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Florida Gators (2000: 10-3)

The following team preview is provided by Blue Ribbon. For the nation's most comprehensive look at this and all Division I-A teams, be sure to order the 2001 Blue Ribbon College Football Yearbook, on sale now at 1-800-775-2518.

Coach and program

The Southeastern Conference title, which Florida has won six times since 1991, is certainly one of those prizes that everyone in Swamp land eyeballs at the beginning of each fall.

But as the Gators prepare for the 2001 season, the stakes may be as high as they've been since Steve Spurrier returned to his alma mater as head coach in 1990.

The returning talent, wealth of depth, dizzying expectations and key games at home make Florida as good a pick as any to win the national championship.

By Florida standards, it's been a while.

The Gators last won college football's top prize in 1996, which happens to be their only national title. Before last season, 1996 was also the last time Florida won an SEC championship.

"Nobody much talks about SEC championships anymore,'' says Spurrier, who's finished first in the SEC eight of his 11 years in Gainesville.

The 2000 season drew mixed reviews. Despite one of his younger teams, Spurrier was able to steer the Gators back to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game, where they smothered Auburn, 28-6.

SEC championship or no SEC championship, Spurrier wasn't sitting pat.

When spring practice opened in March, he showed a side that few had seen during spring drills. The Gators hit, hit and hit some more.

Coaches and players alike called it the most physical and most intense spring practice of the Spurrier era, a stark contrast to the days when Spurrier was hesitant to allow his players to beat up on each other.

"Some of our scrimmages felt like a Florida-Florida State game,'' defensive end Alex Brown said after the Gators' spring game.

Offense

The only thing unsettled offensively coming out of the spring has a familiar ring to it in Gator Land: Who will start at quarterback?

Spurrier said it's a dead heat between sophomores Rex Grossman (6-1, 218) and Brock Berlin (6-1, 209).

But Berlin threw all of 27 passes last season as a true freshman, while Grossman started the final eight games after stepping in for Jesse Palmer. Grossman earned first-team All-SEC honors while tossing 21 touchdown passes, the second most by a freshman in league history.

Remember the shotgun snap over his head last season and Grossman scrambling back to get the ball and firing a touchdown pass to sophomore receiver Jabar Gaffney? That memorable sequence was Grossman at his best. For the season, he completed 61.8 percent of his passes for 1,866 yards and was intercepted just seven times.

And yet, it's not his job.

"Obviously, I would have liked to have separated myself, but I'm not really worried about the situation too much,'' Grossman told the Orlando Sentinel. "I'm not going to comment on it a whole lot.''

One thing's for sure about the Gators' quarterback controversy. Whoever's pulling the trigger is going to have a dynamic set of playmakers to throw to at receiver.

And experienced, too.

Gaffney (6-1, 202) and Reche Caldwell (6-0, 198) accounted for 1,944 yards between them last season, making them the second most prolific receiving duo in the nation.

Senior Robert Gillespie (5-9, 190) and junior Earnest Graham (5-9, 220) shared the tailback position last season, and both return. They combined for 1,354 of the 1,453 yards the Gators amassed at tailback last season.

Defense/Special Teams

Junior cornerback Lito Sheppard (5-10, 194) may be the best all-around player in the league. He's part of a defense that returns nine starters and 18 of its top 22 players from a year ago. But Sheppard will miss at least one game after failing a random drug test in May.

The Gators, who led the nation with 40 forced turnovers, had 25 different players start a game last season on defense -- and 20 of those players are back.

It's a good thing that the Gators forced so many turnovers last season because they had their moments when they couldn't stop anybody on the ground.

The Gators gave up 133.1 rushing yards per game last season, which ranked them 39th nationally in rushing defense -- the worst in the Spurrier era. Suffice to say this will be a pivotal year for defensive coordinator Jon Hoke, who's entering his third season at Florida. The only place Hoke doesn't have just about everyone returning is at tackle.

Florida is counting heavily on junior college transfer Bryan Savelio (6-2, 288), a junior who is expected to shore up the middle. Savelio, the likely starter at left tackle, went through spring practice with the Gators and was chosen their most improved defensive lineman. He was a junior college All-American at Mesa (Ariz.) Community College.

The Gators, with senior Jeff Chandler returning, should be as good as anybody in the league at place kicker. Chandler will also kick off. The one glaring weakness for Florida can be found at punter. The odds-on favorite to win the job is freshman Matt Leach (6-0, 180) of Sarasota, Fla. It was a real source of concern for Spurrier coming out of the spring, and it's never ideal to throw a true freshman back there.

Bottom line

The Gators can set an SEC record by winning nine or more games this season. That would be 12 straight nine-win seasons.

Also, Florida State and Florida are the only two schools in the country to play in a January bowl game in each of the last eight seasons.

"Every year, we have high goals around here,'' Sheppard said. "This year's no different. If anything, they're higher, and that's the way we like it.''