Watch & Read: Weak things break

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

• O&B Board: List of the 50 new UF football players
• Recruit Reaction: Over 20 visitors share their Jr. Day thoughts
• Buy, Sell, Hold: 12 Jr. Day Visitors
• Five-star lineman left with a positive impression of Florida
• Take Five: Breaking down Florida’s Portal Activity
• Florida Football Class Breakdown
• Getting to Know: Davian Groce

On Friday, Florida Gators defensive line coach Gerald Chatman, S&C Director Rusty Whitt, and Special Teams Coordinator Johnathan Galante met with the media.

GERALD CHATMAN

• On transfer defensive lineman Emmanuel Oyebadeo: Emmanuel has elite traits. So there’s no surprise. The expectation here at Florida is for us to recruit and get those types of players. He’s got a chance to be a really good player – great player. He has unique traits, and he has elite work ethic.
• On Brendan Bett: What’s really forgotten the kid, guys make mistakes. He’s really grown. He’s always been a good kid. I think part of coaching and teaching and development is also developing the mindset of being able to keep your composure when things get tough, and being able to fight through.
• On Joseph Mbatchou and Jeremiah McCloud: Joseph Mbatchou has elite traits: size, ability, winning at the point of attack, and block destruction. Jeremiah McCloud, I think he’s a unique player. He’s different. He brings something different than the other guys.
• LJ McCray playing defensive end instead of Edge: I think LJ was a highly recruited player out of high school. High expectations. I think it starts, any time you want to take a new player, I start with the mentality, I really have to see where his mindset is, is he willing to work, is he willing to embrace the challenge.

RUSTY WHITT

• On Florida’s nutrition program: The thing that blows me away about the resources here is the nutrition and the supplementation that we have. That is, it’s so expensive, and we care enough here to do it the right way. Army-West Point does it, and they have a pretty good budget with your taxpayer dollars, you know, and we’re doing a really good job here. I worked at the Olympic training center for a little while, and we are on that level.
• On how the S&C program helps to prevent injuries: Weak things break. If you have a weak hamstring and you get fatigued, it’s going to, you’re going to have a hamstring injury.
• On the lines: I take a lot of pride in our offensive line and our defensive line, inside the box players, and they are a direct reflection of your strength program. And if they’re getting beat up and pushed around, it’s my fault.
• Early standouts: Jayden Woods is a mutant. He’s extremely competitive. Mr. Baugh is exceptional. Bett, defensive lineman, is hungry to get better. I can go on down, but my first impression for those three of you guys, they’re dialed in the right way.

JONATHAN GALANTE

• On Patrick Durkin and Alec Clark transferring in from Tulane: I mean continuity for sure. They both had good seasons last year at Tulane. Patrick had a really good freshman season. He redshirted the year before. Then Alec was with me at Marshall, transferred to Southern Miss and transferred to Tulane, and he’s put two seasons under his belt now. So, he’s got quite a bit of experience. And they both finished strong, which is good.
• On ST philosophy: We like punt block and field goal block, too. So, I mean, it’s a huge swing of momentum in a game if you can block a field goal or a punt. It also puts a lot of pressure on the opponent’s specialist. So we want to do that. We want to be aggressive. It is challenging now, because I think there’s a lot more understanding across all of college football of what it takes to be sound in punt protection, and maybe even having a quality snapper and punter.
• Return game: I would say this. Our philosophy will be to return the ball when it’s in the field of play. We want to take advantage of that play. The opportunities are less frequent than they’ve ever been, because we kick from the 35-yard line, and these kickers are a lot stronger now than they’ve ever been. So, you get a lot of kickers that you play that hit a lot of touchbacks.
• On cleaning up some of the special teams issues Florida has had over the past few seasons: Well, it starts from the top down. OK? And we’ve got a system to handle all those. Game day operations don’t just happen on game day. You’ve got to practice it. It’s rehearsed. It’s something we start even in the special teams meeting. So organization, communication, it can’t be different on Saturday than it is during the week. So, it’s a process. We build it in even how we’re going to do our team special teams meetings here. Hopefully in a couple weeks, when we beat this offseason program or when we start spring ball, we’re going to sit in order of depth chart in the special teams meeting. So, when we call the punt team up. The first punt team will sit in the first row of chairs, second unit will sit behind them, third and so on. And when we transition, or there’s a substitution or change, and it happens in the meeting room.

Courtesy GatorVision | Jordyn Banks contributed to this report

Go to discussion...