Florida Football: Lorenzo Lingard could give Gators elite run game

After landing Lorenzo Lingard earlier this month, it seems as if Florida football found the answer to its run game woes — potentially in 2020.

Florida didn’t have many disappointments in 2019, especially after Feleipe Franks went down and expectations were shot. But the run game had to be the biggest letdown for the Gators.

With the returning pieces the Gators had in 2019, it was shocking to see how poor the run game turned out. They averaged just under 130 yards per game on the ground which was good for just 107th in the nation.

Coming into the year, the Gators had Lamical Perine, Dameon Pierce, Malik Davis and Iverson Clement to bolster a seemingly-loaded backfield, but only one of those guys (Perine) broke 500 rushing yards on the season. The other three played sparingly as Pierce was the only to break 100 out of the remaining trio.

That’s why fans rejoiced when Miami-transfer Lorenzo Lingard picked Gainesville as his new home earlier this month. He decided to transfer from the Hurricanes to be closer to his father and Florida made the most sense geographically to his hometown.

Although he’s not officially eligible for 2020, pending a waiver which I believe he will get, whenever he does hit the field for the Gators, he will provide an elite rushing attack.

Davis and Pierce will be juniors next season while Clement will be a sophomore and there’s a good chance the transfer portal could weed out whoever is the odd man out in the rotations.

Lingard is a former five-star recruit who was being courted by just about every big-name school out of high school and picked the Hurricanes. He has a strong 6-foot-0, 202-pound frame and can run through guys but he also has plenty of elusiveness. He was injured in 2019, but when he did get a chance in 2018, he was effective. He rushed 17 times for 136 yards and two touchdowns, averaging 8.0 yards per touch. He’s exactly who Florida needs in the backfield.

Again, we won’t know exactly when Lingard will be eligible, but it could be 2020 and if that’s the case, I expect him to take over in the backfield along with Pierce and form an impressive one-two punch.