Gervon Dexter enrolled at Florida last summer as perhaps the most-hyped recruit the Gators have signed over the past decade or so.
The defensive tackle was the first composite five-star prospect they’d signed from the high school ranks in five years. At 6-foot-6 and 303 pounds, he looked like he belonged 1 ½ hours up the road at the Jacksonville Jaguars’ facility instead of in college. He’s strong enough to power through some linemen and athletic enough to blow past others.
Then there’s the sentimental aspect of Dexter’s recruitment. He committed to the Gators when he was a lowly ranked recruit that wasn’t even on the radar of most Power Five schools and stuck with them despite multiple pushes from Georgia.
As if all of that wasn’t enough to have fans looking forward to seeing his All-American brick outside of the Swamp someday, he intercepted a pass against Ole Miss in the first quarter of his first game.
As it turned out, that was Dexter’s only highlight, as he came back down to earth for the rest of his freshman season. He finished the year with 19 tackles, 1.5 tackles-for-loss and no sacks.
Dexter’s teammates, though, are ready to get the hype machine cranking again. They have insanely high expectations for what he’ll do in the future, and they aren’t afraid to express them.
“Gervon is an actual beast,” defensive tackle Daquan Newkirk said. “This guy is a massive, massive man. I know he’s a boy, but he’s a massive man. He can do a lot of things.”
Newkirk’s fellow transfer, Antonio Valentino, took things even further.
“Gervon Dexter is going to be a problem,” Valentino said.
“Once he actually figures out how to be like an actual for-real football player and understands how the game flows and works and all that type of stuff, it’s over with. Somebody is going to pay Gervon Dexter millions of dollars to go play football someday.”
The key to it all is found in the middle of Valentino’s comments. Dexter only played two years of high school football, so he isn’t as fundamentally sound or as experienced as guys who have played the game since their early childhoods.
He was ranked as a five-star recruit because he’s a freakishly large human being who can do freakishly athletic stuff, and people like that don’t come around very often. Recruiting rankings are often more of a projection of future performance than a snapshot of how good a player is right now.
For Dexter to fulfill his teammates’ prophesies, he needs to improve at the small nuances of the position that most fans don’t even know about. He can’t just bully offensive lineman at this level like he did at Lake Wales High School when he made 18 sacks and 35 tackles-for-loss and forced seven fumbles as a senior. SEC offensive linemen are just as big or even bigger than Dexter, so the more technique-sound player usually wins the matchup.
“Things are happening that have never happened before to him on the field,” defensive line coach David Turner said. “The good thing about him is he’s going to always ask questions. He wants to be good, and that’s how he’s had to learn, kind of on-the-job training. The more he plays, the better he gets.
“He’s got to worry about playing with better pad level, playing [with] a little bit more eye discipline, things like that. He’s gotten himself stronger in the weight room. He’s still developing, and he’s going to be a good player. He really wants to be a great player, but you’ve got to be good before you can be great.”
Dexter said last year was an eye-opening experience for him, and he now has a much better understanding of what he needs to work on to be a great player at this level.
“My biggest surprise was definitely the game speed,” Dexter said. “I was used to just beating the little guy in front of me, and then I came into my freshman year playing all SEC games to where the man in front of me is just as big as me or bigger. I was like, ‘Dang, you’ve got to work some technique, you’ve got to learn some moves, you’ve got to do something to get this man from in front of me.’ Of course, my first game was Ole Miss, and they run tempo, so I’m thinking, ‘Dang.’ Way different speed of the game.”
He said getting to go through spring camp this year helped his development, and he feels that he’s playing more consistently now.
Aside from the fundamentals such as eye discipline, footwork and hand placement, Dexter also made it a goal to become more flexible this offseason. Doing so will allow him to bend better around the edge and leverage offensive linemen more effectively.
To improve his flexibility, he did Pilates with Turner’s wife, Yvette, a yoga and Pilates instructor. Dexter said he’s already seeing progress in his flexibility.
The more fundamentally sound and flexible version of Dexter looks to make a larger impact this season. He likely won’t be a starter but should still see plenty of snaps as the first tackle off of the bench. He played the three-technique tackle position last season, but he’s received reps at nose tackle this offseason.
“I would say the nose position is a lot simpler to me just because you literally come off the ball and beat the center snapping,” Dexter said. “A lot of times when you come in as a young guy, you don’t know all these plays and just everything going through your head. You’ve got to move here and move there. I feel like when you’re playing against the center, it’s just one man in front of you and just beat him. That’s where I’ve been having a lot of success at.”
Dexter’s full offseason of work with Turner, his Pilates sessions and the experience he gained in 2020 have made him a more confident player entering his sophomore campaign.
But don’t just take his word for it. Linebacker Mohamoud Diabate can vouch for him as well.
“He calls at me all the time, like, ‘Mohamoud, I’m feeling more comfortable. I’m feeling good,’” Diabate said. “I see him working. I see that he’s more comfortable, that he’s more confident in the moves that he’s learning and the different things that the coaches are asking him to do. So, I have confidence when it’s time to play and it’s game time [that] he’s going to go in there and execute to the best of his ability.”
If he does, somebody just might offer Dexter millions of dollars to play football someday soon.