Florida now leads for Thomas

The last few years Florida has ventured into the state of Georgia to recruit the best players that the state has to offer and this year isn’t any different.

On Saturday, Florida played host to one of the top players in the state in linebacker Adonis Thomas (6-4, 215, Lawrenceville, GA Central Gwinnett) who brought his mother along for the visit.

“It was a good time down there,” Thomas said. “It was big to get my mom down there and let her see everything that the university has to offer me and let her meet Coach [Will] Muschamp and Coach [D.J.] Durkin. It was fun to go down there with her and with Roquan [Smith].”

Thomas made it to Gainesville in time to watch Florida go through a spring scrimmage and the linebacker liked what he saw out of the defense and the defensive coaches.

“The defense was real fast and quick out there on Saturday,” Thomas said. “There is no break; they go back-to-back-to-back plays. Coach Muschamp wants you to constantly go fast out there. Coach Durkin is always moving the linebackers around a lot so that the offense doesn’t get familiar with where you line up at. It was a lot going on.”

The Georgia linebacker has played everywhere on the defensive side of the ball and Muschamp says he reminds him of a Gator linebacker on campus now.

“Coach Muschamp compared me to Neiron Ball in the way that he plays all of the linebacker positions,” Thomas said. “Coach Muschamp said that he thinks that I can do the same thing down there and he wants me bad.”

With Florida thinking that Thomas can play all four linebacker positions it’s tough for him to really see where he would play but during a film study defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin tried to break it down for him.

“Coach Durkin was showing me on film where I would be lining up in certain situations,” Thomas said. “He was just going over how he thought I would fit into the defense before practice.”

This is now four visits to Florida for Thomas but he says that there is still one thing he wants to see from the Gators and that will come next fall.

“I really want to see the game day experience at Florida, that’s the only thing I haven’t been able to see,” Thomas said. “I’m going to be back down there for a game this fall and also for the spring game in two weeks.”

With so many visits to Florida now for Thomas and the opportunity for his mother to see Gainesville the Gators have taken over the top spot in his recruitment.

“Florida is ahead of everyone else right now,” Thomas said. “Florida is coming after me the hardest but I want to take a few official visits. I want to go get out to UCLA and Stanford. Georgia is coming after me hard but not as hard as Florida is.”

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.