Greetings, I held off doing an overview of the defense to make sure UF did in fact sign Onis Konanbanny. They did and completed what may be the best DB class signed in the nation for 25. Onis who I will refer to as OK, joins Stubbs, Hayward and Hanks. That's a lot of stars and talent. CBN states, and I agree that OK is under rated and is the lowest rated of the four. An interesting story on Haward, he was committed to the Vols and attended the UF/UT game. Hayward, in an interview stated it was at that game he really took notice of UF's Defensive play. UT won in OT and yet Hayward still flipped to the Gators. UT also lost OK to UF so I don't think they like UF very much. Lets take a look at the additions to the Gator defense for this year. Since we are on DB's I will start there. DB: Uf adds the four already mentioned and Michael Carraway from the portal. They must replace multi year starter Jason Marshall at corner and Bridges who is out of eligibility. Asa Turner has supposedly applied for another year but I've heard nothing further on that matter. Over all, I would say the secondary is as skilled as it has been in many years although experience could be an issue. Questions include, who will step in for Marshall? Will McClain emerge as a starter and how soon can the new guys produce? And of course, can Devin Moore stay healthy. LB: UF adds Myles Johnson and Ty Jackson to the mix to join Pup Howard. Graham, Chiles and Robinson. That is 6 guys with two of them being true freshmen. The question with the linebackers is depth. While Pup is coming off injury, Graham will make a push to start and Chiles may be the freak of the group, or it could be Ty Jackson. If you have not watched Jackson's film, it's pretty good. Robinson has shown to be productive and is often the seemingly forgotten one of the bunch, DL: I am including Jack with DL for this post and I believe UF did a solid job in adding to the DL roster. UF adds Jayden Woods at Jack, who will be a star IMO. Woods flipped from Penn State late in the process after taking a visit.He is the complete package of what you want at the Jack position. Kofi Asare adds depth and experience to the room. They join Kam James and George Gumbs who really started to come into his own towards the end of the year. UF lost Searcy and Pyburn who both chose to move on. UF also adds Jeremiah McCloud at DE to join Caleb Banks and and Brien Taylor. Banks was a priority to return for the Gators and will give the Gators a future NFL guy at the position.UF also added Joseph Mbatchou to the position. JM is a developing prospect with a high ceiling and could be the the DL. Stephon Shivers is added to the NT position and has that rare combination of size and speed that makes him a very interesting guy to watch develop. He joins a room with D'antre Robinson, Michael Boireau and the returning Jamari Lyons. Hopefully Lyons will return near or better than when injured.At DE, UF adds Jalen Wiggins who joins Sapp and LJ McCray. Sapp and McCray should allow Wiggins time to develope and we could see Gumbs, Chiles or others play on passing downs with Sapp moving inside from time to time. Questions on DL include Lyons recovery, McCrays development and production at Jack. Optimistically, we may look back on a DL that had three or more NFL guys playing on it. Projected Starters DE: Tyreek Sapp NT: Robinson DT: Banks Jack: Kam James LB: Pup Howard LB: Graham Star: Denson Corner: McClain depending on Devin Moores recovery Corner: Dijon Johnson SS: Bryce Thornton FS: Jordan Castell Defensive Coaches UF replaces Armstrong and I have yet to hear anyone crying about that, with Sunseri and Bala. CBN apparent is taking Ron Roberts off the recruiting trail and will have former Washington LB coach Robert Bala in the 11 coaches allowed to recruit off campus. DL coach Gerald Chatman is set to return after interviewing for the Bears DL coaching position. There was talk that someone was a little upset with the new hires being given co-DC titles. I'm not sure to what extent they were upset, but for now Chatman and Harris are on staff. Expectations: I expect better overall production from this group and hopefully a better start at the beginning of the season. Candy
I don’t know much but I do know by game 3 or 4 Ben Hanks will be starting at corner. He’s going to be extremely special.
Good report. Not expecting our True FR to help early and hopefully they do not have to. But without the True FR, do we have the depth?
I believe some will have to. Its a long season. I will say Ty Jackson, Hanks, Hayward and Stubbs on D. Any of the feshmen Recievers on Offense.
Might as well play them, even if it's on special teams. No one stays 4 years anymore. No reason to develop them for another team.
C…excellent. I know we have been traumatized by our lack of defensive consistency, especially in defensive secondaries for over a decade..but..when things are more balanced, as we have seen by more successful football programs..sometimes early entries in the secondary had IMMEDIATE impacts. Freshman cornerbacks especially. Experience is always welcomed but NOT an absolute necessity. For us, sadly, those truths are stuff of legends, for we have not seen that in our illustrious program for a while. Wide receivers can also have serious impacts as freshmen, as well. Regarding our defensive line possibilities, we do have some good youngsters. Jc transfer Brown, arriving here at 290+, could contribute as a solid 300# tackle. Spring will give us insight. Boireau at 350+ will be a sophomore and his contributions as a freshman showed he has promise. Shiver, a signee, is enormous at 364, and if he can avoid the DEZ complex, and stabilize at 360 or perhaps 350 also, as did Boireau, we have something very good there. Linebackers are young, but finally we have true promise with our six youngsters. Chiles is a physical freak. Robinson is a find. He will show out. Keep the conversations going please. Well done. Stevo
It also seems we have improved our defensive staff a bunch, stabilized it, and several key members in their 2nd year should notch it up. Solid hires who will allow Roberts to elevate to the head coach of the defense as intended.
Worried about stopping the run. Will young interior DTs step up? Will Lyons come back strong? Can we replace Jack in run support now that he is at LSU? CB and Safety play should be improved experiences if we can replace Bridges who played great. LB has some great athletes but replacing a good one
NStevoNeed to stay healthy at LB. Chiles will play a lot this year and Robinson never gets mentioned but he was playing very well
I truly feel like Ron Roberts in his oversight role has opened up the opportunity to continue to get better on defense. I don't think it's a coincidence that we almost immediately started having better defensive games as soon as he took the reins back and moved up to the press box.
I'm more concerned about freshman playing extended snaps at Safety (the so-called qb of the secondary) as a true freshmen than CB. Our S play over the past several years has been poor much of the time. I am still hopeful that McClain or someone else will resolve the depth at cb issue. The other big question is backup at Nickel. We missed on most of our top choices at cb so Im unsold on Carraway as opposed to Maddox. Think we are in better shape at Jack than it seems right now (using a combination of bigger Jacks like Taylor and smaller lbs like Chiles or Pup depending on situation and matchups). While there may be some drop off at DT I like the options and feel overall line may be better.
I hope it won't be too long until we begin comparing one of our freshmen Safeties (Stubbs or Hayward) to Keanu Neal. That guy was a beast!
Getting Konanbanny and Caraway completed the CB/DB room. Thinking Johnson, Denson and Foster is the first team at CB/star on day one of spring practice. Moore, McClain and Caraway have more top end talent. They'll be looking to take those 1st team spots. Hanks is the Fr. wild card... I really like this group. I think the defense just needs one more experienced NT type to have a complete defesnive roster. It's more for depth than a hole that needs to be filled. Last year they had a starter lost for the year in fall camp and seemed to have one or two DTs hurt on a week to week basis. If that scenario repeated itself in 2025 it would be a big problem for the current DTs. Adding a quality SEC type NT in the spring, a guy who can play 20-25 snaps a game, would go a long way to alleviate that potential problem.
