Gators pushing for return to SEC title game
GAINESVILLE — A taste is usually enough to get Florida offensive lineman Stewart Reese’s attention.
Tipping the scales at nearly 350 pounds, Reese concedes, “I’m big, and I like to eat.”
Reese cut out the 2 a.m. runs to McDonald’s for a Big Mac and has dropped more than 30 pounds since last fall, but he isn’t the only Gator with a supersized appetite entering the 2021 season.
Following a trip to the 2020 SEC championship game and a close-call against conference heavyweight Alabama, coach Dan Mullen’s team is hankering for another trip to Atlanta.
“It makes you hungry,” linebacker Mohamoud Diabate said. “Like, you want to go back. We were just talking about that.
“That’s all we want now, is to get back to the SEC Championship.”
Given all the new faces and depth of the league, the Gators could be biting off more than they can chew.
Few expect UF to hold off Georgia again now that the Bulldogs seem to have found an elite quarterback in USC transfer JT Daniels to spearhead a roster brimming with talent.
Gone from last year’s SEC East champion Gators are record-setting quarterback Kyle Trask and All-America playmakers Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney. Back is a defense gashed for 30.8 points per contest and more than 50 points during its final two games, including the 52-46 title game loss to Alabama.
Pushing the Crimson Tide to the brink was a rare moral victory for a UF program focused on winning. After all, coach Nick Saban’s squad defeated every other 2020 opponent by at least 15 points en route to a 13-0 national championship season.
Whether or not UF’s performance is a prelude to future high-stakes showdowns with the SEC standard-bearer, the game is a source of daily motivation.
“Personally, I think about (All-America
tailback) Najee Harris crossing my face. I think about that all the time,” Diabate said. “So, every time you need extra motivation for a rep, you can think about that. That’s something that we’re never going to forget, and we’re going to keep remembering.
“But, at this point in time, we’re really focusing on getting better for FAU.”
The Owls’ Sept. 4 season opener at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium will serve as an appetizer to the Gators’ season.
Two weeks later, on Sept. 18, Alabama visits the Swamp during a juicy early-season matchup on CBS.
Reese said he gathered his teammates following their narrow defeat to the Tide in December to remind the Gators they might have come up short but potentially made an important step.
“I told them, ‘This is only a small taste of what the future may hold if you do what you’re supposed to do and put yourself in the right position to be able to compete at this level,’ ” Reese said. “So, it was a real important experience for not only the older guys, but the younger guys because it shows us that, you know, hard work pays off.”
Reese and Diabate soon went about setting the tone during the offseason.
Reese said he ballooned to more than 380 pounds in 2020 after he contracted COVID-19 and was forced to quarantine. Eventually, Reese trimmed down to around 360, but he struggled to move efficiently and maintain his wind.
Now a svelte 345 pounds, the 6-foot-6 Reese is light on his feet and eager to pave the way for an offense fashioned to be more run-oriented and balanced with Emory Jones at quarterback.
Jones, a redshirt junior, is an instinctive, dynamic runner, unlike Trask. Jones now aims to show he is as proficient in the passing game as his predecessor, whose accuracy and anticipation allowed Trask to throw a school-record 43 touchdowns for the pass-happy 2020 Gators.
UF coach Dan Mullen has regarded Jones as the complete package since he first laid eyes on him as a high school sophomore in Georgia.
“You saw somebody that obviously has elite arm talent, where the ball jumps out of his hands, and then an athletic ability to improvise and make plays with his legs,” Mullen said.
Jones has won the confidence of teammates, who assure Florida fans still pining for Trask, Pitts and Co., the team’s new starting QB has the skill set to handle the many demands of the job.
“Emory is a very athletic human being,” receiver Justin Shorter said. “Just watching how he drives himself. I’d say he’s a great leader and you’ll see that this year.”
Meanwhile, Diabate focused during the offseason on elevating the defense after last season’s stunning collapse.
UF ranked no better than 70th of 127 teams nationally in scoring, rushing, passing or total defense, and was 81st in turnover margin. Known for producing some of the nation’s top secondaries, the Gators ranked 100th defending the pass.
“We know that we have a lot of ground to cover,” cornerback Jaydon Hill said. “It wasn’t a good feeling going out and doing what we did last year. But we definitely are here to change that around and prove a lot of people wrong.”
Many envisioned big things when Diabate arrived as one of the plums of UF’s 2019 recruiting class, a group ranked No. 9 nationally.
Long and athletic, the 6-foot-3 linebacker has packed on the pounds needed to complete his move last summer from the outside to inside, where more physicality is required. Diabate is up to 227 pounds after he was as light as 210 last season when he still managed to finished second on the team with 69 tackles.
Diabate is confident he is on track for a breakthrough, a common theme among a group of Gators striving and starving for the program’s first SEC title since 2008.
“I feel like the last two years, I’ve been able to have a big impact on my team and make big plays, and with this added weight ... I’m even faster,” he said. “With all that, I feel like it’s time.”