Lemons growing closer to Skipper: Florida Gators recruiting

The game day crowd in the Swamp is what prospects love and look forward to when visiting the Florida Gators during the fall.

Last Saturday, Florida Gators running back commit Adarius Lemons (6-1, 195, Clearwater, FL. High) got the chance to witness the Swamp for the first time this year.

“The game was very electrifying. I like everybody here,” Lemons said of his visit on Saturday. “The place was rocking, everybody here was good, and everybody was nice to us. I had a good time and my coach brought me here and we enjoyed it.”

Florida Gators head coach Jim McElwain is known as an offensive guy and Lemons was impressed by the way he uses the Gators running backs.

“Coach McElwain is showing a lot of things and that he uses his backs and uses all of his backs,” he said of the running backs. “No back is a waste in the Florida offense and it shows me something. It shows that you can get playing time if you just work hard and come in and do what you got to do.”

Last month Lemons posted a decommitment followed by recommitting to Florida after a misunderstanding, and the running back says that incident has brought him closer to coach Tim Skipper.

“Personally we were already building a relationship but you can say that the situation did bring us a little more closer together,” Lemons said of his relationship with Skipper getting stronger. “He was telling me that if something happens to talk to him that a way things don’t get blown out of proportion.”

Skipper and McElwain have both been continuing to recruit Lemons hard and they have one message to him.

“They just tell me to keep working hard and stay away from the negativity,” he said of Florida’s message to him. “They tell me to hang out with positive people and leave the negative stuff alone because I’m going to be here soon.”

Now that Lemons has gotten things squared away with Florida, he’s now looking to get to college early.

“If I get everything cleared then I’m going to early enroll, I’m waiting on the clearinghouse,” Lemons said. “I’m shutting down the process and no more visits besides Florida. I’ll be back for the LSU game.”

INSIDERS TAKE: Lemons has moved passed his suspension and was in good sprits on Saturday. Things are back to normal between him and the Gators and now it looks like he will early enroll at Florida.

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.