Tag: Jaydon Hill

Florida CB Jaydon Hill out for the season with a torn ACL

Florida’s Jaydon Hill was in prime position to grab a starting spot this season, but it won’t be the case due to injury due to a torn ACL.

Florida cornerback Jaydon Hill was in prime position to start opposite of star teammate Kaiir Elam. However, he won’t be able to compete at all this season. Coach Dan Mullen said Thursday that he has suffered a torn ACL in his left knee that will keep him from playing in the 2021 campaign. Hill suffered a similar injury in his right knee during his senior year of high school.

“Jaydon Hill tore his ACL, he’ll be out for the year,” Mullen said. “Very unfortunate when you’ve got to deal with injuries. It’s really a tragedy the amount of work these guys put in, how hard they put in.”

Without Hill, the Gators will have to turn to a host of young players that don’t have a ton of experience like five-star freshman Jason Marshall, redshirt freshman Avery Helm and Ethan Pouncey and new transfer cornerback Jadarrius Perkins.

“There will be a bunch of guys. You’re still in training camp, so there’s going to be a lot of opportunities for guys coming in,” he said. “We have Perkins transferred in, going to have an opportunity. You have Avery Helm who I think is going to be extremely talented. Might just have to accelerate his career to get him on the field. Ethan Pouncey coming off the surgeries, really kind of getting back to the player we thought he could be. So there are going to be some of those young guys who get a little more opportunity than they were expecting at this point.”

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Mullen added that Hill was obviously very disappointed but noted he’s gone through it before.

“So I think he understands how to come through it, what he needs to do and how he can get through it and how he’ll improve,” he said. “And I think within knowing the program, knowing the defense, knowing his maturity is a guy that’s going to be pretty comfortable saying, ‘Hey, I put myself in a position to be a starter, and I had this little setback, but I worked hard. I had to work hard to be a starter.’ And if you’ve done that, know the path of hard work, how to get into that role, when you get knocked off course, you know how to get back there.”

Hopefully, Hill has a speedy recovery, so he can be ready to compete for a starting spot next season.

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Gators cornerback Jaydon Hill’s journey to become likely starter

Florida cornerback Jaydon Hill had the challenge of recovering from an ACL tear while adjusting to the speed of college football.

Florida cornerback Jaydon Hill faced one of the most difficult challenges any college football player will ever face. He was recovering from an ACL tear that happened in the first part of his high school senior season while trying to adjust to the college game. Heading into year three with the Gators, Hill will vie for a starting spot opposite of All-American candidate Kaiir Elam.

Entering year three with the Gators, Hill met with the media to preview fall camp. He discussed some of the struggles he faced as a freshman. He wasn’t allowed to participate in contact drills, but he was able to compete with the defense in almost anything else in 2019.

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“When I got here, honestly, I couldn’t even draw up a play besides Cover 3,” he said. “I knew one defense, Cover 3.”

Hill played high school football in Huntsville, Alabama, where his team relied on their players’ physical talent and ran a simplified scheme. This helped him gain recognition, but it put him behind trying to learn about college football.

“My game has progressed tremendously, my mindset off the field, in meeting rooms, I couldn’t even diagram an offense,” Hill said. “Now I can draw up offensive plays, defensive plays and match them.”

He feels like he is in the best shape mentally and physically of his career. Hill gave most of the credit to his former teammates.

“It’s been an honor to come in and have CJ (Henderson), Marco (Wilson), those older guys to just spell out the game to you,” he said. “I was basically a sponge when I got here. Being hurt, I really couldn’t do much, so I basically just soaked up a lot from them boys.”

His coaches have also noticed his progress. Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said Friday that he’s done a great job of trying to improve every day.

“He’s worked hard to understand leverage, to understand concepts,” he said, according to Swamp247. “He understands the importance of being physical and working the play… like I said make plays with the ball in the air. Really a guy that can take the coaching. You know the thing that happens is you are going to have plays that you can always improve upon. The thing about Jaydon is that he’s very coachable. He improves on the last thing that happened which allows him to be the player he wants to be and helps the defense.”

If he earns the starting spot across from Elam, Hill will likely have opposing offenses target him. But he said it’s another challenge he’s prepared for.

“I mean, I want that,” he said. “I like for that to be the case. I want teams to come at me. That’s what I’ve been working for.”

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Six Florida players feeling the pressure as fall camp gets started

Here are six Florida players The Athletic believes face the most pressure this season.

Coach Dan Mullen and the Florida football team kicked off their fall camp Friday to prepare for the 2021 season. The Gators’ first game is versus FAU on Sept. 4 in the Swamp. Heading into the new season, Florida enters as a heavy underdog. Only seven out of the 134 voters at SEC Media Days picked the Orange and Blue to repeat as the East Division winner and only one pegged the program to become SEC Champions.

As fall camp kicked off Friday, there are a handful of players trying to cling to their starting spot or prove they deserve to be the No. 1 running back or wide receiver. Here are six players The Athletic believes are feeling the most pressure heading into fall camp.