Thought he was on his way to being all-SEC and a high draft choice. He was my biggest surprise heading to the portal landing at Missouri. How are former Gators performing in 2024? | GatorCountry.com
Well DL coach was let go for one two, he was relegated to second string behind Cam Jackson last season when it was clear in 2022 he was our most disruptive DT as a true freshmen three, the staff had him add on bad weight going into last year. Look at his built in 2022 and in 2023, looked like a diff player Four, probably already saw the writing on the wall and got the heck outta dodge
TBH, I thought he was self indulgent and talented but wasn't putting in the work and thought he knew more than the staff. I also believed we had a slew of players waiting to show what a real edge DE could do. Oops.
Tbf to the coaches, we didn't have enough depth at DT, so he got way more snaps than he deserved his frosh year and the coaches got transfers to start, not be depth, and the transfers got prioritized, and Lyons was coming on to get snaps when he didn't take a single snap McClelland's frosh year. McClelland saw he was getting limited snaps at either position. I don't think there needed to be any back story here. Mizzou's defensive coaching staff was a hot commodity last year, and then LSU raided them for this year. We could have used him this year.
McClellan definitely showed some “pop” his freshman year. With some development he probably could have been a great gator but we will never know.
Fair enough if it’s one or two guys. There were just way to many from day one leaving for “lesser” programs. Coaching change year ya can see more but after that it’s not just about money or “not getting snaps”
Just for perspective though, frosh Boireau is averaging 50% more tackles per game on half the snaps that McClellan had his frosh year, which was a year teams challenged us down the middle as well because Dexter was playing too many snaps. That a frosh can come in on limited snaps and lead the DT group in tackles this year does speak to the development or abilities or motivation of our DT position group.
