Notebook: Day 7 of Florida Gators Fall Camp 2022

What AllGators saw on the practice field during day seven of the Florida Gators' 2022 fall camp, with a focus on the offensive line.

Photo: Richard Gouraige; Credit: Zach Goodall

After taking Wednesday off, the Florida Gators returned to the practice fields on Thursday for day seven of head coach Billy Napier's first fall camp in Gainesville.

You can find AllGators' observations from the media viewing portion of practice below, as well as our notebooks for each day of camp so far this year. Since day three, we have covered positions individually to maximize the viewing window, with Thursday's focus shifting toward the Gators' offensive line.

• Day one - offense
• Day two - defense
• Day three - wide receivers
• Day four - linebackers
• Day five - running backs
• Day six - defensive line 

Focusing on the offensive line

The offensive line worked on run blocking throughout the open period of practice, with some individual/duo workouts as well as a couple of install series featuring the projected first and second team lines in their entirety. 

Those lines were comprised of the following players, from left tackle through right tackle.

Projected first-team: Richard Gouraige, Ethan White, Kingsley Eguakun, O'Cyrus Torrence, Michael Tarquin

Projected second-team: Jordan Herman, Richie Leonard IV, Jake Slaughter, Josh Braun, Austin Barber

In some cases, a sixth "jumbo" offensive lineman cracked the first-team rotation. In one instance, Barber aligned as a left-side jumbo blocker, and in another, Braun was seen on the right side of the first-team, although our angle wasn't clear enough to determine if he or Tarquin were the jumbo blocker.

Six offensive line sets may not be a common part of Florida's offense moving forward, but Napier utilized such personnel at times during his tenure at Louisiana. Expect the occasional six-man packages in power rushing schemes, especially near the goal-line or perhaps the line to gain.

Gouraige worked with the unit in a standard jersey on Thursday, marking his first practice without a no-contact jersey of the fall. 

There could be some rust in need of shaking off as a result, and it's worth noting that we did not see him in any team drills, but we thought Gouraige looked fine in the media viewing window all things considered. He demonstrated solid pop against the bag in the five-man install and his conditioning appears to be in fine shape, likely thanks to the side-field work he did over the first six days of camp. 

Didn’t see a ton of rust in need of shaking off for Richard Gouraige at practice today. Here he is paired with Dante Zanders. pic.twitter.com/h6hshoKkq5

— Zach Goodall (@zach_goodall) August 11, 2022

There weren't any surprises across the first-team, but the second-team appears to have been tweaked since the spring. Herman, an offseason JUCO transfer, manned left tackle with the second-team opposite of Barber, who had played on the left side in the spring game.

Leonard has played center throughout the majority of his career at Florida but was seen aligning at left guard on Thursday, while Slaughter cracked the second-team rotation as the snapper.

Participation report

Below are the players that were seen wearing no-contact jerseys throughout the media viewing portion of practice. An asterisk indicates that the player worked off to the side or watched practice instead of being on the field. This list does not include the quarterbacks as they are required to wear no-contact jerseys at all times.

• WR Ricky Pearsall*
• LB Amari Burney*
• CB Jason Marshall*

As previously reported, Pearsall is considered "day-to-day" due to a foot injury suffered in Tuesday practice. Burney and Marshall's statuses are unknown at this time.

As noted above, Gouraige participated with a standard jersey on for the first time this fall. So, too, did tight end Jonathan Odom, who has been active in drills despite wearing a no-contact jersey throughout the fall. Offensive tackle David Conner and defensive tackle Desmond Watson were also in standard jerseys after wearing no-contact jerseys on Tuesday.

Thursday marked the third day in a row AllGators did not see quarterback Jalen Kitna at the practice facility.

Clip(s) of the day

Our clips of the day from Thursday may not be the most exciting, but they paint a solid picture of what Florida's projected first and second-team offensive lines look like with just over three weeks until the 2022 season-opener.

Projected second-team OL pic.twitter.com/nWjofq3raT

— Zach Goodall (@zach_goodall) August 11, 2022

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