Beefed up walk-on program giving Gators better looks in practice

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — It started off as a typical Monday morning for Florida Gators freshman Jake Xeller, but this would not be a typical week for the walk-on linebacker.

At the weekly scout team meeting, one of the UF coaches pulled aside Xeller — who made the team via tryouts in January — and let him know he had somewhere else to be.

“He told me, ‘Hey, you need to go to the punt meeting today. You’re going to be long snapping.’ And I’m like, ‘Wow, OK.’  I was a little more busy that week,” Xeller said.

The 6-foot-2.25, 243-pound Xeller is listed as a linebacker and has lined up at multiple spots on defense and special teams, including long snapper. He played the position in high school and took some reps there on Florida’s scout team.

Once starter Rocco Underwood suffered an injury at Tennessee and was out for the Kentucky game, the Gators needed another long snapper to backup Gannon Burt. Xeller had his number called and was put on the travel roster.

He spent part of that week practicing with — not against — the scholarship players. He stayed in the team hotel Friday night with Joey Slackman and rode the bus to the stadium for Gator Walk. And against Kentucky, Xeller was on the two deep.

“It was such an awesome experience. I was very humbled by it,” Xeller said. “My goals this year were just keep your head down, kind of know your place a little bit and continue to grind. I honestly didn’t expect this my first year.

“I think because I’ve been doing it pretty well on scout team, they felt comfortable enough to give me reps with the second strings. It was something that I really enjoyed because it was another way that I could contribute to the team. That’s just my mindset.”

Building out the walk-on program

Xeller is one of several success stories on Florida’s scout team, which has been a catalyst for the improvement that UF made this month — stemming from its first bye week in late September.

Following a 24-13 win over UCF, third-year coach Billy Napier credited those players — aka “job takers” — for the looks they provided in practice throughout the week to help prepare for the Knights.

“I think our scout teams did a great job, offense, defense, special teams,” Napier said. “We got a lot of players that contribute during the week, and I thought they did a really good job.”

It helps to have more players and better talent on the scout team, something that’s been a point of emphasis for Napier and his staff. When he took over, the Gators had 30 walk-ons on the roster.

Napier wanted to increase that number to 50. Florida is now up to 47 walk-ons this year with 132 players overall, which has been facilitated by UF making more preferred walk-on spots available.

“A wise coach once told me that the bottom half of your roster has a significant contribution to whether your team can improve throughout the season,” Napier said in 2022.

That wise coach was Nick Saban, whose Alabama teams had rosters with 50-plus walk-ons — many of whom turned down scholarships to play for the Tide. The Gators have several players who did the same.

One of them is redshirt junior offensive lineman Mark Pitts, a Gainesville native who grew up a Florida fan. He passed on offers from Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, Kentucky and UCF to play for the Gators.

Pitts has been UF’s best scout team offensive lineman, earning a scholarship for some semesters and making three appearances in the past two years, including the last game against Kentucky.

The increased OL depth on the scout team has helped his performance as well as the looks that Florida’s starting defense sees in practice.

“A big thing with Coach Napier since he’s come in is having more rotation,” Pitts said. “There were times where we had only like five or six offensive linemen on the scout team, which at that point you’re basically getting no rest and all the reps. Over that time, you get more tired, and the reps typically aren’t gonna be as good or consistent throughout the whole practice.

“When we put in more walk-ons, it gives you a little more rest so you can actually have a lot better and more consistent reps. It’s a lot easier to go full speed and make an impact with being able to have a little break sometimes. At the start of the year, we had 10 offensive linemen on the scout team, so it was a full rotation. It’s definitely helped a lot doing that.”

Job takers for the Florida Gators

Florida’s scout team has not only grown by more than half of its previous size, but it features more preferred walk-on spots that have been filled with players who had scholarship offers to go elsewhere, such as freshman receiver David Schmidt.

He was a local recruit from Newberry High School, where he made 56 catches for 1,099 yards and 11 touchdowns. A lifelong Gator like Pitts, Schmidt signed with Florida over offers from Brown and Stetson along with a PWO opportunity with Miami.

“If you get a chance to play at your dream school and right next to home, it’s really hard to pass that up. I ended up choosing to come play here, one of the best decision things I’ve ever made,” Schmidt said. “At other colleges, scout team is kind of looked down upon. People just put it to the side. But here at Florida, the job takers is one of the most important parts of the team.

“From Sunday to Friday, the only time the starters will ever see anything like the team that plays Saturday is through us. So, we have to put everything we have on the line for the team. You gotta fully embrace the job taker role and it’s a huge moment of serving the other guys on the team. And the coaches really pour into us and want to develop us as players as well.”

In addition to beefing up the walk-on program, Napier has also made an effort to give those players more credit for their contributions. The Gators recognize eight scout team players each week.

Schmidt was one named of the Job Takers of the Week against Kentucky. Napier has also tabbed walk-on players such as Pitts to carry the American flag when the team runs out of the tunnel on game days.

“There’s dozens of them,” Napier said when asked about standouts on the scout team. “We got Mark Faircloth, Chase Stevens, Jason Zandamela, Enoch Wangoy, Gavin Hill’s doing a nice job over there. Anthony Rubio, DeBraun Hampton, Brian Green Jr., there’s a ton of players on that scout offense.

“Defensively, Quincy Ivory, he’s over there working on our field. He was on fire. We’re just trying to recreate some of the rushes that we’re going to get. Sebastian Scott does a good job. Tarvorise Brown is phenomenal. Justin Pelic, Ethan Wilson, Javion Toombs. We got a bunch of them. Brayden Slade.”

Better looks from the scout team

As you can see from the list of names Napier rattled off, the job takers also consist of some scholarship players who are either young and/or further down the depth chart at their respective positions.

Having players of that caliber working on the scout team — such as sophomore cornerback Cormani McClain — gives the starting offense or defense an even better and more competitive look in practice.

One player who has served that purpose is redshirt freshman defensive lineman Tarvorise Brown. He was a late addition to the 2024 roster as a JUCO transfer, joining the team after training camp already started.

Brown, listed at 6-foot-7.5 and 290 pounds, redshirted at Hutchinson Community College last season and reclassified to join the Gators this fall as a preferred walk-on. He hasn’t been playing like one in practice.

“The O-line always give me praise,” Brown said. “Sometimes after the games, they were like, ‘Bro, you’re way better than that defensive lineman. You go harder than him at practice.’ So, the stuff they tell me makes me want to keep working. When they tell me that, all I can do is just keep getting better.”

Like walk-ons, the coaches on scout team are often overlooked and underappreciated. But not to the four players that Gators Online spoke with for this story — Brown, Pitts, Schmidt and Xeller.

All of them expressed their appreciation for the amount of time that staffers spend studying the opposing teams and their tendencies, then preparing to the players to replicate that in practice.

Xeller had high praise for quality control coaches such as Justin Posthuma and Cannon Gibbs, and he said some of them work 16-hour days and will be sending out video clips after 10 p.m.

“Justin Posthuma is the in-house defensive coordinator, so he’s in charge of recreating the game for the offensive players throughout the week. I will tell you he does a phenomenal job,” Napier said.

“How do we recreate the game for the players? I think that’s one of the things we do extremely well. Our scout team environment resembles the game in a lot of ways.”