Gators OL O'Cyrus Torrence 'Making Great Progress' in Injury Recovery
Photo: O’Cyrus Torrence; Credit: Alex Shepherd
An All-American junior season was put on at least a one-game hold when guard O'Cyrus Torrence did not take the field in the Florida Gators' 45-35 loss to the LSU Tigers this past Saturday.
Torrence was sidelined with a lower-body injury after being labeled as questionable entering the game. Sophomore Richie Leonard IV filled in for Torrence at right guard and held his own in the eyes of head coach Billy Napier.
“I thought for the most part we blocked them pretty well,” Napier said after the loss to LSU in assessment of Florida’s offensive line without Torrence. “I don’t know what the numbers look like, but occasionally we had some leakage here or there.
“But Richie Leonard playing, for the most part did a good job in the game. They have some good players on the edges. On third down in particular we had some issues with their dime package, but overall that group played well. I think we’ll be pleased with that when we go back and look at the tape.”
Torrence has Florida’s bye week to continue nursing his injury, before the Gators head to Jacksonville for Oct. 29’s matchup with the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs.
Napier shared during the SEC coaches teleconference on Wednesday that Torrence, in a calculated capacity, took part in the team’s practice on Tuesday.
“O’Cyrus was available for practice yesterday, at a certain percentage," Napier said. "He’s making great progress."
At the time he debuted on the injury report last Wednesday, Napier revealed that Torrence had not “participated 100 percent in practice” in the days leading up to the Gators’ matchup with the Tigers.
Torrence’s recovery will continue to be monitored throughout the idle week and the days leading up to Florida’s rivalry matchup in Duval County.
The Gators practice schedule during the bye has been adjusted to provide the players some time off, but there are not great changes otherwise. Friday’s practice will be oriented around where Florida can improve, position by position.
Napier acknowledged a “fine line” between maintaining the typical practice schedule and intensity and turning things down a notch during a week off. He took a similar approach to bye weeks during his head coaching tenure at Louisiana.
“Football is a game where you need to remain in rhythm. I really do believe there’s some rhythm to this game and you can’t take wholesale time off,” Napier explained. “We worked hard yesterday and we’re going to work hard today. We’re going to give the players off Thursday, and then Friday a.m. we’ll have a really fundamental, individual position group plan for [an] improvement-formatted practice.
“Players will be off Saturday, and then we’ll run and lift them on Sunday and kind of turn the page going forward. It’s been good, we’ve used similar formats in the past. I think each year’s a little bit different but certainly pleased with some of the things we did today, and we’ll be back after it today.”
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