With another injury, Florida will only have enough scholarship offensive lineman to fill out one unit.
The Gators are down to six healthy scholarship linemen after Roderick Johnson suffered what coach Jim McElwain termed a "stinger-ish type of deal" during practice on Friday and is out indefinitely.
McElwain said Johnson lost feeling in the fingers of one of his hands. Johnson played in all 12 of Florida's games last season and started three.
"You know, he got banged up and kind of felt you know his fingers kind of went numb," McElwain said via InsidetheGators.com. "I still don't know quite what exactly that is other than you know those are things that you're always very cautious with and we'll get that thing looked at by a lot of different people.
"They went in and found out there were some things that he might have had well before from that area. And, if they had shown me the X-ray, I wouldn't have been able to tell what the heck it was anyway. We'll do, obviously, what's in his best interest. In moving forward, we'll make sure we do what's best there."
Offensive lineman Trip Thurman is also out because of a shoulder injury. If the injuries were happening during the regular season, you couldn't blame Florida fans for having flashbacks to 2013. Two years ago, the Gators had an incredible injury plague. Eight players were lost for the season before the end of September and the injuries didn't stop in October and November.
Johnson is likely out of the Gators' spring game on Saturday, and McElwain also said his absence likely affects what the school will be doing in it. Florida had already decided not to go with a team format for the game because of numbers at certain positions and the decision is now supported even more with four walk-on players on the offensive line's second team.
Instead, McElwain said the spring game will be positioned as offense vs. defense with a special scoring system that will focus on specific in-game scenarios. He also said Will Grier was ahead of Treon Harris in the Gators' quarterback competition simply because he's had more time in practice. Harris missed time during spring practice after his 16-year-old cousin was shot and killed.
For more Florida news, visit InsideTheGators.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
From Dr. Saturday - NCAAF - Yahoo Sports - Florida has 6 healthy scholarship offensive linemen
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