During the beginning weeks of the offseason, Inside the Gators will take an in-depth look at how last season went for Florida's 2017 signees who redshirted with our Redshirt Report series. Today, we focus on how last season went for wide receiver Daquon Green.
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Daquon Green spent his first season at Florida on the bubble. A four-star wideout in the 2017 class, the 6-1, 192-pound Green looked ready for playing time when he showed up on campus in the summer.
Heading into fall camp, wide receiver was considered one of the deeper positions on Florida’s roster, but that depth decreased by two when Antonio Callaway and Rick Wells were suspended for credit card fraud. Suddenly Green looked like a legitimate possibility to make the rotation.
On Aug. 17, Green caught the attention of the media when he was seen working with the first-team offense. Although the coaches saw promise in Green, playing time never came. The decision to redshirt was dragged out over a week-to-week basis according to Green’s Tampa Bay Tech coach, Jayson Roberts.
“It was very frustrating, to be honest,” Roberts told Inside the Gators. “When I spoke to him, it was frustrating because of the fact that it really wasn’t made clear to him that’s that what the plan was. All week in practice it would be like, ‘This is going to be your week. This is your week.’”
Roberts believes Green will likely welcome the change in coaching staff.
“From talking to him, he and his position coach, Coach [Kerry] Dixon, had a great relationship,” Roberts said. “I think the biggest issue is had they been up front and said, “hey, we’re going to redshirt you,’ he wouldn’t have gone into every game expecting to play. He could have told Mom and Dad, ‘Hey, you guys don’t have to hop on the road and drive two and a half hours to be here at the game because I’m redshirting. I’m not playing.”
With the frustration of the season over, Roberts sees the redshirting experience as a positive for Green as it wasn’t a banner year for Florida’s receivers, playing in an offense ranked No. 101 in passing yards per game (179.5) and No. 93 in completion percentage.
“I’m still glad, being how things went, being kind of a wash of a season, that he had the opportunity to redshirt and not burn a year of eligibility,” Roberts said.
Green’s former 7-on-7 coach Ty Timmons also sees redshirting as a positive experience in the long term.
“I think it was good he didn't play,” Timmons told Inside the Gators. “He had a chance to get bigger, stronger and get used to college. Daquon will be better next year because he will have an even bigger chip on his shoulder.”
While Green was certainly frustrated by not playing after being told the opposite, Roberts does not think the coaching change or frustration will lead to a transfer.
“He’s a loyal kid,” Roberts said. “He’s not the type of kid that’s going to transfer because things aren’t going his way, because he doesn’t like how things are going. I still expect him to stick it out.”
In fact, Roberts thinks Green will benefit from the coaching change.
“I think it’s great for him, because that’s what we’ve always been. In high school, we were a tempo offense, fast, no huddle,” Roberts said. “We were 99 percent of the time in the shotgun and we had a lot of those same concepts that Coach Mullen uses.”
Green was set on Florida relatively early in his recruitment, committing to the Gators on July 24, 2015. Though he was ready to play for Jim McElwain, both Roberts and Timmons feel he’ll fit in well in new coach Dan Mullen’s spread offense.
Mullen tends to recruit receivers who have the size to make plays on the exterior, something Green gives the Gators.
“He's a possession type wide receiver and his ability to make to make plays on the outside will be big,” Timmons said. “He can run curls, comebacks, post, quick slants – he will fit well.”
With his redshirt season out of the way, Green should finally get the chance to show what he can do.
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