Florida Football: 5 reasons the Malik Zaire era may never begin

3. Pressure of NFL dreams wearing on Zaire?

Very few college football players want to see their playing days end when they lose their college eligibility.

More from Florida Gators

• Biggest winners and losers from College Football Week 3
• Florida Football: 3 takeaways from important win over Tennessee
• Florida football: Win over Tennessee ends with a fight (Video)
• Graham Mertz era with Florida football starts with a resounding thud
• 3 Takeaways Utah football’s home win against Florida

From all accounts, Zaire is eyeing the chance to play in the NFL once he’s done at Florida, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Zaire started to earn some NFL buzz early into this junior season, but he hasn’t shown that he’s recovered from that ankle injury as he only played in eight games last season and his stats plummeted. A big reason for Zaire choosing Florida is he was either given a guarantee that he could easily win the starting job or he wasn’t concerned about competing against Florida’s group of relatively inexperience quarterbacks.

The tricky thing is Zaire has to come into a new system, get acclimated to new teammates and play within a team system. All while trying to fight for his NFL dream and get enough game tape out there of him making plays that scouts will like to see.

It will be interesting to see how Zaire balances the pressure of adjusting to a new system and trying to keep his NFL dreams alive.