Ivy League-bound Dr. Phillips OT ‘Big Dave’ Gardner excels on and off the field | Football Insider

David Gardner is always quick to tell you about his focus in life. Sure, he plays football and that is a big part of the Dr. Phillips offensive tackle’s goals. But Gardner, whose friends call him “Big Dave,” has a lot more going on with him than blocking defensive linemen.

Yes, football will provide his path to success in life, and he’s well aware of that.

“My mom raised me in a Christian household and she always told us to lean our back against God and he’ll help us through the toughest times.” said Gardner, who recently moved into the Sentinel’s 2025 Central Florida Super60 at No. 53 .

He’s serious about his role with Dr. Phillips, the No. 6 team in the Sentinel’s Super 16 Coaches Poll . But he also knows football at some point will come to an end so he is preparing for life after it.

He’s well on his way. Academics plays a huge part in his life and he carries a weighted GPA of 4.2. Gardner has been accepted at Ivy League Brown University, where he will play football next year. He wants to be an anesthesiologist.

On the football field, the 6-foot-6, 300-pound Gardner is making huge strides, leading the way on the offensive line for a Dr. Phillips team that’s 4-0.

Three years ago, Gardner knew absolutely nothing about being an offensive lineman. He showed up on the Dr. Phillips practice field as a freshman mostly oblivious to the game.

“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what position to play. I didn’t know my role,” Gardner said. “But now I know my role, now I know what I have to do to win, now I know I have to be the leader of the whole O-line and now I know I have to command the team and I have to help win a championship.”

He seems to put a lot on his shoulders, but he’s handling it well in his senior year. Gardner has been a blocking machine. He’s already totaled 25 pancake blocks, including 9 in one game.

The Dr. Phillips offense has been putting up impressive numbers. Friday night in a 26-21 upset of then-No. 2 Lake Mary, the Panthers rushed for 133 yards and passed for 232. That balance will go a long way toward DP’s goal of getting back the state title game. Gardner and the offensive line has had plenty to do with that.

He credits first-year DP offensive line coach James Carpenter , who said Gardner reminded him a lot of himself when he was a high school player in Georgia. Carpenter knows a thing or two. He played at Alabama and has a national championship ring from 2010. He also won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks in ’14.

Carpenter was hired away from The Masters Academy to coach the Dr. Phillips offensive line and things have obviously been working well.

“Since the spring he has improved tremendously,” Carpenter said. “Obviously he had all the tools. He’s strong. He’s fast enough. The technique is the thing we had to work on the most and he’s locking it down and it shows on film.”

Gardner has been super excited about his improvement and the direction the DP program is headed. He and his other O-Line mates — Kiti Maile , RJ Stamm , Reginald Pierre Paul , Chris Price and CJ Singleton — are reaping the benefits of what Carpenter is teaching.

“Coach Carp was a big influence on the whole O-Line,” Gardner said. “He introduced to us the things he learned in college regarding different front and steps, like A and B blocking. It was a whole new concept .. and it helped us win games.”

Gardner likes to accentuate the academic process for the players at DP. In the last five years, Dr. Phillips has had five players commit to an Ivy League school: Bryan Bell-Anderson (Columbia, 2019), Ledger Hatch and Myles Wiley (Harvard, ’21), Kameryn Metcalf (Columbia, ’22) and now Gardner.

“We’re an academic school. We pride ourselves on faith, family, football and academics,” Gardner said.

Mount Dora Christian rolls to 6-0 start

The administration at Mount Dora Christian Academy pulled off a big-time coup last year when it talked former football coach Kolby Tackett into returning to the school he departed in 2021 to take the same post at Middle Tennessee Christian School.

In Tackett’s second season back at MDCA, the Bulldogs are 6-0 and rolling through their schedule. They are averaging 38 points per game and beating teams by a margin of 33.5 points.

Seminole transfer Frank Hicks , a senior receiver, has been the big star. He has caught 25 passes for 457 yards and 5 touchdowns, and junior SJ Mora has 15 catches and 4 touchdowns.

Senior quarterbacks Nathan Roach and Jayden Burgos have combined to pass for 1,072 yards and 12 touchdowns. Roach and two running backs — freshman Isaac Farling and sophomore TJ McCormick — have all three rushed for more than 200 yards and have scored 8 touchdowns.

The defense is led by Leesburg transfer Tyler McClinton-Hutto , a senior linebacker, who has 36 tackles and 16 tackles for loss. The team’s leading tackler is senior Michael Napoli , who has 47 stops.

The Bulldogs are well on their way to setting up a big Sunshine State Athletic Association showdown with fellow unbeaten Masters Academy, which is 5-0 and was idle this past week. That matchup is set for Oct. 18, at Masters, in Oviedo.

Chris Hays can be found on X @OS_ChrisHays .