Florida heads toward its opener without last year’s injury-clouded buildup

One of the very real issues that Florida was plagued with over the past few years was the relative health of the team before the season even started. Last year, it felt like half of Florida’s offense missed time during fall camp, headlined by DJ Lagway.

This year, the Gators don’t seem to have any major injuries heading into their season opener, and that also doesn’t feel like an accident.

Florida is healthy heading into their season opener

Sumrall has highlighted health updates throughout fall camp, and for the most part, they were a non-story. There have been a couple of guys here and there, but beyond Dallas Wilson, every other anticipated starter for Florida has been at full health this fall.

Sumrall was asked on Monday at his press conference how intentional he was at trying to make sure his team was at full strength heading into this Saturday’s opener:

“I do think our training camp schedule is helpful for them. The work's the work. Like you're going to go practice, and you're going to wear full gear certain days, and you've got to bang. But then you got to know how to kind of go up and down a little from how you're pushing them. 

And then the mock game week, it is a little bit about getting them back, but it's also a little bit about them just being ready for this week, so there's comfort with the format. And so they have an expectation of what it looks like.”

It also helps that, on paper, Rusty Witt seems to know what he is doing. Florida’s strength program under Napier always felt like it was lacking, and it turned out that being tatted up and riding a motorcycle didn’t make someone a qualified strength coach. Last year, Florida had a laundry list of injuries early in camp, even before the heavy contact started.

For as much as Lagway’s shoulder was the focal point, it’s worth remembering that he strained his calf while running against air. And early in camp last year, Jadan Baugh, Tre Wilson, Dallas Wilson, and Aiden Mizell were among the skill players who had something pop up. What was comical was the lengths Napier went to to cover up just how banged up they were, like having injured players appear during the media portion, only to still not actually do anything.

We’ll see how well Florida’s health holds up once opposing teams can start to hit back, but for now the Gators are in as great a spot health-wise as anyone could hope for.

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