GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida's secondary takes a hit after one defensive back is ruled out for the season.

Dan Mullen announced on Tuesday that CJ McWilliams ruptured his Achilles and will miss the 2019 season.

"He’s going to be out for the year. That’s a tough one, non-contact injury,” Mullen said on Tuesday. “That’s a shame because those guys, it is, it’s one of those. Early in practice, just planted and drove and felt the pop. It’s a shame. It’s so tough. Guys work so hard. They put in all this work in the offseason and you get suffered with an injury.”

McWilliams is the second player this offseason/camp to suffer an Achilles injury; redshirt freshman David Reese tore his Achilles just before fall camp. Reese is also set to miss the upcoming season.

McWilliams' injury puts the Gators in a tough situation in the secondary. The redshirt junior was not projected to start in 2019, however, he was expected to feature. Without McWiliams, Florida's depth in the secondary is a bit concerning at certain positions.

The Gators are returning three starters at corner: CJ Henderson, Marco Wilson and Trey Dean - although Dean has moved to nickelback this spring but can return to corner if necessary. After that Florida will need to rely on a trio of freshmen: Kaiir Elam, Jaydon Hill and Chester Kimbrough.

“You look at some freshmen – like our three freshmen corners. They’re all gonna play,” Mullen said. “There’s opportunities for them to play, and they’re getting moved up to play.”

At safety, Florida is expected to receive a boost with Jeawon Taylor finally being able to "fully" go in practice at the end of the week - Taylor has been limited for the first few practices. However, there is still no word on when Brad Stewart is expected to return.

Nickel, however, is the main concern.

The South Florida native was running behind both Trey Dean and John Huggins at nickel in the spring, however, Huggins has yet to feature on the field this fall camp due to a "family issue." No word on when Huggins is expected to return.

Last season when Florida was hit with some depth issues at safety, the Gators moved Iverson Clement to safety for practice. That has yet to happen this fall camp.

“We haven’t moved anybody," said Mullen. "I love guys to be multi-position guys and have the flexibility for guys to move around and be able to play multiple positions, but we haven’t moved anybody from offense to defense for the depth reason.”

However, Mullen does have a few contingency plans for the nickel position.

“Nickel now, I mean you’re going to have, well there’s a lot of different things that you’re doing there," explained Mullen. "You have [Amari] Burney can do it, John Huggins, you could go as far as putting a Marco Wilson there. When you’re within a base defense Burney can be there at base. There’s a lot of different things you can do personnel wise.”