Florida Football: Top 5 spring 2019 position battles to watch

Now that Florida football is engaged in spring practices, the coaching staff will begin the process of deciding who starts after each position battle.

“Does spring football even matter?”

Like clockwork, some killjoy bitterly asks this question as soon as cleats hit the turf during spring practices. Though many fanbases emphasize the results of spring too much, we can at least all agree that having football back – yes, even spring practices – is worthy of celebration.

For the Florida Gators, spring 2019 brings attention, excitement and pressure unseen in Gainesville for what seems like an eternity. Dan Mullen and his staff have last season’s success to thank for the increased scrutiny, though they’ve repeated several times that the pressure accompanying the high expectations for 2019 is more welcome than the low expectations heading into 2018.

Maintaining the positive momentum built with the success of last season will most certainly stand as priority number one. However, these Gators cannot be satisfied with their laurels from 2018, and so motivating this team to accomplish even more in 2019 will be Mullen’s most important task.

Of course, the success of spring will ultimately be judged by the progress made on the field and by the players on the roster. Not only will the development of starters from last season be important to observe, but with the loss of several key contributors, spring promises a degree of clarity as to who will fill in the gaps on Aug. 24 against Miami in the Camping World Kickoff.

Here are the top five position battles to watch this spring.