GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- It was a common scene in the offseason. With Johnny Cash's, ‘God is Going to Cut You Down,’ blaring in the background, Chris Bleich was ready to face his next challenger.

"Yeah. Just a little wrestling," said the Florida offensive lineman. "Just two big guys ‘sumoing’ it out. It’s not a pretty sight to see, but I mean we lose a few pounds in the pool every night.”

Bleich, along with his roommates, Brett Heggie, Feleipe Franks, Lucas Krull and Brett DioGuardi, hold pool fights every so often at the house they currently live in together.

"I mean we go at it all the time, "explained Bleich. " I finally got my first ‘dub’ against him [Heggie] like a week ago. It only took two years."

This is serious competition.

“In our house, [Chris] has beaten me one time ever out of 30, so I’m above him," said Heggie about the current standing. "Then I’d go Feleipe. Feleipe is just weird, he has leverage, he’s long. Chris, Lucas and then Brett Dio.”

“Heggie is number one. I’m going to go with Feleipe Franks number two. Then the long snapper is the wildcard, Brett DioGuardi," Bleich argued. "I’m going to come in at four. Lucas Krull? I don’t want to put him at the bottom, but he doesn’t pool fight with was that much. He’s usually chilling, making fun of two fat kids wrestling. So, he’s number five of course.”

It's not just these five, however. These pool fights/games started when the offensive line group would journey over to offenisve line coach John Hevesy's house.

"It was like pool basketball," explained center Nick Buchanan. "So, I’m out there running the show like Magic Johnson at point guard. I wasn’t trying to get too into the deep end too much because we have some tall guys on the o-line and I’m one of the shorter guys. So I stay in the shallow and dish and pass the ball, throw alley-oops, stuff like that.”

“We had a lot of that,"said Jean Delance. "Obviously, you’ve seen Bleich bust his nose and was bleeding, but it’s all fun. We’re competitive guys, so we’re having fun, but that just brings us a whole lot closer in terms of having trust within each other as a unit."

"“It is definitely fun. We get close to guys, especially the offensive linemen up front. We get close as a group," said Heggie. "It makes you want to go out there on Saturdays and play harder for the guy to the left and the guy to the right. I think it’s really important to grow that bond.”

"A relaxed setting is always good and it always adds to the chemistry," said Buchanan.

Pool basketball, pool wrestling, eating out together, the offensive linemen decided early on this offseason that they needed to stick together on and off the field.

"We are younger and we haven’t really worked together [before this year]," said Stone Forsythe.

The Gators lost four of its five starters from last season - thats a lot of experience. An offensive lineman relies heavily on the guy on his other side. It's a position group that does not forgive miscommunications, trust issues.

In order for the unit to develop chemistry together, the group decided that instead of concentrating on individual workouts, they would organize group workouts.

“I think we worked really hard this offseason," said Heggie. "We did a lot of extra work on our own as a unit. Me, Stone and Nick ran practices basically for us to go through fundamentals and things like that so we can get ahead of the game so we can perform as one unit up front and get comfortable with working with each other. I think that really helped us.”

"It has helped a lot because we know that we have all put the work in together," said Forsythe. "Been there in our lows and been there for our highs."

This group is now comfortable lining up next to each other due to their offseason approach. Now it's about taking the next step as a unit.

"We just have to be consistent," said Forsythe about whats next. "We just have to be consistent, sometimes we may do the right thing, sometimes we do the wrong thing, so we just have to be consistent on an every play basis."

The offensive linemen knew they were going to be under the microscope this season. They made changes to their offseason approach.

They grew up together.

They competed together.

Now it's about pushing each other to be better at everything- even if it's in the pool.

“I think that’s a work in progress," said Heggie about his cannonball form. "I’m not giving up on it. I’m a big belly flop guy though. Definitely the leader in the house.”

“Eh, he’s a lost cause when it comes it comes to the cannonball," said Bleich about Heggie joked. "He doesn’t have the technique."