Andries a new name on the Florida Gators recruiting board

The Florida Gators recruiting board for the class of 2017 continues to grow as the coaching staff offers multiple prospects on some days.

Last week the Gators went way up north to offer offensive lineman Blaise Andries (6-6, 290, Marshall, MN Marshall) after he spoke to offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier.

“I’ve been talking to Florida for the last couple of weeks and they’ve been filling me in on Florida the whole way,” Andries said. “Thursday was the first time that I actually spoke to Coach Nussmeier and that’s when he offered me the scholarship to Florida.”

Nussmeier and several other assistant coaches have been evaluating Andries of late and that was something they told the offensive lineman.

“He said that he watched my film and he liked what he saw so they were offering,” he said. “He told me that Florida is a great place and that I would be great fit for them. He didn’t really talk about which position on the offensive line he wanted me at though. We haven’t gotten that in-depth yet.”

Andries may live in Minnesota but he’s very familiar with the Florida Gators program as a whole.

“I know that they’re in the SEC and they have a great academic program,” Andries said. “They are really good at football and I think that I could have some success there in football. Overall I think it’s just a great school and they have a good coaching staff.”

The offensive lineman wants to get to know even more about Florida when he visits the Gators campus.
“I plan to visit Florida, I think sometime this spring is when I’m going down there,” he said. “My dad has a list of dates for when we are going try to visit certain schools. We’re going to sit down after basketball and figure everything out for visits and which schools we want to visit.”

Florida isn’t the only school after Andries, as several other big name schools are after the Minnesota big man.

“Florida, Oklahoma, Virginia, Oregon, Michigan State and Minnesota are schools that I’m talking too,” Andries said. “I’m not really worried about distance, I sat down with my parents a couple of months ago and talked to them about the whole thing. I told them that I willing to go wherever that I think I can be successful at and they totally agreed.”

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.