With college football players beginning to report for camp across the country, the beginning of the season will be here before we know it. Florida enters the season with some questions and production to replace, but it also has a very talented roster (albeit with varying degrees of experience).
With the recruiting lagging behind some of the elite schools in the country, Florida has been heavily reliant on the transfer portal under coach Dan Mullen. This offseason was no different, and the player of note this time around is former Clemson running back Demarkcus Bowman.
The former five-star recruit out of Lakeland was a much-desired prospect for the Gators when he was coming out of high school, but they landed him, after all. He enters a talented group of running backs, but it’s a unit that didn’t find much success in 2020.
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Part of that can be chalked up to how successful the record-setting passing offense was, but certainly not all of it. The offensive line struggled to create holes for Florida’s backs, and the run game ranged from unreliable to unusable throughout the season.
With a new quarterback in Emory Jones that likes to run with the ball, the ground game should be a much bigger emphasis in 2021 than it has been in perhaps any prior season under Mullen.
In CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd’s rundown of 21 storylines to watch in college football, the transfers were one of them, and Bowman merited a shoutout.
“Florida hopes Clemson running back transfer Demarkcus Bowman will help remake its offense under Emory Jones,” Dodd wrote.
Bowman is far from guaranteed to get the most carries, though. He’ll have to compete with seniors Dameon Pierce and Malik Davis, as well as redshirt sophomore Nay’Quan Wright, who had a very impressive 2020 season, all things considered. There’s also another former five-star transfer in the running back room, former Miami Hurricane Lorenzo Lingard. Though hopes are high for Lingard, he only played sporadically last season.
Dodd also predicts a similar bowl location for the Gators this season. He has the team going to its fourth-straight New Year’s Six Bowl, taking on Notre Dame in the Peach Bowl. Florida also went to the Peach Bowl back in 2018, Mullen’s first season, defeating Michigan, 41-15.
Notre Dame is coming off an appearance in the College Football Playoff after competing in the ACC in 2020. It’s back to life as an independent for the Fighting Irish, and they’ll have to make that adjustment without quarterback Ian Book, one of several players they have to replace.
Though many Florida fans would like to see the team take a step up in Mullen’s fourth season, this is also a team that could look very different to the one we’ve seen the last couple of years. Navigating those difficulties and returning to the NY6 would certainly be hard to complain about.
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