As Florida linebacker Ventrell Miller takes on a bigger leadership role this year, part of that responsibility revolves around COVID-19.

The redshirt junior has been making sure his teammates follow protocols and stay safe away from campus. UF released another testing update Tuesday for the month of August, with only one positive case out of 687 tests among all student-athletes.

The Gators football program administered 298 of those tests, all of which came back negative. Last week UF coach Dan Mullen said no one on his team has tested positive since early July.

“Right now with COVID, you’ve gotta hold your teammates accountable,” Miller said Monday. “At the beginning, there were a lot of concerns but everybody was optimistic. As things have progressed, everybody’s trying to be accountable and self-disciplined and just get to that season.”

Defensive back Marco Wilson, one of Florida’s top draft candidates, didn’t consider opting out this year. He feels the players have the protocols “down pat” and said they’re getting constant reminders about safety.

“The only thing I worried about was if the season was going to get canceled. But other than that, we got a season to play. I’m going to be right here with my team getting ready to compete,” Wilson said. “We gotta make sure we’re making the right decisions, making smart decisions and keeping ourselves safe outside of football.”

Mullen and members of his staff joined the players at the Gainesville for Social Justice protest last Friday.

The coaches also praised them on Twitter for using their platform to combat racism. Miller and Wilson appreciate the support.

“As a team, we need to step up and say something,” Miller said. “I feel like those conversations (with the staff) are getting more serious because of everything that’s happening and keeps happening. The players are more concerned and want to bring awareness, want things to change, so the players are speaking up more.”

Wilson added, “I know some coaches know what we went through, but other coaches might not know. We don’t really expect them to understand that at all, we just want them to be there to support us. We also just want our voice heard, because what’s going on in the country is not okay, and it’s obviously something that should be gone by now, but we have to face the facts that racism is still a thing: It’s still going on.”

Like Mullen, Wilson said more people need to be educated about racism and focus on spreading love. Wilson was also asked how he’d respond to someone who thinks athletes shouldn’t speak out.

“Basically, if you’re gonna support us on the field, I would like the same respect off the field,” he said. “Just don’t support us just because we go catch touchdowns, catch interceptions. If you’re gonna watch us on the field, have the same respect off the field. We’re not just entertainment for you guys, we’re still people too. So it just needs to be mutual respect all around.”

The Gators will open their season on Sept. 26 against Ole Miss and first-year coach Lane Kiffin, who makes his return to the SEC after three seasons as Alabama’s offensive coordinator and a one-year stint at Tennessee in 2009.

Mullen said preparing for the Rebels is a “pain in the rear end” because his staff has to scout their players as well as film from Kiffin’s FAU teams. Grantham discussed the difficulty of facing his scheme.

“Obviously Lane’s a talented offensive guy,” he said. “We always look at our opponents, particularly new opponents, during the spring, summer and kind of have a little bit of a feel for what they do. ... Now the fact that it's been expedited and moved up, we’ve kind of honed in on more specific things and gotten into more of a game-ready week scouting report.

“And he's a talented guy with an offense and he’s going to put the guys in position to make plays. He understands matchups and those kind of things, so we understand that it will be a challenge and we'll have to play well and execute.”

* Grantham on what he’s seen from Florida’s offense in camp: “Well, I think that you can tell there's a lot of continuity on that side of the ball when you look at the players that are coming back. Obviously Kyle [Trask] is a guy that had an unbelievable season last year and he's a hard worker, so that's continued to, you know, move up. You look at our receivers that we're playing with, our tight end. I mean, they got weapons over there, so it really helps us in the sense of challenging us every day to make plays and understand these are the kind of players you're going to see in this league.”

* Grantham on his Saturday plans with no Eastern Washington: “You know, man, the Derby’s on. Being in Louisville, man, I got hooked on the Derby. We got meetings and stuff, but we’ll be done. Maybe I’ll check that out. If you got a pick, let me know.”

* Grantham on the pronunciation of Princely Umanmielen’s last name: “I just say Princely. 'Let's go Prince!’"