{"id":281543,"date":"2025-08-12T06:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/281543\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T06:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:52:11","slug":"florida-gators-edge-lj-mccray-sidelined-with-an-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/281543\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Gators EDGE LJ McCray sidelined with an injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

GAINESVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Florida Gators<\/a> have been without sophomore EDGE LJ McCray<\/a> in camp since last week. McCray is currently sidelined with a lower-body injury, Gators Online has learned. <\/p>\n

McCray\u2019s status is week-to-week, according to multiple sources, but his injury is not major or season-ending and won\u2019t require surgery. He was hurt during a pile up in practice, sources said.<\/p>\n

McCray missed the scrimmage Saturday and was still out on Monday, but the belief is he potentially could be back practicing in a couple weeks. <\/p>\n

McCray played in all 13 games as a freshman, finishing with 13 total tackles (3 solo), 1.0 tackles-for-loss and 0.5 sacks. He was tied for second on the team with five quarterback hurries.<\/p>\n

\u201cLJ got some experience last year. So it\u2019s time for him to take a big jump. And we need him to,\u201d Florida coach Billy Napier<\/a> said of McCray at the start of training camp. \u201cAnd he has position flex at Jack and F. I think he can play both spots. LJ, I think, did a great job of taking the feedback from the weight room and nutrition from the spring semester, really bought in in that regard and changed his body comp. He\u2019s starting to look like a guy who\u2019s ready to play in this league and be a factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCray moved this spring from the F position to JACK outside linebacker. After playing last season behind Tyreak Sapp<\/a> and Kamran James<\/a>, McCray made the switch to help the Gators fill the void at OLB after they lost their top two players at that spot, Jack Pyburn<\/a> and TJ Searcy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senior George Gumbs Jr<\/a>. will start at JACK, but McCray is expected to have a much bigger role this year and play more snaps in the EDGE rotation. Freshman Jayden Woods<\/a> has also been getting reps with the starters at outside linebacker. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a tremendous skill set. Very talented,\u201d Florida defensive coordinator Ron Roberts<\/a> said of McCray. \u201cYou can see the growth, potential what he did. He changed his body and all that stuff, (from) what I see on the field. Sometimes to this point, you can jump ahead, and not trying to put pressure on a player. You want to see them do it in the season. But I would suspect and I\u2019m hoping he has a break-out season and he\u2019s an impact player that we all think he can be. I think he can do that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gators Online\u2019s Keith Niebuhr contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GAINESVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Florida Gators have been without sophomore EDGE LJ McCray in camp since last week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,26136],"class_list":{"0":"post-281543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-lj-mccray-24-mainland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115014477127771609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}