Trey Dean back from injury and starting vs. Missouri

On3 imageby:Nick de la Torre•10/05/22•

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — After missing the Eastern Washington game with a “lower body” injury, senior Trey Dean is back atop the depth chart at safety for the Florida Gators.

Dean, despite missing a game, has played in 270 of the Gators’ 372 (72.6%) snaps this season. He is also second on the team with 36 tackles in four games.

Dean has played more snaps than any player on the Gators this season. Florida has played 286 snaps and Dean has been on the field for 270 (94.4%) of those, according to Pro Football Focus. PFF has Dean graded as the 24th best player on the UF defense (64.2). He is a veteran player, who Napier credits as being a vocal leader on the field for the defense.

Kamari Wilson started in Dean’s place last week against Eastern Washington. The freshman from Fort Pierce tallied five tackles, over 65 snaps. He graded out a 58.2 per PFF. Wilson had a good game and the freshman has seen his role increase each week this season. With Dean back in the fold, he’ll likely see that streak snapped this week.

Short week for the Gators

Florida, for the first time in program history, will play twice in the same week. It only allows five days between games. Billy Napier is calling on his time at Louisiana to help get the team ready.

“One of the valuable things about the experience at Louisiana we played about every turnaround possible. Last year we have two five-day turnarounds, we had six, we had eight, we had 17 one time. So we’ve had a number of different scenarios because of midweek games, so we have a lot of templates we’ve used the last couple of years,” Napier said.

“We’re going to lean on that a little bit and tomorrow will be a combination of Sunday and Monday relative to the players and staff. We have a plan for Tuesday, then we’ll settle down later in the week. We were able to take advantage of Thursday last week as a staff. We gave the players off per NCAA rules and we focused as a staff on Missouri that day. So I think from a time standpoint we’re right where we need to be.”

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