With only 23 days till the home opener the Gators have now put on the pads and are ready to get down to business. It should be a great fall practice as guys try to crack the starting line-up. On defense there is going to be competition at every position. Defensive Coordinator Charlie Strong summed it up like this at the Gators Media Day:

“What is great is that the players understand that if they don’t prepare well, they don’t practice well, then they aren’t going to play. We have recruited well over the last few years and have managed to get some really good football players. Our staff has done a really good job at developing these players as well. If you look at our team a year ago, we got ridiculed for our game against Michigan. Then, at the start of last year we had Terron Sanders show up, Lawrence Marsh show up and Ahmad Black show up. All of those guys were developed and they became really good football players and key members of our improved defense last season. What we can’t allow happen is to look back to last season and not fully coach up our players just because they have made plays in games in the past. It is our duty as coaches to make sure that each day our players are getting better.”

Debose Working On Ball Security

ESPN.com’s BSC Guru Brad Edwards believes the Gators have schedule advantage in 2009. The Gators have a good looking schedule on paper, but any time you have LSU, UGA, Tennessee, and FSU on your schedule you don’t have any easy road to the BCS game.

University of Florida coach Urban Meyer begins his fifth season in Gainesville with a team constructed entirely of players he recruited. You can tell in recent interviews that Coach Meyer is happy with the state of his team, and proud of the talented staff and players he has around him. If you missed it, here is the must read from Pat Dooley on the comfort level Urban Meyer now has in Gainesville.

As we reported last night Kadron Boone picked Texas Tech over Flordia. “I’ll tell you what,” Trinity head coach John Brantley III said, “I’d be excited if I was a receiver and you’ve got the potential to catch 70 to 100 balls a year. I think that’s what Kadron was looking at.” Yes that is Gators QB John Brantley’s Dad quoted there. Not even having a Gator for a coach in high school was able to swing him to the Gators. Andy Marks gets more in-depth with his interview with Kedron.

Still none of the Freshman players have lost their stripe yet, but Jelani Jenkins, Xavier Nixon,  Mike Gillislee, and Jon Bostic have impressed so far. Also Jordan Reed and Andre Debose are improving over each practice.  The first one to lose their black stripe will join Jeff Demps from last year and Major Wright from the 2007 class as the first to be welcomed to the team.

And just a little something to get you fired up…