When Ethan White walked up to the podium for his first press conference, he was almost unrecognizable from the 18-year-old kid that first stepped foot on campus.

On National Signing Day in 2018, Dan Mullen said White had tipped the scale at 400 pounds when they had weighed him on campus. Now, White walks around at much slimmer 330. Florida strength and conditioning coach Nick Savage has garnered a lot of praise for the work he's done at Florida transforming players but a tip of the cap needs to go to White, who lost the equivalent weight of an average fifth-grader. Savage can tell you what to do but White was the one that had to put in the work.

"I’m just doing what Coach Savage and his staff say. If they say go do this workout, eat this way, drink a certain way, I mean I’m gonna do it, because they know best and I mean, I came here to kinda be coached and learn from those guys, so it’s kind of just following the program that they set.”

All of that work was paying off prior to the 2020 season. White had grown and impressed the coaching staff enough to earn the starting center job before a left knee injury would sideline him for most of the season.

“To be honest, it was rough," White said of the injury. "When it happened, those first couple days I was kind of feeling bad for myself and stuff like that. But then I just talked to some guys on the team who had been through similar experiences. And probably two to three days after it happened, my mind was on just get back as fast as possible."

Heading into this season White is back poised to start again, this time at left guard. He's attacked the position the same way he attacked his weight loss, a full head of steam, and by putting in extra work.

"Ethan's doing phenomenal," left tackle Richard Gouraige said. "He's been working really, really hard. He's been great. He's really funny off the field. It's really great to have a friend next to you going and play really. Our chemistry is growing every day.”