GAINESVILLE — Florida defensive lineman LJ McCray never had so much time to reflect and take stock of football as he did last fall.
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Growing up in Daytona Beach, McCray evolved into the nation’s top defensive line prospect by practicing hard, reacting decisively and ultimately dominating the competition.
Then, just four snaps into the 2025 season, everything changed.
McCray’s year ended during Week 2 of a stunning loss to USF last September. The defeat accelerated coach Billy Napier’s demise and further delayed the development of McCray, who had yet to fulfill his vast potential.
Out with a broken right foot, McCray second-guessed himself and his place in the SEC ecosystem.
Given his rare combination of size and athletic ability, football had come easily to the 6-foot-6 McCray before he arrived in Gainesville. But a 12-tackle 2024 was followed by a lost sophomore season.
“My freshman year you realize, like, ‘Oh, this is a different league of football.’ It really means more,” McCray said Tuesday after the Gators’ first day in full pads at preseason camp. “My injury kind of put a different level of that to myself. Like, maybe if I would have been working a little bit harder, maybe that wouldn’t have happened — things of that nature.
“You have a lot of different questions when you’re hurt, you got a lot of downtime to reflect and think about things.”
Missing a season for the first time in his career made one thing clear: “I had to grow up and mature and realize how bad I really wanted it.”
Once healthy, McCray attacked the offseason and became one of the standouts of Rusty Whitt’s new strength program.
Since January, Whitt said, McCray has added 21 pounds of lean muscle, while going from 268 to 277 pounds. He has increased his top-end speed from 18.5 mph to 20.31 mph.
“That is incredible for a guy his size,” said Whitt, who began training college football players and Olympic athletes in the 1990s.
Even more impressive, McCray executed a 365–pound power clean, showcasing his work ethic and the elite athleticism that made him such a coveted recruit.
“It’s not just the catch, you’re having to move the bar as a long guy from shin to up top,” Sumrall said. “To create that bar speed, he’s created some explosion and twitch in his body that he didn’t have.”
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Those numbers, though, will mean little if McCray can’t turn them into production.
The added strength will help him set the edge in Brad White’s new defensive scheme. The added speed needs to show up when he chases quarterbacks and pursues ball carriers.
But McCray has gained more than just mass and acceleration.
“He’s got confidence, too,” Sumrall said. “He walks around with a little different edge about him right now. He plays like he’s believing what he can become.”
“The lights have come on for sure, and excited to see him continue.”
Teammates have taken notice.
A weight-room marvel himself, sophomore edge rusher Jayden Woods said McCray possesses “some crazy power.”
McCray’s efforts earned him the No. 33 spot on Bruce Feldman’s annual Freaks List, with Woods sitting No. 5 after he power-cleaned 405 pounds.
But Woods, a third-team selection on the preseason All-SEC team, looks to build on a solid season as a true freshman. McCray, meanwhile, is still trying to prove himself.
The pressure is nothing new.
Now 20, McCray has anchored a championship defense before.
In 2023, he helped Daytona Beach Mainland to its first state title since 2003 while recording 82 tackles, including 30 for loss — 13 of them sacks — along with three forced fumbles and two blocked kicks.
Every top program recruited him, but McCray’s heart was set on Florida.
“This is my dream school,” he said Tuesday.
Choosing the Gators was more than a football decision.
“I talked about it with my family, sat down, and really thought, ‘Where do I want to be?’” he recalled. “‘If things don’t go as perfect the way I wanted to go, would I be happy there?’”
After his injury, McCray’s days were long and filled with frustration. Eventually, he had a much-needed epiphany.
“No one wants that to ever happen,” he said. “But I think it might have been needed for my development. To even be mature, to get to this point and understand how much football really means to me.”
The perspective is something McCray can pass along to Florida’s first-year defenders KJ Ford and JeReylan McCoy.
McCray knows what awaits them.
“It’s not going to be easy,” he said. “If you think it’s going to be anything similar to high school, it’s not. So just go ahead, erase that from your brain and try to recalibrate and adjust to this level of football.”
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McCray has already done that once. Now he gets to see what comes next.
Edgar Thompson can be reached at [email protected]