Florida football: Gators star TE Kyle Pitts out vs. Arkansas, may miss Vanderbilt game

By Adam Silverstein
November 14, 2020
Florida football: Gators star TE Kyle Pitts out vs. Arkansas, may miss Vanderbilt game
Football

Image Credit: GatorsFB / Twitter

Junior tight end Kyle Pitts has been the best player for the No. 6 Florida Gators all season. But his team will not have him on the sidelines Saturday night when it hosts the Arkansas Razorbacks as Pitts will be sidelined with a concussion, Florida head coach Dan Mullen confirmed Saturday morning.

Pitts, who has 24 catches for 414 yards receiving and eight touchdowns on the season, was knocked out of last week’s game vs. Georgia when Lewis Cine drilled him with a helmet-to-helmet hit. Cine was penalized for targeting and ejected for the game.

After being checked out on the sideline, Pitts was sent to the locker room and did not return. Mullen called his status for Saturday’s game “questionable” all week, but on Saturday, he indicated that Pitts may be out for the foreseeable future.

In fact, not only is Pitts out vs. Arkansas, he is now expected to miss next week’s game at Vanderbilt as well.

Redshirt junior Kemore Gamble (76 yards, touchdown) and sophomore Keon Zipperer (53 yards) — both former four-star prospects — will take Pitts’ snaps. Though neither has seen extensive action yet this season, they’re averaging 16.1 yards per reception and would serve as admirable fill-ins.

Perhaps redshirt senior quarterback Kyle Trask will not have the same level of trust in those two as he does Pitts — see that jump ball touchdown he threw in the end zone last week — but both are big targets capable of helping the Gators move the chains.

“I’m extremely confident in those guys,” said offensive coordinator Brian Johnson. “They came in and played really well and made plays [against Georgia]. … There’s no doubt in my mind that those guys will be ready to play. Coach [Tim] Brewster is one of the best tight end coaches in all of America, and those guys practice really hard and they showed when they got out on the field they were able to make some plays.”

Florida has five regular-season games left, and now it appears as if the earliest Pitts may return would be the Nov. 28 showdown with Kentucky.

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