GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Now that spring football is over the Gators head into the summer months alone for the most part. There are no practices or scheduled meetings and players have to continue to develop on their own.
That weighs larger on no other group than the offensive line. They have a long ways to go and with so much youth and inexperience they will have to step up and develop drastically this summer.
“They need to really mentally have a great summer,” head coach Dan Mullen said. “They got to physically develop. Just massive growth in everything.
“They can’t not come in, a lot of these guys - at times there were four high school kids playing - they got to get there, they get the checkers out, the thing you do, you can put the five linemen down and you put a defensive front and have them just block and move and understand where their schemes are, who they’re blocking, what their calls are.
“They have to really put in a lot of mental work of understanding what their assignments are in the summer.”
When the line began spring practices they were basically at ground zero. Through spring they have grown a bit and the experience the early enrollees have received has been invaluable.
This offense has the potential to be special and the group understands a lot depends on them to open up holes for the backs and provide time for the quarterback, which is why they’ve been putting in overtime.
“I think they did a great job of stepping up, especially the young guys,” quarterback Feleipe Franks said off the line. “On our off day last week, the whole offensive line group came up here on our off day, and they watched the film together when we didn’t have to be here.
“That’s a hardworking group. They have so much to learn in so little of time that, you know, they have to come in here and work mentally and physically. So, coach Hevesy does a good job of coaching them, but they also do a good job of setting personal goals, and you know, trying to reach those goals each and every day. Even on off days.”
The hard part for the line during training this offseason is maintaining that work ethic. The work they have put in this spring has been impressive, along with the off-day training. But this summer will be a new test for them.
“They got to do it themselves,” Mullen said. “We have some meeting time we’re allowed to meet with them, but they got to put in extra time. The hard part is they’re young guys, they’ve never had to do that before, never had to put time in. They’re just high school, you go play. They have to now really accelerate themselves.”
While the starting group seems set there is always room for depth and improvement, and the Gators are not opposed to adding some more help this offseason before the season begins in late August.
“Absolutely,” Mullen said when asked if he’d take a grad transfer on the line. “Not that I don’t like our young players and where they’re coming in their development, but when you’re looking at all these guys we’d love to get a grad transfer come in and add somebody that can come in and we’d feel comfortable that has that experience and can come in and play immediately for us.”
The group certainly has a long ways to go and adding an experienced lineman makes sense even if it is just for depth and to add another capable body. For the current guys though it is simply about putting that extra work in this summer. They can control how far they develop.
“I think we all just need to come up there together, go into the indoor during our free time and get things down,” wide receiver Van Jefferson said. “I think our offensive line can be pretty good.
“We got Nick Bu coming back and T Mo and guys like that, Stone, I think guys like that. I tink they’re going to be progressing and be great for us. It’s just going out there on our own time and working.”
