DANGEROUS: Florida Gators Defensive Line has POTENTIAL —Brendan Bett & Jayden Woods Lead the Way

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1:04Yeah, and it sounds pretty good, right? Discoverers accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nilsen report. The Florida Gators' Depets of Align makes them dangerous in 2026. You are Lockdown Gators. You're daily podcast on the Florida Gators. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team, every day. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Lockdown Gators. Part of the Lockdown Podcast, a network of your team, every day. Thanks for the Lockdown Gators. You're first listened of the day. Every day, we are available daily and free rivers of the podcast. And on YouTube, as always, I am your host, Brandon Olson. Have your cake and drink it too. Birthday cake flavor is back no fork needed. Vanilla E, cakey flavor, cacknid, cake and no sugar. It's party time order now at 5hourenergy.com or on Amazon.com.

2:05And the Florida Gators have a defensive line that makes them very dangerous if you ask me. You don't have to ask me. But if you do ask me, the defensive line makes them dangerous. And I will also say this that we are going to be talking about the position battles along this defensive line of swapsick with that subset.com. And we find all my written work about the Florida Gators, hoping to finally get the next piece of that defensive preview series done either today or tomorrow. It's been, it's been fun, it's hell to be honest, talking about just what you can do with this defensive front, but it is a lot, okay. But this Florida Gators defensive line, and when I say defensive line, just because I know that there's some people that go most defensive line means they guys with their hand in the dirt. Some people think it just means the front four, I am talking about the front four, okay. I am talking about the nose tackle, the defensive tackle, the F and the jack. That's what I mean when I say defensive line, is that I'm talking about those front four

3:06that are going to be the, you can consider them primary passports, right? That's what I was saying. On a passing down, more likely than not, they're rushing the passports. And for Florida, last year was an interesting go of things, but also the scheme just limited guys, right? And it's always limited guys, that that Ron Roberts scheme that interior pass rushing hasn't really worked as much as I think a lot of people wanted it to. You had guys like Javon Dexter, we're not super productive once you got into the Ron Roberts coaching tree of Patrick County in 2022. And rushers have come and gone because they don't like dropping into coverage on 25% of their passing defense snaps. And outside of Kayla Banks in 2024, there's never really been a guy where you watch him and you go, holy crap, he's dominating his past rush. 26, I think that's going to be different partially because of what the scheme does for them, right?

4:06And I talked about it a lot where this defense, the big difference from what you're going to get under Brad White with still Gerald Chapman, right? Still the same D line coach, but the difference that you're going to get under Brad White with coach gas is a linebacker's coach that was the DC at a two lane with some role and his more aggressive mentality is that you actually get to see the defensive lineman attack now with this new defensive system that Florida is going to have that's going to be different from what you saw under Roberts and Miranda and all that fun stuff, right? You'll see them line up in similar ways, but the way that they attack is going to be different, right? The way that Ron Roberts is defensive attack is we are going to use sim pressures and creepers and try to overload sides, right? And so you could have your defensive tackle, your nose tackle and your F rushing the passer,

5:08your nickel who's on the outside of the F rushing the passer and your jack who's on the opposite side of the nickel is dropping into coverage. And so really you're having four rushers, you're not blitzing, but you're trying to overload a side, you're trying to overload the right side of the offensive line with say in this case, right? And you've got still seven in coverage, so you're still trying to attack that way. Or you could say, hey, we've got our nickel and our jack both dropping into coverage and we've got a middle line back for blitzing and you're trying to overload the interior there. The issue there is that you run in the teams like Miami, a lot of their plan is we're just going to bunch everything up in front of us and no one's in through this front. And so now you're going to have guys where there's more opportunities for one on one rushes, but also there's more directions for these guys to go, right, where you can have say just to use last year as an example, right?

6:10You could have a actually will you someone that was here last year and playing last year and is going to be here again this year playing, you could talk about Brendan Bet, right? And so Brendan Bet last year spent a lot of time lining up kind of all over, but I'm talking about a specific instance where he lined up, we'll say as a three tech, right? Or we'll say it to, we'll say a two tech. So he's lined up right in front of him is the guard. It's helmet, helmet, guard, okay? And you could see Brendan Bet go left right, try to go through whatever it is, whereas with Ron Roberts, you would see him mostly just try to maintain blocks and just try to push the pocket again, right? That's one of the reasons that you needed that big nose tackle like McCoy Boy Row, like Cam Jackson, like Desmond Watson, so that they can push back, they're going to take on two blockers at least and they could just try to push the pocket.

7:10That's it. They just try to condense the pocket and they're just going to try to close in on the quarterback. And it's way more of a conservative approach there, whereas Brendan Bet again now with this new defense, you're going to see him be able to actually just shoot right into a gap and try to attack there. And keep in mind, this doesn't mean that guys can kind of just go Rover and do whatever they want. That's not really how it works in a sense of just going, hey, just go get the ball. That's not really how it works because the people around you need to know what you're doing, right? I mean, it's not like Coach Summerall, who was here yesterday, he mentioned playing quarterback. You're kind of like a point guard in basketball. And so I'm going to use a basketball reference of playing defensive line. It's not like you're you're freelancing like in basketball where it's like, hey, we don't have a play call. We're just going to, you know, guys just move it around, set a screen. If you feel like sitting a screen, cut, if you feel like cutting, just try to get open whatever it is, no defensive line is not like that defensive line is I need to go take

8:14a step to my right and attack because the guy to my right is also taking a step to his right and attacking. And so we're still slanting and we're still attacking and we're still doing different things, but we're doing them in use and right or I need to step to my right and attack so that he can loop behind me and we're going to attack that way running stun. The defensive line game plan is going to allow guys to attack way more and we've talked about this a lot. It's going to open up everything for the defense in terms of attacking. All right, I don't know if the defense is going to be amazing. I don't know if they're going to be terrible. I feel pretty good about the defense. I'll say that, but I do think that the defensive scheme allowing defensive lineman to attack is going to lead to more defensive line production than you had in 2025. So for the 2025, our ex-SAP had the most pressures on your team and it was 18. That's it.

9:15That's nothing for just comparisons purposes. Three guys in 2024 had more than 18 pressures, including Tyreex app. In 2023, three guys had more than 18 pressures, yet 45, 24 and 20. In 2022, you had four guys with more than 18 pressures. And that was Florida's leader. And by the way, this isn't like, oh, yeah, well, those guys were top heavy and that was it. No. 2021 under Todd Grantham, you had four guys with more than 18 pressures. 2025 was an awful year for the Florida Gators pass rush. And I don't think that most of it is talent. All right, Jaden Woods had 17 pressures last year. That's how many he should have had. He's a freshman. He should have had 17 pressures. He shouldn't have been second on the team. Jaden Robinson had 17. He shouldn't have had 17 pressures. And he shouldn't have been that high, but he blitzed enough to get there.

10:19And it's productive there. But it's also that, well, anyone else in the defense front wasn't really productive. George Gums, who dealt with injuries at 13 pressures. Taylor Banks was out. Brian Taylor Jr had a hell of a game against Texas. How is it? Cam James at 16 pressures, not good enough, but I'm going to use your second F. He was behind the guy that had 18. He's more productive on a per-rush attempt or or pressures per rush attempt, all right. Florida Gators defensive scheme didn't allow guys to create an attack. Personnel there. Personnel in 2026 is here. And personally, I think better, we're going to talk about that person out for the rest of the show and we get back with Lockdown Gators. College basketball is non-stop. Big games, tight spreads, momentum swings every single night.

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13:24Should be a lot of fun. Right now, you can use code March to get your first month free head to lockedongators.supercast.com to sign up or tap the link that's in the show notes. And the Florida Gators defensive line has a lot of upside, I think, in 2026. And I want to start by talking about the interior because I think the interior is where things really changed. All right, like I've mentioned, the Florida no longer really has the 340 pound no stacks. That's not a thing that you're really going to see with Brad White defense right now. It's not a thing that you saw a ton of that Kentucky with him or with Mark Stubes. And it was, I think, one of the reasons that Florida did not make sure they kept the Cuyboy row as much as I love the Cuyboy row and wanted Florida to keep him, they didn't, right? And I think part of it is that you've got these interior guys that can attack now, and

14:24I'm talking mostly about the three techs and the nose tackles right now, where you've got, I think, Joseph Obatry is going to be your starting nose tackle this fall. He's 323 pounds. Significantly lighter than Florida has seen a nose tackle in recent years, outside of obviously Desmond Watson, but like Cam Jackson, McIvoy row, that hasn't really been what you've seen at nose tackle. All right, Jemari Alliance is 311 pounds right now. That's that's significantly lighter than than we've seen there, right? But I think they're both going to be playing nose tackle a little bit. Kendall Garvel is a true freshman, I don't know how much you're going to see from him. He's out for the whole spring, but you're going to see nose tackle there. And the difference is that with this defense, you can have lighter nose tackles. And we spoke about this one when roster measurements came out, like this defense, you can have lighter nose tackles because they're less about just eating space, less about just being big, and less about just maintaining blocks and more about,

15:29or you know, occupying blockers, and more about attacking. You need to be able to attack. And guys like McIvoy row, I will say athletic enough to attack, right? We saw him looping around guys when they were running since last year. Here, you got guys that are a little lighter, a little shift here. A guy like Brennan Bed, if I think you'd have a big year, is 312 pounds. He's honestly, he's heavy enough to be your starting nose this year. He's not going to be, right? I'm going to make that clear right now. That's going to be my take. He's not going to be your starting nose. You're going to be your starting defensive tackle, your three tech, who's going to be more of the past rushing type that a lot of people talk about. And he's going to be able to attack there. Okay, you got to have these lighter guys now. They also do need to be able to hold blocks. That's the important part of my nose, which is one of the reasons I don't think Brennan Bed would be a good starting nose tackle. I say he's got the size to do it, but I think he's more of an attacking, coming downhill kind of guy, more of a penetrating defensive tackle.

16:30And nose, you still have to be able to maintain the two double teams consistently, or maintain the double team consistently, right? You got to be able to have that lower base and attack there. And so I don't think that's Brennan Bed's strength, but I do think that he's going to be a starting defensive tackle, and that he's going to take reps at notes. Especially if you're facing a team like like a like an Oklahoma, all right, an Oklahoma, they're probably going to spread some things out a bit more. You're facing a team like Auburn that's going to go really wide, right? If there's times where let's say you get the lead, and it's late against anybody, and you feel pretty comfortable that, hey, they're throwing the football here, right? A Mississippi state. You could say, hey, you know, we're going to put Brennan Bed at the nose tackle here, because we know they've got to throw the football. And so we're not really worried about them running double teams right at him and just attack us there. And if they do that, that keeps the clock moving.

17:32We're going to have linebackers around in other defensive linemen to make plays. So we're fine living with that in obvious passing situations. I don't think Brennan Bed's replaying much nose tackle outside of that, but I do think in situations where you go, hey, they don't double noses, we feel like they're going to throw the football. You could do that and just say, we're going to probably have some patterns right here. All right, especially when you have the linebackers in Florida hats, right? Miles Graham, Jaden Robinson's, especially, I think they've tremendous linebackers. I know that a lot of people like to talk about Aaron Childs and think that me saying Jaden Robinson and Miles Graham is an insult or disregarding Aaron Childs, it isn't. I just think that Miles Graham, I think Jaden Robinson, they're both honestly, I thought Jaden Robinson was going to declare for the NFL Drafts for the last year. That is good enough to do that easily. All right, so I think that you're going to see that and it's like, all right, well, they're talented. They can both stop the run. We could be more aggressive up front and let them

18:34come down and fit the run and attack in that way. And so I think you're going to see that from Florida with guys like Brennan Bed, guys like Jeremiah McLeod. I think he's really able to penetrate from the inside. And that's just talking about coming downhill. That's not talking about stunts, right? Where stunts are going to be, we'll say Brennan Bed and Joss Humbachu, who I think are going to be your starters in the interior, where stunts are going to be Brennan Bed's lined up over a guard. Joss Humbachu is at the center. Brennan Bed comes down and engages with the guard with one shoulder, hits the center with the other. And he's still, by the way, still trying to attack. He's just running into the center intentionally. And then Joss Humbachu is going to loop right around him and have a free rushing lane to the quarterback. You're going to see a lot of stunts, I think, from Florida. I've been talked about this yesterday with John Sermoll while talking about it with John Sermoll yesterday. He mentioned that, yeah, you're going to see, you know, they weren't as blue

19:34tappy or two lane. They got less blue tappy, but they were still really creative up front with what they did there. Kentucky was really creative with what they did up front. And that's what stunts are to attack and find ways to just penetrate and destroy defenses or destroy offensive lines. And you're going to see a lot of that, I think, at Florida. I talked about, you know, I think it's just going to be kind of mashing them together. I even said that. I think I've kind of always pictured it as you're just mashing what you guys do together, which is really similar, but you did things in different ways. And one thing that they both did, both two lane and Kentucky, they ran a lot of stunts. And so I have every expectation that with Florida in 2026, with the athletes that are still big, right? But still athletes, they have that you're going to see a lot of that in the Florida Gators in 2026 when we talk about generating a past rush plan and how you're going to attack opposing offenses and their offensive lines. And just again, like the point of playing defense, cause hell for quarterbacks. That's really all you're trying to do as a defensive line.

20:38We're going to talk more about the defensive front. We'll talk about the edges when we get back with locked on Gators. Workplace chaos, deadline stacking up in box over for lowing. And the one position you have to fill is still sitting open. When the pressure is on, you need the right higher. This is a job for sponsor jobs. Indeed, sponsor jobs helps you reach the people who actually fit what you're looking for, skills, experience, location. So you're not just hoping that the right candidate stumbles across your post, spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates reject all of your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for indeed sponsor jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit that I'll get your job. The premium status it deserves at nd.com slash podcast is going to indie.com slash podcast right now and support locked on Gators by saying you heard about indeed right here. Indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions apply for you to hire. This is a job for indeed sponsor jobs and welcome to the five hour energy flavor draft with 18

21:39different flavors to choose from, including new options like confetti craze, fruity rainbow, or cotton candy. There's something for every one. The board is set. The flavors are ready and I've got my number one pick for the five hour energy flavor draft. And I'm going to let you know this now. I don't know if you ever done like a mock draft simulator, but like you can set how random things are and how crazy things are. We're not going great today. No, we're not going great. We're getting a little weird with it from sour apple. We're going I risk high reward, right? It's the apple that bites back. It's got that little tart to it. It's a bit bold, right? It's in sweet hell of a lot of sour. We're going with sour apple. That's our first overall pick. We'll find out. Find your new favorite flavor. Five hour energy shots available online at five hour energy.com or on Amazon. Nice gift for a locked on Gators. You're first listen of the day. Every day we are available daily

22:40and for you as a podcast and on YouTube and to wrap up today's show. We're talking about the edges here. And like I mentioned, you know, last segment when I talked about the interior, we were talking about the three tech, the no cycle and the defensive tackle. Now we've got, I mean, as I just said, no tech, three tech, super high, no tackle. And then the defensive tackle or the three tech. That's the same thing. But now we're talking about the edges, which is your F, your field side defense event, and the Jack, your boundary side defense event. The Jack is your past rush your supreme, right? That's supposed to be because that's generally away from the run as well here. Still needs to defend the run, right? And when they do run at you, you got to be able to defend make that clear. You've got to be able to do it. But your primary focus that people are going to expect from you is rushing the passer. That's Jayden Woods. That's KJ Ford. And that's POFIA. Sorry. Right now. Right. That's where George Gums played. That's where Prince E. Mama Yellen played. That's where Brayton Cox Jr. played. That's your premium pastor. All the

23:45guys that I named are guys where you go, that's supposed to be our best pastor. That's what it is, right? It's that boundary side defensive end here, which defensive boundary side bench. And the F is the field side edge. We're going to call it, but it's going to be defensive end mostly. They're in the end of the dirt. That's going to be your manual of adajos, your Cameron James, your L.J. McCrae's. Your, I get Jarendra McCoy. We'll see. I know he was in a boot the other day, practice, but that's going to be that, right? Those are going to be the guys where you got to be able to set the edge, but you also be able to rush the pastor and get after him. And when you have the type of talent that you have there now, first off, I need to just just talk about how annoying usage was at, at Jack, because you had guys like, like, Jaden Woods, right? He had 17 pressures last year. He was your second best pastor, but he just for the record did not have

24:49he second most pastor attempts. They had Jaden Woods dropping into coverage 25% of the time. They had George Gums dropping into coverage 32% of the time. They had Tophius Ari dropping into coverage 24% of the time. I would be very shocked if we saw numbers similar to that, and I've been very open. I think that was part of the reason that that Jaden Woods considered the world was just dropping into coverage to that extent. You're still going to do it. I don't think it's going to be as egregious. And when Florida drops an edge into coverage, you're still going to be the guy that does it. It's not going to be your F often. You're not going to see the 280 pound guy dropping into coverage that much. Or if you're talking about a manual of the days, you have

25:53the 300 pound guy dropping into coverage that much. That's not going to be common, but 244 pound edge that had a pick last year. We're going to talk about him. Jaden Woods, right? And so you're going to see guys still dropping into coverage, but I think you're going to see them rush the pastor a lot more. And I think they're going to be way more involved in the past rush plan. I think the one area where last year staff really did not put the edges in positions to succeed was that as this me, like my personal thoughts with the Jack was that the Jack didn't feel like they were very involved in stunts last year. And I think that's a big flaw from the coaching staff last year was that you could have had more plays where we'll say the three tech in this in this case pushes out. And you've got your Jack looping around, right? Because that's the side of the three tech is probably going to be on is the same side as the Jack. Because you've got your field

26:58side edge is supposed to be able to set the wrong better. They're kind of like what you think of as like a three, four defense around poolside. So you're going to sit in the edge there. Then you're going to have a nose tackle on the inside there. And in the under front, you're going to have the three tech on the opposite side. And so I think when you're looking at that, like there's no reason that you shouldn't see more of the three tech slanting out and the Jack looping in. I don't know why that isn't a thing that you saw last year much from Florida staff of most, let's say in this case, Brandon bed, why he's not pushing to the offensive tackle. And you've got Jaden Woods looping around and getting a short front. There's a straight line at the quarterback. I don't know why you didn't see it much last year. I'm hoping that you see it more this year with guys like Jaden Woods. And also just better edge coaching to begin with. I think right now with Jaden Woods, KJ Ford, Kofi, sorry. And I always say KJ Ford and said like ahead of Kofi, sorry, it's just because he's

28:03got an earlier number. Jaden Woods, I say first because he's just started. KJ Ford, Kofi, sorry. I say KJ Ford. First off, I do think he is the better option as a pure pass structure. I was not in love with it. We saw from Kofi, sorry, last year. And so if I'm going to have someone that's essentially sacrificing some run defense, which I'm not saying either would, but last year, Kofi, sorry, it was not great defending the run at all. And I don't know what KJ Ford's going to be. But I rather put the younger I have, I'm going to sacrifice run defense there anyway. And so, but the reason that I say them in that order is Jaden Woods also has the earliest number but it's your starter. KJ Ford, Kofi, sorry. KJ Ford's number comes for us. It's 14 verse 22 there. Whoever wins that battle wins that battle and it's good with me. But I think that there you've got better passershift. And at F, it's just really interesting because Cam James is someone that we talked about a lot as, you know, should have been playing more to begin with. Why he wasn't couldn't tell you. Just couldn't. No idea why. But he wasn't.

29:05And I know it was, I know Tariq Sap played Tariq Sap had a really good 2024. He didn't have a really good 2023. He didn't have a really good 2025 in one good year, one really good year, but one good year. Cam James should have played more last year. Yeah, Emmanuel Abidazio from the transfer portal going to be there. He's going to be, I think, competing with Cam James for F1 or F2. I think, I think Cam will get the start. I think Emmanuel Abidazio will be F2 and then LJ McCray and and during the McCoy competing for F3. There's people that I respect a lot that are really looking forward to LJ McCray. For me, it's as simple as I wasn't impressed with what he did when he was healthy in 2024. He played four snaps in 2025 before getting injured. I need to see him do it against people. I don't need to see it in drills. I don't need to see it in one-on-ones. I don't need to see it in any other instance than in a game. Spring game, I will count the spring game as

30:07me seeing you do it against people, but I got to see it simple there. I get best best abilities, availability, all that, all that fun stuff. But at the edges, I think you've got talent for sure. I think especially at the top, depth might be a concern, right? Jack, we have no idea what you're getting from Pofi and KJ for this year. We know. F, I feel like out of the group, you got to have at least two that are going to be good, right? Cam James, I expect to be good because he was good last year. He was good to year prior, too. So I expect Cam James to be good. And annually, a bidet show at the J McCray. During the McCoy, I feel like someone from that group has to be good. Jaylen Wiggins, can be thrown in that group as well. But Spring has some guys banged up, some guys dealing with things that whoever is available is going to get more reps and more development. And we'll hopefully rise to the top of that competition. But Florida Gators defensive line,

31:13make some dangerous. I think that the defensive lines can be pretty damn good this year. I really do, and I think that they're going to be helped by a defensive scheme that lets them be. Pretty damn good this year. Thanks for a lot, Don Gators. You're a person of the day. Every day, we are available daily and free. I was a podcast and on YouTube. As always, for Lockdown Gators, I am Brandon Olson. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at WNS underscore. Brandon, find all of my written work with New York Giants on SI and all my Florida Gators written work with SwampSignal.subs.com. And I'll see you all next time. What's up everybody? This is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of The Lockdown Podcasts Network, and if you haven't heard yet, we started a club and we would love for you to join. It's called the Everydayer Club, and one of the things that you get as a member is an ad-free version of the podcast that you're listening to right now. It works with whatever podcast app you already use, same episodes every day, just no ad. There's also a member's only group chat

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