It is always a pleasure to interview David Reese. He’s an unassuming, pleasant, guy with a microphone in his face, and he’s a tackling machine on the football field that has been doing it for a while. Reese is about to start his third full year of starting as an inside linebacker at Florida and he has a slew of younger linebackers that look up to him.

It‘s important to Reese that guys like sophomore Amari Burney and redshirt sophomores James Houston and Ventrell Miller all are attentive on the practice field and he’s eager to help them out. He was asked Thursday if there is a major focal point for him as the Gators prepare to take on Miami in the season opener on August 24.

“Just bring guys with me,” responded. “I feel like as long as I can bring guys with me, get them playing fast, I can help the team.”

Burney has made the move from STAR (nickel) to middle linebacker next to Reese and he isn’t afraid to say that he can and will lean on Reese when he has to.

“We learned a lot (from him),” Burney said. “He’s in the front of the film room coaching us up sometimes. Coach will stop talking and just ask David Reese to tell us what we got and things like that. He’s a big help.”

“He’s like the professor in the film room. Everything he tells us, we know he’s right. We don’t second guess him or anything like that. Whatever he tells you, that’s what we’re playing.”

Reese doesn’t deny it. One thing he has learned in his previous three years at Florida is that every man on defense has to do their job in order for the defense to work.

“Yea I try to, I try to… I try to just get them boys everything that I got from different players here and growing up the same as them,” Reese said. “So I kinda know the system a little bit better so I just wanna get them to think as fast as I do on the field.”

Reese, like an older sibling or parent helping with homework, isn’t about to just give the young guys answers to things. They absolutely have to know.

“I want them to learn for themselves. I just don’t want it to be easy cause they’re all competing also. So they don’t need cheat codes all the time. If they’re in with one person, they need to talk, get to know each other.”

“He puts us to the test,” Burney agreed. “Sometimes he won’t say anything and I’ll be like ‘David, what do I got?’ and he’ll be like, ‘You should have known’. You just got to know your position and be helpful to him, too.”

“Even when I go out there and he’s not on the field with me, he’ll pull me to the sideline and just talk to me and tell me what I did wrong.”

Reese seems to believe it’s all working.

“I feel like everybody’s got on it; we even bring young guys like Jesiah [Pierre], [Ty’Ron] Hopper along, they’re getting better,” he said.

Maybe to a fault, Reese doesn’t seem to worry about being the play maker. More important is to make sure everyone is lined up right and doing their jobs. There will still be high odds on him making the tackle. Then he’ll get up and do it again, knowing that he’s a big reason things are going well when they do.