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Published Mar 3, 2021
Notebook: Gators nearing halfway point of spring camp
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Nick de la Torre  •  1standTenFlorida
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The Florida Gators are six practices into spring camp and getting ready for their first scrimmage of spring camp. With so much turnover on the Gators' roster, there are many questions surrounding the team in the offseason.

From fixing a historically bad defense in 2020 to how the offense changes with the departure of Kyle Trask and passing of the torch to Emory Jones, Dan Mullen has his work cut out for him heading into 2021.

Gators Territory will look at several areas we've deemed critical and some other notes from spring camp.

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Emory Jones isn't a passer?

That's the biggest note coming out of spring camp. Kyle Trask and the Florida offense were so prolific in 2020, how do you improve on that heading into the new season? The Gators will work a new quarterback into the mix and the casual notion is that Jones, a redshirt junior isn't the same kind of passer that Trask was and that Florida's offense is in for a complete overhaul.

Not so fast, says Mullen.

"He's got a cannon for an arm. I mean he's got a cannon for an arm, so I don't know who would say that I guess," Mullen said of Jones. "Maybe there's somebody out at practice, watching practice that's more expertise at quarterback than me that's letting you know those things, but I'm pretty confident in what he can do."

It isn't just this coach. Jones's teammates share the same sentiment.

"Emory still can throw the ball, can throw the ball very well," tight end Kemore Gamble said. "He’s not just a runner. To me, I think Emory's a pass-first quarterback. That’s what I think.”

The offense is bound to change. You may need to read between the lines during Mullen's press conference but looking at his history he has a clear track record of finding what his team does well and building around that. Trask was a great passer, he had good pocket awareness, but the typical quarterback running plays that Mullen would call weren't in Trask's wheelhouse. So, what happened? They were thrown out and the Gators threw the ball all over the yard. With Jones' athletic ability, plus the stable of running backs Florida has the easy jump is that the Gators will be a more run-heavy team.

If you listen to the team, however, the Gators may just regress more to mean and be more of a balanced offense with Jones at the helm in 2021.

Fixing the defense 

The biggest frustration throughout the 2020 season was how efficient and electric the offense was in stark contrast to how frustratingly inept the defense was. if you could jump into a time machine and put the 2020 offense with one of Will Muschamp's defenses we're looking at a National Champion contender. Instead, Florida faltered down the stretch to an 8-4 record.

The Gators added two new defensive coaches but retained coordinator Todd Grantham, who wasn't too keen on talking about the failures of 2020.

I want to talk about this year and moving forward. We have spring practice now. The issues and reasons before are really irrelevant now in the sense that it is what it is. We’re going to play good this year, and with the young players we have, we’re going to continue to develop and grow. Basically, when you look at last year, I think it was March 20th or something, for roughly four and a half months we had no contact with the players physically to be able to develop guys. I think when you’re a young player, particularly maybe a guy that came in, for example, Jason Marshall is coming in this year. Well, he’s getting a lot of reps right now. Whereas the guys that came in last year at this time really got nothing until we started in August. So my focus is on the young team that we have right now and getting better. That’s what I’ll talk about
Todd Grantham

Dr. Reese 

Stewart Reese originally committed to Dan Mullen and John Hevesy when they were coaching at Mississippi State. Reese came to Florida as a graduate transfer and immediately made an impact, playing in and starting in 11 of 12 games.

Reese took advantage of the NCAA allowing seniors to return for an extra season but he has more than football on his mind. If Reese stays the course, we'll be referring to him as doctor soon, as the sixth-year senior has his eyes set on a doctorate at Florida.

"When I was younger, I used to get up early in the morning; it was a show on TLC where they used to deliver babies. I used to get up, fix me a big bowl of cereal and I would sit there and watch it until it went off. You know, I was just I was infatuated with you know how the doctors team and you know, how everything went, you know. Since then it's just been on my mind and you know my brother is a paramedic in Las Vegas. So, talking to him and stuff like that I've always been infatuated with the medical field so growing up, I decided that I wanted to be a doctor. Originally I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon but I switched over to anesthesiologists, I couldn't see myself standing and operating on people so I decided to just sit behind the scenes and put people to sleep.”

Reese is still working on his Masters's degree, but hats off to a young man that is keeping his future in focus.