Gators begin Regimen phase of offseason workouts Tuesday

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — After a month-long break, the Florida football team reported back to campus this week the Summer A semester. The players start offseason workouts Tuesday and begin classes Wednesday.

“Today we checked them in, they started summer school,” UF coach Billy Napier said Monday in prior to his speech in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. “We’ll start training tomorrow.”

Tuesday marks the start of “The Regimen”, the fifth phase of Napier’s year-round calendar. It will be the team’s second phase of workouts under the leadership of Florida’s new director of football strength & conditioning Tyler Miles.

His predecessor and mentor, Craig Fitzgerald, left for Boston College after UF completed its first phase, Foundation, on Feb. 9. Miles took over and led the team through the Identity phase, getting promoted to head strength coach later that month.

After completing spring camp on April 13, the next phase for the players was a month-long discretionary period, which includes exit meetings, final exams for the spring semester and time off before classes and workouts resume this summer.

The team started Phase 5, Regimen, on Tuesday. It’s a nine-week training block to get the players ready for fall camp (Phase 6).

“Regimen is essentially a four-week, 28-day workload, one week off,” Napier said. “We have some time between that and training camp. We have a weekly routine Monday to Friday. What that entails is we get eight hours a week with the players. Strength and conditioning, skill development, simulated training. Film review. It’s by the minute. There’s also lots of opportunities here for ownership at the player level and for leadership at the player level as we go into this.”

The NCAA also changed the rules in 2022, allowing college football coaches to gather with players in the summer and actually coach them for two hours a week in June and July. Napier is looking forward to that next month.

“That rule changed just a few years ago was healthy. We’re actually able to get on the field with them. We’re still limited to eight hours a week of training, but there’s an opportunity to be on the grass with the players from a football standpoint. And you obviously can meet with them as well,” he said.

“So, summer you really find out what type of team you are because there’s a lot of voluntary work. Your leadership is important. Having a veteran team becomes important and I think we’ll benefit from the veteran leadership that we have on this team.”

The Gators are adding five freshmen to the roster from their 2024 class — linebacker Aaron Chiles, tight end Amir Jackson and offensive linemen Marcus Mascoll, Enoch Wangoy and Jason Zandamela — although some of them will be enrolling later this month.

“Some of our freshmen won’t be here a week or two because of graduation and those types of things. But they’ll be here pretty soon,” Napier said. “Within two weeks we’ll get those five players here and we’ll have everybody here.”

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