BOB SELF/The Times-Union
Jordan Reed, Trey Burton, Jeff Demps and Chris Rainey joke around as they wait for a news conference at Florida's media day.
FLORIDA ATLANTIC AT FLORIDA
When: 7 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Florida Field, Gainesville.
TV: ESPNU.
Radio: WFXJ (930 AM).
By 
GAINESVILLE — Chris Rainey loves hanging around the Florida locker room, telling jokes, busting on his teammates, howling at Dominique Easley's terrible dance moves.
If Rainey isn't in class, on the practice field, or in the weight room, there's no place else the redshirt senior running back would rather be.
"This is a great group of guys to be playing with this year," Rainey said recently. "It reminds me of the '08 season and '09. I'm just happy to be here, play football. Just can't wait until the season starts."
Rainey didn't feel that way last season.
He hated being in the locker room. There was no camaraderie, no fun. Rainey didn't even like practice. All he wanted to do after the two-hour workouts was shower and get the heck out of there.
"The team is not together. Everybody's fighting, or everybody's playing for themselves, not the team," Rainey said. "Like you don't want to practice with these people because it's just awful."
Players now openly admit how bad the team chemistry was last season, and it's one of the first things they addressed with new coach Will Muschamp in January. Muschamp not only listened, he made it his top priority in the offseason because he knows teams can't win championships with bad chemistry.
Muschamp put two members of his staff on the case. Mickey Marotti, the director of strength and conditioning, and Terry Jackson, the director of player and community relations, made several changes that — at least heading into the season — seem to have worked pretty well.
Marotti's job was to make the players more uncomfortable during offseason workouts so they would have to rely on each other. It's something he does every year anyway, but Muschamp asked Marotti to step it up this year.
Marotti matched different groups of players during workouts and team-building exercises. He took players out of their comfort zones and made them rely on each other.
"It's something that really had to happen," linebacker Lerentee McCray said. "Everybody knew that coming into the summer, so our motto is, 'We've got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.' Coach Mick put us in some uncomfortable situations in which we had to come together. We couldn't complain or go [against] each other. We all had to come together for that one goal."
Muschamp made two small changes.
He added a player's lounge, with a pool table and a television, near the locker room and another upstairs near Jackson's office. He switched the lockers around so they were no longer segregated by offense and defense. Walk-ons and scholarship players are mixed, too.
It was uncomfortable for the players at first, Jackson said, but they quickly adapted, and he's seen a definite change in the way they behave toward each other.
"It makes you grow up," said Jackson, a running back at UF from 1995-98. "You put people in situations they're not used to, not getting everything you want the way you want it, it makes you grow up. That's what college is about, experiencing different things, different emotions, different cultures.
"They're your teammates. You don't have to love them, but you've got to get to know them. That's the whole purpose."
It used to be easier to do that, Muschamp said, because the players were housed in athletic dorms and interacted with each other regardless of position or class. But the NCAA voted in 1991 to eliminate athletic dorms as part of a reform package to cut spending in athletics and also to integrate the athletes and the student body. As a result, the only time when more than a small group of players is together is in the locker room.
And if they aren't getting along there, it can be disastrous.
The 2010 Gators stumbled to an 8-5 record, the program's worst since UF went 7-5 in Ron Zook's final season (2004).
The team chemistry wasn't bad because the Gators were having trouble on the field, Rainey said. They were having trouble on the field because of the chemistry.
"I've never been on a team with bad chemistry like that - ever," Rainey said. "If you're on a team like that you will never win a championship.
"I guess we didn't have any leadership last year. Not enough [leadership], probably."
The players have raved about the better chemistry throughout camp. Muschamp said he has noticed, but he isn't ready to declare everything a success just yet. He won't do that until October, when the Gators are in the middle of a brutal stretch of games against Alabama, LSU, Auburn and Georgia.
"We've made strides," Muschamp said. "But I don't think you test that truly until you work into the season."
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/sports/college/florida-gators/2011-08-27/story/gators-take-course-chemistry-101#ixzz1WKUoEiI6
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