Head coach Jim McElwain and the Florida Gators are on a mission to get prospects from South Florida to be Gators in the class of 2016 and beyond.
Last Thursday the Gators handed out a new offer to a South Florida recruit in defensive end Brian Burns (6-3, 201, Plantation, FL American Heritage) who found about his offer in a different way than most prospects.
“I first found out that I got offered by Florida from my Twitter so I was trying to find out if it was for real or not,” Burns said. “I found out that it was true though and that’s big time to get the Florida offer.”
Burns who told GatorCountry.com earlier this month that he wanted to get an offer from Florida says that he’s blessed to get this offer.
“It means a lot to me to get an offer from the University of Florida,” Burns said. “It’s exciting because Florida is big time and is a big school to get an offer from. I’m excited about it.”
Over the last few years Burns has been taking visits to different colleges, and last year Florida was one of the visits, but he says that he still doesn’t know a whole lot about the Gators.
“I’ve been watching Florida since I was growing up,” Burns said. “Florida is always good and I’ve been up there for a visit before and liked it. Also one of the coaches came by and he seemed like a good coach.”
One thing that Burns remembers about Florida is that the Gators’ fan base is one of a kind and supports their team.
“It was pretty cool when I went up for a game last year,” Burns said. “It was loud and the fans were crazy. The girls were looking good and the Swamp was rocking during the game.”
Now that Florida has a new coaching staff Burns says he needs to meet all of the coaches and he hopes to do that in the coming months.
“I’m most definitely going to visit Florida this spring,” Burns said. “I have a couple of teammates that I’m going to visit Florida with. We just got to plan out the visits and see when we can go.”
INSIDERS TAKE: Burns was really excited about the Florida and the Gators are a team that he wanted an offer from. I expect Florida to be a big time player for Burns over the next year or so.
AS, I haven’t seen film or pics of this guy, but measurements suggest more of an LB size. Or is he just one of those kids that’s still growing with an already large frame? Just curious.
Still growing and it will be a rush end/BUCK in college. He’s very quick off of the line.