On Thursday, a big target for the Florida Gators recruiting class of 2018 visited campus to see the Gators spring practice.
Safety Jamien Sherwood (6-2, 195, Jensen Beach, FL. High) visited Florida with his coach and got to see a lot of what Florida has to offer.
“It was great, I enjoyed every part of it,” Sherwood said. “When I first got there we went inside the stadium and then met Coach JaJuan [Seider], Coach Kerry [Dixon], Coach [Randy] Shannon, Coach [Chris] Rumph and Coach [Jim] McElwain. Then they took us on a tour and we saw the facilities, the classrooms, and the tutoring places. After that we watched practice.”
The safety was really impressed by the speed of Jim McElwain’s practice and the team speed the Gators have.
“Practice was good, everything about them is fast,” he said of Florida’s spring practice. “The way they do their drills and do practice, they make it go back quick. They’re like real fast.”
Thursday was also another opportunity for Sherwood to speak with defensive backs coach Corey Bell and the coach impressed by the safety.
“He’s a great dude,” Sherwood said of defensive backs coach Corey Bell. “I got to chance to talk to him, he’s just a great man past the football part. He’s a laid back but intense on the field. It’s not so much if you mess up but if he knows you could’ve did it better than he gets on you.”
Bell didn’t give too much of a recruiting pitch on Thursday but shared that the Gators need safeties in this class bad.
“He was just happy that I was there and he just gave me some tips,” he said of Bell’s message to him. “He was just making sure that I keep my head on straight during the recruiting process. He was telling me about all of the guys that they have leaving at the safety position this year and he said I could play early because they’re losing a lot of depth at the position.”
Running backs coach JaJuan Seider has been recruiting Sherwood for a long time and the prospect is happy that the coach is closer to his home now.
“Coach Seider is a great guy and I’ve been talking to him since he was at West Virginia,” Sherwood said. “We have already built a relationship and now that he’s at Florida and closer to me, it makes things better. Coach Kerry Dixon and he are the two coaches that I talk to the most.”
Heading into the visit Sherwood expressed interest in the Gators but he left says that Florida helped itself with the visit.
“Yes, it made me very much interested in Florida,” he said when asked if this visit helped Florida out. “I got to see most everything that I needed to see, I wanted to see the business program but I didn’t get to see that. I got to see the weight room and all of that stuff, though.”
INSIDERS TAKE: Sherwood says that right now he doesn’t have a leader but he wants to make a decision before his football season starts. Sherwood is an early enrollee and will enroll in school in January.