Take Five: Fall Camp Preview

Please Read: Welcome to the new-look Inside the Gators

• UF Media Day Live Updates
• The Inside Scoop: Going in-depth on the weekend visitors
• Top 24 of 2024: Dike/Mertz Reunion
• Early Entry Review: Lagway embarks on promising future
• Redshirt Report: High football IQ will serve Kearney well
• Anonymous Player Q&A I: Thoughts on the state of Florida football
• O&B Board: Uninformed Thoughts on Florida’s NIL
• Under Napier, Florida has a clear recruiting footprint

Florida’s first practice of fall camp takes place Wednesday morning. Before going out to cover it, Inside the Gators offers up this Take Five Fall Camp Practice Preview.

Five Position Battles

• Receiver: Kahleil Jackson vs Elijhah Badger – Jackson can make the absurdly difficult catch look easy, and then make the easy catch look more difficult than it should be. Badger might be a safer choice for the sake of consistency.
• Backup Running Back: Treyaun Webb vs Cam Carroll – Many likely expected this to include Jadan Baugh, but don’t forget Carroll was having a hell of a camp before going down last August. He is 100% healthy and should push Webb for the No. 2 spot.
• Linebacker: Derek Wingo vs Grayson Howard – While the linebacker position can be interchangeable in some packages, for the most part Wingo and Howard are the top two options at Mike while Shemar James is more of a Will.
• Left Tackle: Devon Manuel vs Austin Barber – Two factors are at play here – is Barber better suited to the right side, where he played well two years ago, and is he completely healthy? While on campus Saturday for the Grill in the Ville, Barber came to the facility for treatment. Is he a full go?
• Safety: Jordan Castell vs DJ Douglas – He gets a bit of a pass because he was a true freshman pressed into early playing time, but Castell was the source of too many missed tackles, bad angles, and poor coverage last year. Douglas brings a ton of experience and play-making ability.

Five Newcomers to Keep an Eye on

• Tank Hawkins: This will be interesting. On one hand, you would think that they will get the ball into the hands of the fastest player on the team. On the other, top-end speed didn’t seem to make a difference when it came to Aidan Mizell last season.
• Elijhah Badger: Because he transferred post-spring, we have yet to see what he can do and how he fits into Florida’s offense.
• George Gumbs Jr.: Though he is raw and is still learning the position, as was pointed out in our 10 Takeaways from Florida’s Testing Numbers, Gumbs Jr. has upper-end athletic ability for a 250-pounder.
• Joey Slackman: He had a standout year against Ivy League competition in 2023, surprised me with his burst during spring practice, and then was solid, if unspectacular, in the Orange & Blue Game. It will be interesting to see what he can do against SEC-caliber offensive linemen day in and day out.
• Aaron Chiles: Even before Tyler Miles and Ron Robers talked him up on Tuesday, we pointed out last summer that Chiles already looked like a grown man. There’s good depth at linebacker already, but he looks like he is already ready to see the field.

Five Sink or Swim

• Receiver Ja’Quavion Fraziars: Recruited to Florida by a Dan Mullen staff which prioritized size over speed, he has become lost in the receiver shuffle. He’s made more of a mark on special teams lately.
• Linebacker Derek Wingo: This is it. This is his last chance to live up to what was a Top 50 billing coming out of high school. He has been a superstar for Florida off the field and in the locker room, but he likely won’t have an entire season to make an impact on the field before he starts to feel the heat from some of the younger players behind him.
• Edge Ja’Markis Weston: After starting out at receiver, with his move to edge he has now played on all three levels of the defense. He has size and speed, and he has utilized that skill set to make plays on special teams, but he hasn’t made an impact as a positional player – and the odds are stacked against him doing so at his fourth position.
• Receiver Marcus Burke: The tools are there, but if he isn’t able to show out early, how long will it take the younger receivers and transfers to pass him up?
• Damieon George Jr.: He went from being benched his last season at Alabama, to struggling his first season at Florida. He’s now lining up at right guard, but did he look good enough over the spring to completely lock that position down?

Five Potential Surprises

• Linebacker RJ Moten: The former safety is as strong as a lineman while being the fastest linebacker. He has a chance to be a sideline-to-sideline defender.
• Cornerback Devin Moore: To most Jason Marshall Jr. is seen as the crown jewel of the UF cornerbacks, but when Moore is healthy (and he has had a hard time staying on the field), he is potentially the Gators’ best defensive back.
• Offensive Guard Bryce Lovett: After moving from tackle to guard he is still learning the ins and outs of the position, but he looked solid in the spring and if Damieon George Jr. falters at all, it could create an opening for Lovett.
• Defensive Lineman Jamari Lyons: He didn’t get a lot of credit, but I would bet that on a per-snap basis, he was as effective as any Florida interior defensive lineman last season. He ended the season on a sour note with the Florida State ejection, but if he has put that behind him, he could be one to watch out for.
• Cornerback Cormani McClain: Obviously he hasn’t been perfect since transferring in from Colorado, but the potential is there and from the looks of the photo he added to Instagram this week, he has taken to Florida’s S&C program. While he isn’t a candidate to start, he could make some noise down the road if he continues to stay on track.

Five Potential Disappointments

• Quarterback DJ Lagway: To be clear about his inclusion here, it is based on what is likely to be unrealistic expectations from the fanbase. As the No. 3 overall prospect in the entire nation, anything short of perfection out of him will be seen as a disappointment by some. There are going to be bumps in the road. That’s expected.
• Safety Bryce Thornton: Florida didn’t add three sixth-year safeties because they were content with those who played last year.
• Right Tackle Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson: Coming over from San Diego State he brings a ton of experience – to go with the prototype body for the position. We don’t see much of the offensive line during open practices, so what we have to go by is the O&B Game, and he didn’t exactly shine.
• Left Guard Knijeah Harris: Of the five projected starting offensive linemen heading into camp he is by far and away the least experienced. Is he ready to hold down that job?
• Defensive Tackle Caleb Banks: Overall he looks like he is in better shape, but is that going to be enough? Players like him are there more to occupy blockers than to fill a stat sheet, but he made almost no impact last season in 11 starts. Was that on him or the scheme (which several linemen have criticized)?

Five Reasons to be Optimistic

• Depth: The most valuable assistant coach on a team is the bench. Miss a tackle. Take a seat. Screw up. See yourself to the sidelines. That’s easy to say, but hard to do that when there’s no quality depth. And the worst thing is if a starter knows he can’t be sat down because the talent gap between him and his backup is too great. Florida has better depth this year. That should help in more ways than one.
• Returning Quarterback: In today’s Transfer Portal world of players in constant search of greener pastures, having the luxury of a returning starting quarterback should be a big advantage. Especially early in the season.
• Ron Roberts: This isn’t a shot at anyone else, but when he speaks, he sounds like the grownup in the room. When the bullets start flying, and UF finds itself in a situation, it just feels like he will have a calming presence on fellow coaches and players. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but his experience should work wonders.
• S&C Program: First, I don’t care that much about numbers. Florida doesn’t have 15 players who can run 22 MPH utilizing the same scale that is used to measure NFL MPH (that is NextGen State driven). What I do care about is what I have seen with my own eyes. As I posted back in early June, I have seen quite a few players out on the town, and they look better this summer than they have the last two summers.
• Defensive Energy: In listening to coaches, players, and prospects, Florida expects to be more aggressive and have more energy on defense this year. Yes technique and scheme matter, but also a big part of being a top defense is energy and intensity. You can’t walk around with your head down waiting for things to happen on that side of the ball. You have to press the issue. It sounds like that will be more of the case this year. Then again, everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth – so we’ll see.

Five Reasons to be Pessimistic

• Same Old Offense: Maybe he was just downplaying his contribution, but from what Russ Callaway had to say on Tuesday, it sounds like there won’t be many (or any) new wrinkles added to the offense. From what he said, we’re basically going to see a carbon copy of what we’ve seen the last two years, with (hopefully) better players.
• It’s Tackling, Dummy: This is as simple as can be. While they’ve talked it up, we really don’t know if the tackling is going to be better this year.
• Line Uncertainty: The SEC is a line-of-scrimmage league, and putting aside the rose-colored glasses, going player-by-player across the offensive and defensive lines, being honest with yourself, how many Florida starters would replace the starter on an upper-level SEC program? Maybe they are both wrong, we’ll have to see, but there’s a reason Lindy’s Preview ranks UF’s offensive and defensive lines 14th in a 16-team league. They are ranked only slightly higher on Athlon’s, coming in ranked 10th and 11th as units. The players who have the most upside (LJ McCray and Kelby Collins) are still young.
• S&C Program: While the improvements in strength, speed, and flexibility have been pointed out, the fact is it took Billy Napier two years to figure out that what they were doing in the previous S&C program wasn’t up to par. So, while UF has made gains, six months in they likely still are nowhere near on par with the likes of Georgia, Texas, LSU, etc…
• Running Back Room: The good news is there’s quality depth with Treyaun Webb, Jadan Baugh, KD Daniels, Ja’Kobi Jackson, and Cam Carroll all capable of providing quality relief for starter Montrell Johnson Jr. However, at this point, they all seem like a big step down from Trevor Etienne.

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