TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – While the future of college football remains uncertain, the players are doing whatever they can do to remain ready for a 2020 season.
One of those players is Zachary Carter, a Hillsborough High School product who is a star on the defensive line at the University of Florida.
“It is just good to get out here and be able to work,” said Carter following one of his countless training sessions with Coril Joseph of Bay Area L.A.B.
“The name of the game is stay ready,” said Joseph, “so you do not have to get ready and he has been doing it.”
Joseph started to train athletes in 2013. He actually met Carter when Carter was a teenager in high school and the two of them have been working together since that meeting.
“He is a heck of a kid, man,” said Joseph, who played football at Freedom High School and, then, at Charleston Southern University in South Carolina. “Just seeing him grow from high school to now, physically, obviously, he has blown up. He is huge compared to high school Zach, I would pull up a picture on the phone real quick but I will not do him like that.”
“I feel like he has tremendously helped my game over the years, said Carter, “so I continue to work with him when I come back home.”
Carter is splitting his time between Tampa and Gainesville, between the training sessions with Joseph and the training sessions with his teammates.
“We have a very talented team this year,” Carter said. “We have very high expectations this year just because, the last couple of years, you know, I feel like we have been coming short but we have been steadily increasing over the years. We went from 4-7, to a 10 win season, then, last year, an 11 win season so I am feeling like this year is the year.”
Carter recorded 30 tackles and 4.5 sacks last season and, although he was extremely shy when sharing his personal goals, he says he is striving to hit double digit sacks in 2020.
“I do not see a reason why he can’t,” said Joseph. “The only reason why he would not be able to would be in his head and it would be completely mental. He works hard. He loves to see everyone around him be successful that is just Zach Carter, man.
“I am just trying to take it day by day,” explained Carter, “but I really just want to try to be the best player for my team that I can be.”
The redshirt junior wears two wristbands that read, “Humble Over Hype” and “Good Better Best,” and they are fitting for Carter.
“I like the ‘Humble Over Hype’ because I believe in being humble and things like that,” he said. “Then, the ‘Good Better Best,’ you can always give more.”
Those phrases are certainly phrases to play by whenever these athletes are allowed to play football.
“If they say we can play, I am all for it,” said Carter. “I want to play. I want to play.”
