Yesterday was the start of the winter portal period, and there was a veritable flood of players into it. There were some bigger recognizable names around the country, but there also were a lot of guys who for whatever reason didn’t get the playing time they wanted and now are looking for a fresh start.
Folks who cover the Florida team have been saying for weeks that the program planned to be very active, and it’s evident why. As predicted, there are a lot of scholarship players who wore the orange and blue this fall heading out the door.
Four of them aren’t even going in the portal. O’Cyrus Torrence, as predicted from the day he announced his transfer to UF, is going pro. So is Justin Shorter. On Monday, Anthony Richardson and Gervon Dexter announced the same. This is not a newsletter about draft prospects, but I wish all of them well.
A few players have been dismissed from the program for a variety of issues: Brenton Cox, Kamar Wilcoxson, Diwun Black, and Jalen Kitna.
Among scholarship players Joshua Braun, Griffin McDowell, Nick Elksnis, and Trent Whittemore announced their intentions to transfer before the regular season even ended. Nay’Quan Wright, Lorenzo Lingard, Donovan McMillon, David Reese, Avery Helm, Corey Collier, and Daejon Reynolds announced after the regular season concluded. Chief Borders, Yousef Mugharbil, and Jalen Lee then put their names in yesterday. This is as of around 3:35 pm Monday afternoon when I finished this newsletter, so there may be more. Adjust the numbers as needed.
That makes 21 players hitting the road, and it doesn’t even count graduating seniors.
Because of the covid waivers and past attrition, there actually are only four players who are running out of eligibility: Ventrell Miller, Amari Burney, Trey Dean, and Jordan Pouncey. That puts the egress count up to 25. Richard Gouraige and Will Harrod walked on Senior Day but haven’t announced their future plans. They could put the count up to 26 or 27, or not.
I don’t expect any other NFL Draft declarations. I just don’t think any other players will get a high enough grade to make it worth going. Guys like Ricky Pearsall and Ethan White are eligible to declare and have pro careers ahead of them, but they’re not going to be selected in the top three rounds. Gouraige is the only potential one to any degree, but his draft grade is still a mystery to me.
I remember seeing predictions of up to 40 players leaving, but that seems a far way off for now. I can find four more players who’ve been around for at least three years without a real path to real playing time, but we’re around 30 at this point if some or all left. It’s still a journey to get to 40 from there.
There will be time to assess UF’s portal options, though keep in mind that UF has 22 high school commits and is trying to land more. If, say, 29 players depart but then they sign 25, that really isn’t many spots available under the 85 cap left to go for incoming transfers.
The bigger question for right now is who exactly is left to play in the bowl game. Anyone listed above, the graduating seniors aside, are or are almost certainly going to be scratches for the bowl. I haven’t seen any of the seniors opt out, but personnel news comes so fast these days that I could’ve missed it.
A lot of the non-seniors listed above weren’t playing much outside of special teams. The four NFL entrants obviously had big roles, though. Dexter’s announcement doesn’t specifically say that he’s skipping the bowl, but I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t. Anyway, there will plenty of special teams spots available to those who want to try to impress the coaching staff for next year.
Quarterback is the biggest question mark. The top two lines of the depth chart are gone for very different reasons. It’d be a good tryout for Jack Miller if he can get healthy enough to play. He was supposed to be ready a few weeks into the season, but Kitna beat him out and Billy Napier chose to reward walk on Kyle Engel with a few snaps on Senior Day. I don’t actually know for sure his health status.
If Miller’s thumb actually never got all the way better, then the next option is probably Engel. At that point you’re going with a guy who’s played a ton of practice snaps over several years and want to win with lots of running and maybe 8-10 passes to keep the defense honest. Max Brown was never going to be college ready this year since he was a baseball player until only a couple years ago.
Wide receiver will be, uh, short without Shorter and Reynolds, but if guys heal up, it will be a deeper position than it was in the FSU game.
Linebacker will really be in dire straits if Ventrell and/or Burney opt out of the bowl. That would basically leave Shemar James, Scooby Williams, and Derek Wingo inside against an Oregon State offense that likes to run the ball. The Jack linebacker (formerly called Buck) would lose some rotation snaps with Reese gone, but at least there the main guys of Antwaun Powell-Ryland and Lloyd Summerall are there, and Jack Pyburn got some play down the stretch too.
Defensive tackle is now a concern with Lee leaving and if Dexter really does skip the bowl. Big Des Watson, Chris McClellan, and Tyreak Sapp aren’t a bad combo, but they really can’t lose anyone else.
Getting the bowl practice in is more important than actually winning, but it’d be nice if the Gators were at least competitive. It’s going to be a real skeleton crew, though, and Oregon State is not a pushover. They just beat Oregon, after all.
Even if things do go sideways in Vegas, it’s all a part of the process of getting Napier his own players. Fewer guys left than expected after the spring, and Mullen was in the end fired for poor recruiting as much as anything else. This is the lack of attrition after spring coming back around, and it’ll be up to Napier and the army to replenish the ranks with better players.