Each year national signing day becomes a bigger spectacle. With ESPN touting more than 11 hours of live television coverage and dozens of live decisions on deck it’s easy to forget about the student-athletes that enrolled early.
Enrolling early is becoming more and more the norm, but it’s still a big decision for a high school senior to make and on this day in particular, they’re largely forgotten.
Jim McElwain made sure that the Florida Gators five early enrollees weren’t forgotten on national signing day.
McElwain held a signing day for defensive tackle Kyree Campbell, tight end Kemore Gamble, linebacker James Houston, offensive lineman Kadeem Telfort and athlete Kadarius Toney inside the football facilities on Wednesday.
“So these guys that are here at midyear, everybody else right now that’s signing in that class, they’re on TV, they got whatever, all this stuff,” McElwain said of the ceremony. “We had our own signing party for those five guys.”
There wasn’t the drama of linebacker commit Levi Jones, who took off a jacket to reveal a Gator shirt before taking that off to reveal a Florida State shirt before ultimately committing to Southern California. McElwain gathered the entire team around so that the early enrollees could have their moment.
“We had them put the hat on, sign the paper in front of our team. We had them give us their best dance moves. Boy, we got some bad dancers, by the way,” joked McElwain. “But it was good. It was a celebration for those guys just to be recognized, especially in front of their peers as incoming guys.”
The Gators will start spring practice on February 28 and all five players will have the opportunity to get a head start on their freshmen season. McElwain did note that Toney, listed as an athlete, will get a chance to play quarterback. Toney was the quarterback at Blount high school back in his home state of Alabama and wanted the chance to earn a role playing quarterback. Due to Luke Del Rio’s injury and unavailability for spring camp, Toney will get that chance.
“He’s an athlete, too. He’s a good athlete, in fact,” McElwain said. “But, yeah, he’s going to play quarterback.”
Since they didn’t get an official signing day at home, we created one for them. Congrats to our 5 midyear enrollees! Glad you’re in the fam. pic.twitter.com/4yvTqQxItA
— Jim McElwain (@CoachMcElwain) February 1, 2017