Over the next couple of weeks, Gators Territory will be breaking down and grading the Florida Gators position by position, followed by a look ahead to the 2021 season and what the depth chart will look like in the season to come.

When the 2019 season ended and the College Football Award Show began to dole out season honors, Kyle Pitts watched as the Mackey Award was given to someone else. It fueled a fire inside him. Next year would be different. Next year it would be him on that stage getting the award for the best tight end in the country.

If not for the coronavirus, he would have been on that stage, but not even COVID could slow down Pitts in 2020. The junior made good on the promise he made to himself, taking home the Mackey. Pitts was also the first tight end in college football history be named a finalist for both the Mackey and Biletnikoff Awards.

Pitts, without a shadow of a doubt, was the best tight end in the country, and an argument can be made that he was the best player in the country, regardless of position.

"He’s got tremendous athletic ability to go catch the ball, and as I think everybody saw, he’s really developed much better as a blocker this offseason. When you combine those things defensively, who do you put on him," Mullen asked in the beginning of the season. ”It’s like we talked, he’s kind of a unicorn, right? So unless you have a unicorn on defense to match the unicorn on offense – you’ve got to have a guy that, there’s not a lot of them out there, they’re kind of very, very rare to ever see one – do you have a 6-foot-4, 240-pound linebacker than can run with him?”

Pitts played in just eight games in 2020 but hauled in 43 passes for 770 yards and 12 touchdowns. He announced his presence in Florida’s very first game, grabbing eight passes and four touchdowns against Ole Miss in the season opener.

It was the Kyle Pitts show in 2020, but we’d be remiss to not mention Kemore Gamble and Keon Zipperer as well. When Pitts was taken out of the Georgia game following a vicious hit that left him with a concussion and a broken nose, the two understudies picked him up. Gamble and Zipperer took turns playing the blocking tight end role as well as making up for Pitts’ offense. The duo combined for 9 catches, 102 yards and four touchdowns in the two games following.

The Gators have a lot of production to make up in 2021.