The University of West Florida football regular season is a little more than a month away.
The Argos will hit Pen Air Field for the first time on Sept. 5 when UWF hosts McKendree University, as part of the home-and-home series that saw the Bearcats host in 2023. Fall camp begins soon for the Argos, as players make their way back to campus.
It’s head coach Kaleb Nobles’ second season at the helm, after playing quarterback then ultimately becoming an assistant coach for UWF before taking a job at Clemson for a couple seasons. Now, he’s working to get the Argos back to the National Championship standard that was set by his predecessor, Pete Shinnick.
Nobles, along with offensive lineman Ben Freeman, a graduate student who transferred from Northwest Missouri State last season, were at Thursday’s Gulf South Conference media day, which featured seven of the eight teams in the conference. Erskine College, which will be an affiliate member of the GSC this season, did not attend.
Each team brought its head coach as well as a player representative to Birmingham, Alabama, at the Wynfrey Hotel. The event was livestreamed on FloFootball.
“You learn a lot of things (in year one),” Nobles said during the opening question for UWF’s portion of media day. “The team was resilient. The players are going to play as hard as they can if they know you love them … Our staff, they’re phenomenal. They take that stuff and run with it. For year two, it’ll hopefully be a lot smoother as far as behind closed doors.”
Here are four takeaways from what Nobles and Freeman said during the media day.
Kaleb Nobles has high hopes for the Argos’ defense with Kavell Conner returning
Suffocating was just one word used last year to describe UWF’s new-and-improved defense under defensive coordinator Kavell Conner, who was in his first year with the Argos last season. He brought a 4-3 defensive scheme, featuring four defensive linemen and three linebackers, and allowed the secondary to freely fly around.
And for the most part, it was working.
UWF had the GSC Defensive Player of the Year in John McMullen, who posted 51 tackles (34 solo, 17 assisted) with 22 of those for a loss of 112 yards, and 12.5 sacks. He also rushed the quarterback six times and forced three fumbles. Now-sophomore Ralph Ortiz, a linebacker, was the GSC’s Freshman Defensive Player of the Year with 40 tackles (28 solo, 12 assisted) and three interceptions.
And there are a lot more returners, including players like Byron Puryear, Walker Robinson, Donovan Barnes and Virgil Lemons.
“The sky’s the limit for the second year of the system with coach (Kavell) Conner, our defensive coordinator who is a phenomenal coach and a phenomenal leader of men,” Nobles said. “We’re going to play a lot of players, make sure guys are healthy. I’m not going to play the same guy every snap because we have to make sure you can play later in the season, too. We’ve got a lot of guys returning on defense, too, which is exciting.”
Nobles is also expecting a few players to return from early season-ending injuries last year, including Will Breland, who was a superstar during his sophomore season in 2022. He suffered a lower-body injury in Week 2 that forced him to miss the rest of the season. Aiden Swett, who also got hurt at McKendree, also looks to be back at defensive line.
A couple other players look to be back as well, Nobles mentioned.
“A lot of guys we’ve added that we think can help us, both with transfers, junior college and high school (players),” Nobles said. “I’m excited to see them and see how they grow together through fall camp.”
“For the defense, if you can play fast, you can play just about anything. That’s a really hard defense to go against, when the defensive coordinator keeps things simple and lets the defensive guys just play free. I think our defense has done a really great job of that through the spring,” Freeman said. “The defensive line we had last year, a lot of those guys are back and they’re ready to go, which is always a pain in the butt in spring ball as an offensive lineman, but I appreciate what they do for me in practice. It gets me ready for a game.”
Kaleb Nobles isn’t budging: we’ll know who the starting quarterback is during the season-opener
As expected, Nobles didn’t give any hints as to who would be the Argos’ starting quarterback to begin the 2024 season. He had a similar message during the spring, as the quarterbacks rotated through the spring scrimmage, showing off as best they could in limited reps.
Notably, UWF lost Peewee Jarrett, who graduated last year, after two stellar seasons in northwest Florida. Jarrett, last season alone, threw for 2,989 yards with 32 touchdowns, averaging 249.08 yards per game. He also ran for 548 yards and three touchdowns, cementing his role as a two-way quarterback.
UWF had five quarterbacks listed on its spring roster between Marcus Stokes, Michael Rich Jr., T.J. Wilson, Kaden King and Tony Bartalo. Bartalo was a transfer from Charleston Southern, while Stokes and Rich saw minimal action behind Jarrett last year. Wilson and King are both redshirt freshmen entering the fall. UWF also has…
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