Jabari Zuniga growing into role with Florida Gators

The air condition hit Jabari Zuniga as soon as he walked through a door into the Florida Gators indoor practice facility. Tired and still sweating from a practice in t 90-degree heat, the cool relief felt nice.

He made his way through the door, guided by a sports information director, and the temporary relief of the air conditioner subsided when he arrived at more than 20 reporters waiting for their first opportunity to speak to Florida’s leading sack getter.

“Whoa!” Zuniga mouthed back to the sports information director. This was the first time the redshirt freshman had to go through media obligations. Florida doesn’t make freshmen available to the media, and Zuniga took a redshirt his first year on campus anyway.

Randy Shannon, who was coaching at Arkansas at the time, recalled meeting Zuniga when he was a junior in high school.

“Yeah, I was 5’11, 230,” Zuniga recalled.

That didn’t lead to many big college offers. Zuniga had 17 scholarship offers but only four from teams in the Power 5 conference. One of the schools that was in contact with him the most was Mississippi State, although the Bulldogs never offered. Defensive coordinator Geoff Collins didn’t forget about the undersized junior from Marietta, Georgia when Collins accepted the job at Florida though.

“Coach Collins was recruiting me at Mississippi State. They didn’t ever offer me, but they were recruiting me sending me letters and stuff. As soon as he got the job at Florida he called me and said I was going to be a Gator and I was like…yeah.”

Zuniga showed up to Florida around 270 pounds but was admittedly a little soft around the edges. A young player he needed time to change his body and he took advantage of that during his redshirt season.

“I think this guy was really mature for a freshman,” defensive line coach Chris Rumph said. “ He went back, he’s up to 250 pounds, but if you go back to the spring, he got all the way down to 230 pounds. I actually said ‘man, you’re losing weight. You’ve got to get this weight on.’ He said ‘Coach, I want to take the fat off and I want to build my body up.”

Zuniga is quiet and humble. Most players would go stir crazy during a redshirt season; Zuniga called his season a blessing. It goes to show the maturity he had at just 18 years old to know that he had a long way to go to change his body and prepare himself for playing in the SEC. Zuniga’s dedication to his nutrition and training changed his body to the point where Rumph had to make a special rule.

“If you’ve ever seen this guy with his shirt off, I have a rule: He cannot take his shirt off in front of my wife,” Rumph joked. “I mean this guy is yoked up. My wife’s around, his shirt is on.”

“That’s just a joke, I guess,” Zuniga said sheepishly.

Zuniga began this season somewhat doubting himself. He saw the depth chart at defensive end and set a modest goal.

“For me personally, I think I reached my goal,” he said. “I set five sacks.”

Wait? Really?

“Yeah. I didn’t really know I was gonna be playing a lot because we got a lot of defensive players, defensive linemen.”

Zuniga announced himself in the season opener against Massachusetts with two sacks and four total tackles. He picked up three tackles in week two and two more sacks in week three.

Zuniga may have reached his modest preseason goal early on in the season but he’s yet to reach his ceiling or even find the true potential of his Gog given ability. He doesn’t know what he’s capable of achieving, but his teammates and coaches are excited for the potential.

“Jabari, he just does what he does,” senior defensive end Bryan Cox Jr. said.

“He’s a freak.”

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC