Report day for Florida football fall camp brought more optimism that third-year coach Billy Napier has espoused throughout the summer.
The Florida Gators will begin their third fall camp under Napier with 14 returning starters on offense and defense, led by quarterback Graham Mertz, and more than 41,000 snaps of experience.
“This camp will be the most competitive camp that we’ve had since I’ve been at the University of Florida,” Napier said. “We have more competitive depth. We have more experience. Certainly, we have a challenge in front of us that we look forward to.”
Florida will begin the first of its 17 practices over a 22-day stretch on Wednesday to help prepare for its season opener on Aug. 31 at The Swamp against state-rival Miami (3:30 p.m., ABC).
Napier addressed the team on Tuesday morning, and he expects 120 of the 132 scholarship and walk-on players on the roster to take part in fall drills.
“There’s never going to be a carbon copy team,” Florida center Jake Slaughter said. “I feel like this team has definitely shifted. We want to start fast and finish strong, that was a big thing this summer that we pushed. I feel like a lot of guys are ready to go out and compete. There’s going to be a ton of competition across the board.”
Slaughter said there isn’t an added sense of urgency opening against the Hurricanes, the first of 11 power four conference opponents on UF’s bear of a 12-game schedule. ESPN’s Football Power Index has rated UF’s schedule as the most difficult in college football.
“There’s going to be a sense of urgency regardless,” Slaughter said. “Being ready for the beginning half or the back half of the schedule isn’t something we consider I feel like. There’s always going to be a sense of urgency to play our best ball day one.”
How Florida football fall camp will be structured
Napier said he follows a model for preseason practices, with minor tweaks made before each season.
“We have adjusted,” Napier said. “I think we have access to more information now. The sport science piece, the wearable technology, just the information that we have on each individual player.”
Over the spring, Napier said NFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills visited UF’s campus to discuss how to put together training camps in a competitive format.
“We’ll expose the players at different times of the day in this training camp,” Napier said. “We’ll practice at 10:30, 2:30, and 6:30. We obviously play some flex games where we’ll be on the field at all three of those times. Obviously some morning kickoffs as well, three in particular on the schedule. I think it will be healthy for our players to experience all that.”
Florida players will come into camp motivated to erase the sting of last season’s 5-7 campaign, which included a five-game losing streak to close the regular season. It resulted in UF missing a bowl game for the first time since 2017.
“We’ve got a core group of players who are coming back,” Napier said. “They’ve tasted it. They’ve been right there in those four quarter games back-to-back years. Down the stretch we haven’t quite finished quite the way we’d like to.
“And I think ultimately that’s the motivation behind this is they know it’s just right there and what helps us get over the hump,”
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida football beginning fall camp with optimism due to experience, competition
The Gainesville Sun
