{"id":3133,"date":"2022-03-30T15:17:54","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T15:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/news-and-notes-florida-gators-spring-practice-no-7-sports-illustrated\/"},"modified":"2022-03-30T15:17:54","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T15:17:54","slug":"news-and-notes-florida-gators-spring-practice-no-7-sports-illustrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/30\/news-and-notes-florida-gators-spring-practice-no-7-sports-illustrated\/","title":{"rendered":"News and Notes: Florida Gators Spring Practice No. 7 – Sports Illustrated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo: Anthony Richardson and Lorenzo Lingard; Credit: Alex Shepherd<\/em>
The Florida Gators held their seventh spring practice of the Billy Napier era on Tuesday, preparing for what will be the team's first of three spring scrimmages under Napier on Thursday.
Below, you can find AllGators<\/em>' takeaways from the media viewing portion of practice. 
With injuries hampering the position, Florida interestingly moved redshirt senior defensive lineman Dante Zanders<\/strong> and redshirt junior outside linebacker Noah Keeter<\/strong> to tight end last week. On Tuesday, another veteran defender joined the tight end unit: Defensive lineman Griffin McDowell<\/strong>.
While Zanders and Keeter both bring some sort of experience<\/a> at the position to the table, McDowell does not. McDowell, a redshirt senior, enrolled at Florida as an offensive lineman and made a move to the defensive line before the 2021 season.
McDowell, 6-foot-4, 283 pounds, has appeared in 37 games during his UF career, primarily working with special teams. The hope for Florida is that tight ends in redshirt sophomore Jonathan Odom<\/strong> and redshirt freshman Nick Elksnis<\/strong>, both in recovery mode due to shoulder injuries<\/a>, will be able to return to practice by fall camp in order to keep players in their natural positions, such as McDowell. 
In addition, redshirt freshman tight end Gage Wilcox<\/strong> was not seen at practice for the fourth session in a row, for unknown reasons. Currently, the only scholarship tight end regularly practicing is senior Keon Zipperer<\/strong>.
The Gators anticipate the enrollment of three incoming freshmen tight ends over the summer: Tony Livingston<\/strong>, Hayden Hansen<\/strong> and Arlis Boardingham<\/strong>.
The pecking order at running back in the spring practice media viewing sessions has been fairly consistent through seven workouts, with redshirt senior Lorenzo Lingard<\/strong>, sophomore and Louisiana transfer Montrell Johnson<\/strong> and redshirt sophomore Demarkcus Bowman<\/strong> tending to take reps in drills in that order.
Of course, while the first rep-taker in individual drills is usually an indication of a starter, it remains to be seen how the playing-time rotation at running back will pan out. Napier has historically deployed an offense that is almost 60-percent run-based, meaning the Gators are sure to utilize several running backs throughout the upcoming season. Running backs coach Jabbar Juluke said as much<\/a> during his spring media availability.
Lingard, Johnson, Bowman and injured redshirt junior back Nay'Quan Wright<\/strong> are likely all in line to receive their share of touches in 2022. But if AllGators<\/em> had to predict which running back will earn the first carry of week one or even the upcoming orange and blue spring game, our guess would be Lingard.
Note: * indicates a new addition to the attendance report.<\/em>
Working out in no-contact jerseys<\/em><\/strong>: OLB Lloyd Summerall III<\/strong>*, WR Trent Whittemore<\/strong>
Not practicing<\/em><\/strong>: TEs Jonathan Odom<\/strong>, Nick Elksnis<\/strong> and Gage Wilcox<\/strong>, S Kamari Wilson<\/strong>, RB Nay'Quan Wright<\/strong>, CB Jadarrius Perkins<\/strong>, OL Hayden Clem<\/strong>*
Introducing a new segment to AllGators<\/em>' practice takeaways, below you can find our highlight clip of the day from the media viewing session of workouts. Projected starting quarterback and redshirt sophomore Anthony Richardson<\/strong> uncorks a pretty deep ball going junior wide receiver Xzavier Henderson<\/strong>'s way on a corner-post route for a "touchdown" — albeit it was on air.
Stay tuned to AllGators for continuous coverage of Florida Gators football, basketball and recruiting. Follow along on social media at @SI_AllGators<\/strong><\/a> on Twitter and Florida Gators on Sports Illustrated<\/strong><\/a> on Facebook.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: Anthony Richardson and Lorenzo Lingard; Credit: Alex ShepherdThe Florida Gators held their seventh spring practice of the Billy Napier era on Tuesday, preparing for what will be the team's first of three spring scrimmages under Napier on Thursday.Below, you can find AllGators' takeaways from the media viewing portion of practice. With injuries hampering the position, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}