[gatorcal]

Originally Posted by ArtDeco

I don't think the current coach believes in burning a scholarship on a warm body, better to keep that one in the pocket and give to an outstanding 2014 player.
A quick sidestory, if you will. We all know that our previous coach never filled up an entire class and had us running lean, well below the max allowable. There were years where said coach did exactly as the OP mentioned, gave one last scholarship to a kid that had a near career-ending injury, or to a kid that admittedly would be a "project", at least one of which is still on the team. Anyway, you guys probably remember the sad story a couple years ago of a kid from Navarre High School named Ian Lockwood, tough football player who was all Gator, diagnosed with brain cancer. Players like Tebow and Ahmad Black and the previous coach visited him at Shands when he was there getting treatment. Anyway, this amazing kid had an obviously terminal illness, was not expected to live more than a year, and did succumb to his disease. I always thought the classiest thing our coach could have done was to offer this kid a UF scholly (as we had plenty to burn) while he was alive, knowing it probably would not be used for more than a year. For some reason, we did not. IMO, we had our Chucky Mullins moment and whiffed.

He was still in high school when all that went down. He actually passed away during his senior year. Meyer might have done something like that, but we have no way of knowing.