It didn’t take long for Florida’s staff to realize what kind of athlete they had in linebacker Aaron Chiles.
“He’s an alien.” strength and conditioning coach Tyler Miles said on Chiles. “I told Coach Napier after two days of training Aaron Chiles, he’s a very impressive young man. Honestly a lot of guys have come in and hit the ground running and haven’t missed a beat. They’ve done a phenomenal job.”
A four-star recruit out of Our Lady Good Counsel High School, Chiles ranked as the No.1 player in the state of Maryland, according to Rivals. The 6’2.5, 234-pound linebacker is as physically ready for SEC football as a true freshman can be. Chiles saw a path to early playing time at Florida given his collegiate build, which is one of the reasons he ended up in Gainesville.
“I feel like physically I’m up to par and one of the more bigger linebackers they have so I feel like physically that’s not the issue with me,” Chiles said during his recruitment “It’s just being able to retain the information and the playbook as I’m not there doing it and being able to get those mental reps. That’s what is big for me. Physically I feel like I’m good right now.”
Chiles’ high school wouldn’t let him early enroll, so he missed out on crucial developmental reps during spring camp. However, Chiles arrived in the summer and was able to go through offseason workouts with the team, and that’s where the rookie started turning heads.
During one of the first offseason workouts in the weight room, Chiles observed junior linebacker Shemar James power cleaning 315 pounds. Chiles walked up to James and said “let me try that.” Both James and Tyler Miles were hesitant to let the freshman attempt to lift that much weight, but he did, perfectly.
“He caught it high, and I was like, ‘oh my’, 315 is a lot of weight especially when you are power cleaning, he came in and set that standard, set that bar high for ourselves,” James said on Chiles.
“Aaron, he’s a freak,” Shemar James said on Chiles. “He comes in every day and wants to learn, you know he looks at my notebook, what did you write down, what did you learn from that, I’d say that’s what I like about Aaron not just the physical part, but the mental part I would say. He want to know what to do and the most efficient way to do it. I would say that about him. He’s ahead of time, for sure.”
Co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Ron Roberts has to be drooling over the fact that he has two physical true freshmen linebackers to work with in Aaron Chiles and Myles Graham.
“He is a tremendous athlete coming in. He’s physically ready as a freshman to do anything you want to ask him to do, and he’s at the top notch. He’s an elite player,” Roberts said on Chiles.
Chiles is doing everything he can to soak up as much information as possible before Florida takes on Miami in week one. The only thing that could keep Chiles off the field this season is the mental part of the game, because physically, he’s up there with the best of the group.