Florida Gators DE McCalister, DB Maye, WR Pittman suspended for 2015 opener

By Adam Silverstein
August 21, 2015

The Florida Gators announced Friday that redshirt junior defensive end Alex McCalister, redshirt junior defensive back Marcus Maye and senior wide receiver Latroy Pittman Jr. will “miss” the team’s season opener against New Mexico State on Saturday, Sept. 5.

All three players will be serving a suspension for violation of athletic department policy, per the school.


Florida’s top returning pass rusher, McCalister finished 2014 second on the Gators with six sacks and nine tackles for loss. Maye was Florida’s third-leading tackler and a fixture in the secondary throughout the season. Though Pittman has played throughout his three-year career on special teams, he only began seeing legitimate time on offense for the Gators in 2014, hauling in 15 passes for 164 yards.

McCalister enters 2015 as a sure-fire starter for Florida, while Maye will likely start but will at least be heavily involved in the defensive back rotation. Pittman is expected to serve as a reserve on offense and starter on special teams once again.

Head coach Jim McElwain spoke about the suspensions following practice on Friday. Though he would certainly prefer that these players be available for the first game, he also said that he was pleased with the Gators’ buy-in as a whole to his brand of discipline and believes these will not be issues for the team long-term.

“I’m really proud of this team. I’m proud of the leadership, the way they’ve taken accountability for their own actions,” he began. “Even the guys that are missing that opener, you know, it’s a choice and some of strikes might have been against them obviously before we had gotten here. At the end of the day, we all have those freedoms and those choices and you know for us there will be some guys that will get some valuable playing time obviously losing some guys like that. They’ll be back with us, and they’ll serve their suspension and be ready and roll. Never been one of those and never will be to worry about who’s not there. Gives some guys an opportunity to step up and make some plays and help us down the road.”

5 Comments

  1. Ryan D. says:

    Rules are rules and just hope they fix whatever they did. Entire game is pretty serious though.

  2. 1974Gator says:

    I always enjoy these inevitable, pre-season ticky-tacky suspensions. It really gets the athlete’s mind right having to miss a cupcake game. Wonder what those puppies did to deserve such onerous discipline. Probably wet the carpet in the athletic dept. offices foyer.

  3. Ken (CA) says:

    guess we still aren’t getting the “best f the best” in character. I really hope this around under the new coach.

    Adam – I thought that those of us that subscribed would be not pummeled by ads, but when I keep checking in, I am getting continuous pop up ad for this or that that have to close before can check out site, very annoying…

    • The pop-up ad gets hidden when you log in with your contribution account. Next time it pops up, click the sign in/log in button on the bottom and enter the information you signed up with. Then you won’t see it again.

      The other advertising will be dealt with. I am in the process of making a significant upgrade to the site, and it will all be adjusted at the same time.

  4. charleypell says:

    It matters little. But it does hurt MCalister’s sack goal since this is a game to compile stats. By the way, Pittman started nine games last year. Another starter at receiver, Dunbar, is now trying to make a team in the NFL as a defensive back. Just how bad are UF’s wide receivers?

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