Wednesday evening was a good evening for the Florida Gators as the coaching staff received its seventh commitment for the Class of 2015 when athlete Jalen Julius (5-11, 173, Orlando, FL West Orange) called the head man to give him the good news.
“I’m a Gator now, I just called Coach [Will] Muschamp and told him I wanted to commit,” Julius said. “When I told him I committed he said that Florida got better today and that he hopes to see me back on campus soon. He was very excited it seemed like.”
Florida recruited Julius as an athlete but he says that he thinks he will start out on the defensive side of the ball and he’s comfortable there, due to his familiarity with cornerbacks coach Travaris Robinson.
“Coach Muschamp said that I can play both sides of the ball but right now I’m going to play defensive back,” Julius said. “I like to play cornerback and plus I like Coach T-Rob and he knows my aunt and my cousin.”
The familiarity with Robinson helped Florida land Julius but the real key in his recruitment was the environment and his mother in why he chose to pull the trigger now.
“I got a great vibe with the school and the team when I went up there for a visit a few weeks ago” Julius said. “My mom loves up it up there and she thinks it’s a good fit for me plus it’s a good opportunity so I decided to go ahead and commit.”
One other important factor that went into Julius committing to Florida was that his 7-on-7 coach is former Gator great Keiwan Ratliff.
“I also play with Coach [Keiwan] Ratliff in 7 on 7 and so I had to tell him first,” Julius said. “He was excited when I told him and he said congratulations. Hopefully I can be as good as him one day.”
Now that Julius has his commitment out of the way he’s now going to focus on recruiting other players to Florida including one of his high school teammates.
“I’m going to definitely starting recruiting players to Florida so we can get better,” Julius said. “I’m going to try and get Dexter [Williams] over there with me.”
I don’t know if Julius is a great player. I do feel that UF badly wants his teammate, Dexter Williams. I thought UF was the leader for Williams and then he pledged to Miami. Of course, these early pledges are not something you can count on. We saw that with Dalvin Cook and Brandon Powell in the last class. Perhaps UF will steal Williams from Miami like they did with Powell.