Amir Jackson’s punishing block shows Florida’s tight ends have a new edge

When thinking about the previous era of Florida football, tight end usage was among the areas of consternation for Gator fans. The Man in the Black Polo was insistent on using multiple tight end sets, but the quality of tight ends the Gators had made it so it didn’t make sense to do that.

While Florida’s tight ends on Saturday didn’t have a field day catching the ball, their blocking efforts against FAU felt like night and day compared to what we were forced to watch the past four years.

Florida tight ends go crazy with blocks downfield

Amir Jackson had only one catch for 14 yards, yet Pro Football Focus graded him as Florida’s 4th-best player on offense among the 14 players who took at least 25 snaps.

His blocking told a story as to why. 

In one clip that was noticed, Jackson takes his man and drives him a solid 10+ yards downfield before pancaking him. It’s the type of clip we also hype up when watching a four-star prospect for recruiting purposes.

Lacota Dippre, the transfer from James Madison who escaped before The Man in the Black Polo could arrive, also showed some violence with his downfield blocking, and he had a hand in several explosive plays the Gators had.

Jon Sumrall was asked at his press conference on Monday if there was a position group that surprised him. He made sure to highlight the efforts of the tight end unit:

“I would say I was really fired up about our perimeter blocking. I wouldn't just say that's just receivers. I'd say it's receivers and tight ends. You know, on one of the run plays was a perimeter run play, and I think you saw Amir Jackson and Bailey Stockton, and (Vernell Brown III) was in there. 

You saw some guys getting after people in the run game on the perimeter. That fired me up. When your receivers and your tight ends block on the perimeter like that, that usually promotes for good football and good run game.” 

And this is one of the many juxtapositions that stood out on Sumrall’s debut night. We were lectured for years on how Florida’s tight ends were useful in blocking, and seldom did they even have clips come out as we saw on Saturday. As we pointed out in the previous era, having two tight ends on the field isn’t automatically bad, but you have to have two quality tight ends to justify their usage. 

For Jackson in particular, he has been billed as Florida’s receiving tight end, whereas Dippre was more of the blocking tight end. So for Jackson to have a moment as he did on Saturday, it might just turn Florida’s tight ends into a unit of strength rather than a unit of misallocation. 

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