GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway was on the practice field with his teammates on Thursday afternoon when the Gators opened spring camp.

The 6-foot-3, 241-pound Lagway is difficult to miss. Still, anyone watching Lagway practice closely on Thursday noticed he was active in drills other than a very important one to his position: throwing passes.

As Florida’s other quarterbacks took snaps, dropped back and made throws, Lagway mirrored their motions nearby without the throwing motion. UF head coach Billy Napier informed the media earlier Monday that the Gators planned to limit Lagway during spring camp.

“Our intentions here are to be very smart,” Napier said. “I do think he’ll be limited [in] throwing activities, but he’ll participate in all practices otherwise. And we’ve done a lot of homework here relative to the things that he went through as a player. He was an absolute warrior and a great competitor that showed toughness.

“We’ve consulted with quite a few experts here from a UF Health and from a national perspective, as we do with a lot of our players in terms of second opinions. So, I think, in general, he’ll be able to do quite a bit, but there will be some limitations.”

Napier said Lagway is limited “from a throwing component with the shoulder and also the lower body.”

In his first season with the Gators, Lagway’s most notable injury was a strained left hamstring suffered against Georgia. He left the game on a cart and missed Florida’s game at Texas.

The Gators were 6-0 in games Lagway started and did not get injured, and he is a significant reason Florida is optimistic heading into Napier’s fourth season leading the program. Lagway threw for 1,915 yards, 12 touchdowns and nine interceptions as a freshman and took over as the full-time starter when Graham Mertz suffered a season-ending knee injury at Tennessee.

With Lagway limited, the Gators will rely on Louisville transfer Harrison Bailey to get much of the first-team reps this spring. Bailey, wearing Mertz’s former No. 15, participated in his first Gators practice on Thursday.

A sixth-year graduate transfer, Bailey started his career at Tennessee, transferred to UNLV, and spent two seasons at Louisville before transferring to UF. Bailey was named Sun Bowl MVP in December in Louisville’s 35-34 win over Washington.

Napier said Florida is taking a cautious approach, with Lagway coming off a season in which he endured physical ailments that took their toll throughout the season.

“We do that with every player on the team in terms of, ‘OK, hey, lingering issues.’ Go back and attack those and then adjust their workflow,” Napier said. “Again, this is not unnormal.”