Florida Gators 2021 Roster Talent Breakdown: Defense

Last week I broke down the Florida roster’s talent on the offensive side, so now it’s time to do the same with the defense.

Stars and ratings come from the 247 Sports Composite. Players are listed in order of experience, from oldest to youngest. I used 247’s re-ranking of Daquan Newkirk and Antonio Shelton because they’d been in college a long time before coming to Gainesville, whereas I kept the high school rating for Brenton Cox since he’d only spent one year elsewhere before transferring. The ratings for Diwun Black and Jadarrius Perkins are from their JUCO, not high school, prospect pages.

Defensive line

The Gators were thin along the line last year with nine total players going into the season, and a pair of them (Jaelin Humphries and Lamar Goods) only ended up playing a combined one game. Dante Lang, a high school DE, switched from tight end during the year and is one of seven new faces here on the offseason roster along with two transfers and four high school signees. There are 13 now, a much better figure to start with. The rating took a dip, though, with Tedarrell Slaton’s high 4-star rating coming off the books and five of the seven newcomers having 3-star ratings.

Florida doesn’t split out ends and tackles so I don’t here; besides, Zach Carter will play inside from time to time and a couple of the signees could play inside or outside depending on how their bodies develop in Nick Savage’s training program. The five primary ends of Carter, Lang, Umanmielen, Sapp, and Boone do have a higher collective rating (3.8 stars, 0.9148) than the eight tackles do (3.6, 0.8919).

Outside linebacker

New in the Dan Mullen era is UF separating out its Buck/Edge players as OLBs rather than lumping them in with the guys who play a level back. Doing that allows us to discover that the position is neck-and-neck with running back for the highest average ratings.

The much-discussed talent depth at tailback is a mere 0.1 star and 0.0021 ahead of Buck. Outside linebacker is also the only position group on the team where every player was a 4-star recruit or higher. Quarterback and running back only have one each, but there are eight Bucks compared to nine combined QBs and RBs. UF should be more than set here.

Linebacker

Miller won SEC Defensive Player of the Week honors twice last year, and Brunson has always played mostly on special teams rather than at linebacker. Everyone else here was a 4-star recruit, and Diabate, Hopper, and Wingo were high 4-stars at that. The raw talent behind Miller is there, but it wasn’t well developed a year ago through the COVID disruptions. If that talent can be refined this year, and spring reports about Diabate and Hopper were cautiously optimistic on that front, then linebacker could be a true strength for the team once again.

Cornerbacks

Talent isn’t an issue for the primary cover guys. Experience is, which is why Florida went after the former JUCO recruit Perkins after he chose to leave Mizzou after the Tigers’ spring practice.

With Elam and Hill having major playing time under their belts, Marshall pushing Hill from the start of spring, and Perkins having run with the starters at a different non-Vandy SEC school, the Gators could end up just fine here. There are a couple of blue chip backups, but whether they’d be ready this year is unknown. The margins are slim here despite the high rating average.

Safety

Only Brad Stewart was a 4-star among the departures, while Collier and McMillon both are 4-stars among the new faces. Those factors move the averages up over a year ago, but those two new blue chip guys are the only ones besides Dean who are solidly in the 4-star range.

There aren’t a lot of guys who manage to get four stars with a rating under 0.9000 (0.8900 is the cutoff point), but UF has three of them at safety. The recruiting services collectively don’t really see the Gators’ safeties as being that much closer to a 4-star average rating than what the change shows here.

Closing remarks

One of the most concise criticisms of the 2020 Florida defense was this: they were better at the edges than in the middle. The ends were better than the tackles. The Bucks were better than the middle linebackers. The outside corners were better than the safeties and Star.

It’s true as far as it goes, though subpar defensive tackle play will consistently put middle linebackers in bad spots. They do their best work when filling holes, not when engaging with free pulling guards.

The situation will be the same this year as far as these talent ratings go, though linebacker is largely an exception. Setting Brunson aside as basically a special teams player at this point, the rest of the linebackers average out at not too far below the OLBs at 3.9 stars and a 0.9250 rating. That’s with Miller, the position’s leader and a likely 2nd or 3rd team preseason All-SEC selection, being the lowest-rated guy by a fair bit. Every linebacker currently on the team who signed with Mullen had a 4-star recruiting ranking.

Obviously position-wise averages only go so far. On one hand, the ideal starters up front are likely to include a pair of former 5-stars in Cox and Dexter along with the team’s returning sack leader in Carter. On the other, Wingo’s high rating won’t mean much if, for example, the likes of Miller, Diabate, Hopper, and Black make up the regular middle linebacker rotation.

Still, the ratings reflect that contrast about inside versus outside players. Shoring up the middle is still the major big-picture task for this side of the ball.