Gators 'Pretty Healthy' as 2026 Season-Opener Approaches

Entering the 2025 season, the Florida Gators were already without multiple contributors, while starting quarterback DJ Lagway was limited. A year later with a new staff, Florida is as healthy as its has ever been entering a season.

Director of Football Performance Rusty Whitt's "weak things break" mentality has helped the Florida Gators remain healthy through the offseason. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- This time last year, you would think the Florida Gators had already played half of its season with the way the fall camp injury report looked.

Then-starting quarterback DJ Lagway was battling multiple injuries that limited him in the offseason, while receivers Dallas Wilson and Aidan Mizell were each out with lower-body injuries. Star defensive lineman Caleb Banks and LJ McCray were also out after suffering lower-body injuries in camp. Both would play sparingly that season. There was also returning starting linebacker Grayson Howard, who had not fully recovered from a season-ending injury from the previous season.

Entering 2026, the Gators are in a much better spot.

Dallas Wilson was one of the multiple contributors for Florida who entered 2025 with an injury. He is healthy heading into 2026. | Kyle Lander / Florida Gators on SI

First-year head coach Jon Sumrall normally opens his press conferences with a detailed injury report — a departure from his predecessor, Billy Napier, who kept injuries as quiet as possible.

On Monday, due to there being a lack of new ailments, Sumrall did not need to address it until the final question.

"We're pretty healthy," Sumrall said. "The injury report is, I think, pretty positive in regards (to) we got pretty much everybody ready to go.”

Sumrall listed three players, none of whom are starters or are new injuries. Tight end Evan Chieca remains questionable, while freshman defensive lineman Kendall Guervil returned to practice after a knee injury. Walk-on running back Kelvin Jimenez is out for the season.

Florida's lack of injuries entering the season should not be a talking point or an eye-opening narrative. Yet, it is, especially when the Gators were constantly near the top of the SEC in number of players listed on its weekly availability report.

While some of those could be attributed to freak injuries that just happen in a contact sport, first-year strength and conditioning coach Rusty Whitt has a differing opinion.

“Weak things break, and if you have a weak hamstring and you get fatigued, you're going to have a hamstring injury," Whitt said last February. "If your neck doesn't have enough muscularity around, you're going to get a sprain in your neck or something worse."

Under Whitt and Sumrall, Florida has found a balance with having a strenuous offseason workout program and fall camp — during which Florida has had tremendous body changes and lift/speed improvements — while remaining healthy. Part of this came with remodeling the weight room to have newer and safer equipment, while also having workouts that target mental strength as much as physical strength.

Whitt explained at the beginning of fall camp that the new strength staff focused on movements and form with the players rather than one-rep maximums, which did not begin until the eighth week of the offseason. From there, Florida's numbers increased dramatically.

According to Whitt, these were the strength improvement averages: 276 to 298 pounds (plus-22) on the power clean, 376 to 430 pounds (plus-46) on the back squat, 290 to 311 (plus-21) pounds on the bench press and 435 to 469 pounds (plus-34) on the deadlift. Overall, the Gators had 14,000 pounds worth of gains in the weight room.

"How that's going to help us is durability, longevity and acceleration when you have an overall improvement in your team's squat, deadlift and clean. And you're going to see better accelerators and decelerators," Whitt said. "We're not going to prevent injuries, but we can mitigate injuries."

Sumrall has also emphasized how Florida's training camp schedule has been helpful, while Whitt made it clear that the Gators will continue to lift in-season, focusing on maintaining strength as a bare minimum.

"The work’s the work," Sumrall said. "Like, you're gonna go practice and you're gonna wear full gear certain days, and you gotta bang. But then you gotta know how to kind of go up and down a little from maybe how you're pushing them."

Florida's players, especially the returning players, see that.

"He's not just trying to kill us," junior linebacker Myles Graham said of Sumrall. "He's actually a player's coach that wants us to feel fresh and feel fast on the field. So, it's a tribute to all of that. And we're definitely a team that's ready to go and we're fresh and we're healthy, so I'm excited."

Florida will not have to release a physical copy of an injury report until Wednesday, Sept. 16, leading up to its SEC-opener at Auburn the following Saturday. Nonethless, Sumrall will be transparent with injuries with the hope that he won't have to be if there are not any.

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