant. While with the Cowboys, Floyd worked with his position coach at Florida, Dan Quinn, who now serves as the team’s defensive coordinator.

Training camp at the professional level has concluded, which means Floyd is back in Gainesville, enrolled in classes and fully involved in the team’s daily preparation. At Tuesday’s practice session, Floyd was observed working with the defensive line during chute drills, and he didn’t hesitate to offer words of wisdom to several linemen after several repetitions.

It’s a role he’ll continue in moving forward, which should only aid the ongoing development process of current Florida players, including the aforementioned trio of Boone, Umanmielen and Sapp.

Considering the current situation along the defensive line – someone without significant experience is poised to start when the season opens – the unit will seemingly take any bit of help it can get, especially if it comes in the form of credible words of wisdom from a former NFL first-rounder.

“Sharrif's obviously, did an internship with the Cowboys. He’s back. School started today so he's been back the last couple of days. Sharrif's been nothing but first class since I've been here. He’s back earning his degree. Guy’s got a bright future in football and was an exceptional player,” Napier said. “I think he's got character. I think he understands the big picture, takes pride in his role and certainly him being able to coach on the field I think it's an advantage for players. This guy's a first-round pick. He played a number of years in the league and has a good understanding of the fundamentals of that position. So he'll play a critical role in the practice format going forward, starting tomorrow.”

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Posted by Partha

Member since Jan 2022

6148 posts

Posted on 8/25/22 at 4:55 pm to Partha

Florida season preview: Running back
JACOB RUDNER Aug 24, 4:00 PM

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While Dameon Pierce and Malik Davis moved on to the NFL, Florida's running back room received a talent infusion over the offseason with the additions of 2021 Sun Belt Freshman of the Year running back Montrell Johnson and 2022 four-star back Trevor Etienne. The Gator running back room appeared to be among the team's strongest in the spring thanks to consistently impressive performances from junior Lorenzo Lingard and Johnson while sophomore Nay'Quan Wright, who was named to the 2022 Doak Walker Award Watch List last month, rehabbed an ankle injury and participated in a limited capacity. Etienne was a summer enrollee.

With fall camp in the rearview mirror, it is even clearer that Florida's backfield should be loaded with talent this season as all four players, Wright, Johnson, Etienne and Lingard are expected to contribute in some capacity throughout the 2022 season.

"We’ve got four backs that we have confidence in," Florida head coach Billy Napier said Wednesday. "All have character, all are very consistent. They all care. They’re all very smart and understand what to do, so (running backs) coach (Jabbar) Juluke, can’t compliment him enough. I think he's always got his group ready to go."

At Louisiana, Napier utilized a run-based scheme in which he kept the ball on the ground 57.37 percent of the time against FBS opponents, the 32nd-highest rate in the FBS last season. While he could choose to use a slightly more balanced scheme this year with the advent of starting quarterback Anthony Richardson, Florida's surplus of talented runners should allow him to stick to the ground game should he so choose.

BEST RETURNING PLAYER: NAY'QUAN WRIGHT

Wright appeared in 12 games last season and accumulated 326 yards on the ground with a rushing touchdown. The 5-foot-9, 202-pounder rusher also caught 14 passes for 178 yards, including a career-long 51-yard snap against Vanderbilt on Oct. 9. A three-time member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll, Wright averaged 27.2 yards on the ground and 14.8 yards per reception in the 2021 campaign.

While Wright is technically a sophomore this year, he is entering his fourth season at the college level. In his career, he has rushed for 563 yards on 142 carries with three scores. He has an additional 401 receiving yards to his name and one receiving score.

"We’re be excited to get Nay’Quan back," Florida head coach Billy Napier said after Florida's spring game in April. "He’s certainly going to bring something to our team."

After he was limited in the spring due to a recovering ankle injury, Wright had a solid fall camp and seemingly put himself in a position to be his unit's No. 1 player, though it is unclear how much separation, if any, that tag will create from the rest of the unit in terms of total usage.

KEY ADDITION: MONTRELL JOHNSON

Montrell Johnson transferred to Florida after an uber-successful true freshman season in Billy Napier's offense at Louisiana in 2021. Johnson rushed for 838 yards with 12 scores on the ground throughout the campaign and exceeded 100 rushing yards twice, including a 150-yard performance against Arkansas State in which he exploded for a 99-yard carry and two of his 12 scores. Johnson's efforts propelled him to the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year Award and the No. 70 overall rank among all transfers in the nation this year.

Johnson is a strong runner who operates well between the tackles, though his speed could also allow him to be successful in space and beyond the tackles, should Florida choose or need to diversify his workload.

BIGGEST CAMP RISER: TREVOR ETIENNE

Fans would have been very reasonable to assume that true freshman running back Trevor Etienne was headed for fourth-string status in his first year with the program and even a possible redshirt. The former four-star prospect joined a crowded and talented room with just a few months to impress coaches and move up the team's depth chart at his position.

But, since arriving on campus in the summer, Etienne has done exactly that. According to Napier, the freshman runner has demonstrated an excellent work ethic on and off the field and has also impressed coaches with his patience and vision out of the backfield, making him a candidate to earn meaningful reps from the jump this season. Etienne is also viewed as a candidate to return punts and kicks.

“I've been very pleased with Trevor. There’s no question we made a good decision there. Was familiar with him having evaluated him at Louisiana. The guy's 5-8 and three-quarters and he weighs 207 pounds. He’s loose, got a low center of gravity, catches the ball. I think he's got some returner value. So the big thing with him is his character, his consistency. The guy shows up and works. He’s gotten a little bit ahead of the game there because of his brother’s experience there. He’s from Jennings, Louisiana, man. The guy shows up here and it’s like he's in New York City. He is a worker. He's got a great attitude. He's got a little sense of humor. I'm like him and I think he’s got a chance to be a good player for the Gators."

KEY RETURNER: LORENZO LINGARD

While Lingard's production in four years at the college has hardly delivered on his five-star potential, the fifth-year junior appeared to take a massive step in the right direction this spring when he was routinely earning praise from Florida players and coaches due to his consistent performance.

Lingard earned first-team reps throughout the Gators' spring schedule and one source told Swamp247 that the 6-foot, 209-pound runner looked like Florida's "best offensive player in general" during the team's scrimmages. Still, the experienced running back could find himself in a situation where he is earning just a share of the running back responsibilities as the rest of his unit is so strong entering the season.

For a player who has recorded just 16 carries in two playing seasons with the Gators, Lingard hasn't sounded frustrated by his lack of opportunities, though.

Instead, he sounded motivated to figure out why he hasn't been able to get more carries and how to fix that. Lingard outlined why he picked Florida in the first place on the Gettin Swamped podcast in the spring.

"I came home with the hardship with my dad and his health," Lingard said. "I've seen him feel a lot better with me being closer to home. Florida, I just knew that it was going to be a tough school to come to. It's a lot of pressure being a Gator, what with the guys that come through here and what they do and what not. So I was like, 'Man, I'm going to go there and it's not going to be easy, but with it not being easy I'm going to be the best player that I can be and I'm going to get better every day.' And that's pretty much what happened."

BIGGEST LOSSES: DAMEON PIERCE AND MALIK DAVIS

Florida had a potent running back duo last season with Dameon Pierce and Malik Davis in the fold. After nearly evenly splitting reps, the two combined for 1,061 rushing yards, 18 rushing touchdowns and just over 5.5 yards per carry. Their success out of the Florida backfield led to professional opportunities with Pierce joining the Houston Texans after he was selected in the fourth round with the 107th overall pick while Davis signed with the Dallas Cowboys after going undrafted.

However, if there was any unit best suited to lose its most productive players, the running back room is certainly high on the list at is has the potential to make up for those absences.