Advertisement
Published Sep 27, 2021
Florida heading into Lexington on the mend
circle avatar
Nick de la Torre  •  1standTenFlorida
Staff
Twitter
@delatorre

Four weeks into a football season and nobody is going to feel great but the Gators should be getting back closer to 100 percent when they travel to Lexington this week.

Last week Florida sat starting cornerback Kaiir Elam (knee) and starting right guard Stewart Reese (undisclosed) both missed the game. Additionally, starting right tackle Jean Delance (knee) and starting center Kingsley Eguakun (ankle) both played sparingly. Delance played in just the first few series, while Eguakun was rolled up on during the game causing him to have to leave. He was able to return but didn't finish the game.

"Kaiir Elam, I meet with our trainers this morning. We'll know later this week but I'd say he's probable. They feel pretty good about him being back in the game this week," Dan Mullen said to begin a weekly injury report. "Stewart Reese, we held him last week. He was cleared to play but wouldn't have been 100% and Josh Braun came in, I thought did a great job for him. Again, one of those situations, where we felt Josh at 100%, was going to be better than Stewart at 75%. And now we expect to have Stewart back healthy to go this week. Same with kind of Jean Delance. Played a little bit and banged up. Michael Tarquin did a great job last week and came in. So hopefully not only has it created some depth but it's allowed those, the two older guys, to get healthy getting ready for a tough road battle."

The offensive line played well with Michael Tarquin filling it at tackle and Richie Leonard filling in at center. The Gators are always looking to build and manufacture depth, something that because of the injuries they were forced to do.

"You always look and you’d like to have eight, minimally, that you feel comfortable with getting in the game and we’re getting there. We’re getting to that point, so that’s a pretty good thing for us to get you through a season," Mullen said. "You look, we went into last week’s game and neither of your starting corners from preseason were playing. You gotta be able to create that depth in order to get through a season.”

Backup quarterback Anthony Richardson, who has sat the last two games with a hamstring injury, is also expected to make a highly anticipated return.