Ask any Florida fan at the time about how Shemar James was still a Gator after the post-2023 season portal windows closed, and you’d probably hear the sound of major relief. After he went down to injury in the pregame before the Georgia game, it appeared that UF had no good linebackers left on the roster.
Fast forward a year, and James is foregoing his final year of eligibility to enter the NFL Draft after being Florida’s second-leading tackler. Gator fans are now wishing him well but not panicking.
That difference sums up how Billy Napier has turned around the inside linebacker room in Gainesville. For too long the position group was a liability, but as of last season, it’s back to being a strength of the team.
It’s an overnight success that, like all overnight successes, was years in the making.
The Decline
It used to be that Florida always had at least a good linebacking corps. Sometimes it would not be good but rather great, but it never dropped below good.
Things changed with the 2017 season. That was the point at which UF ran out of Will Muschamp linebacker recruits.
The 2013 recruiting class saw Alex Anzalone, Jarrad Davis, and Daniel McMillian sign, with the former two becoming stars and the latter a consistent contributor as a rotation guy. Muschamp didn’t sign any linebackers in 2014, leaving the aforementioned three and fellow ’13 signee Matt Rolin (whose career was derailed by injury) the last of their kind.
Jim McElwain’s transitional class had only one linebacker, a low 3-star recruit in Rayshad Jackson who didn’t outperform his rating. In terms of top-shelf linebackers, Florida came up empty two years in a row.
Thus, it was the ’16 class that finally brought future starters in David Reese and Vosean Joseph. Reese was a traditional run-stopping middle linebacker born 20 years too late, as his game was inadequate to the spread-infused landscape of the late 2010s. A superlative leader and a gifted run stuffer, Reese more than earned his keep but still struggled against lateral speed and in pass coverage. Joseph had the speed Reese lacked, but he also declared for the draft as soon as he could and therefore only played a major role for two years after the Muschamp recruits left.
Reese and Joseph held down the fort together for a couple years beginning in 2017, but depth was a problem. Starting in the Mullen era, you started to see bigger roles for guys who were not inside linebacker recruits: converted safety Kylan Johnson in 2018, converted edge Mohamoud Diabate and converted DB Amari Burney beginning in 2019, and even longtime edge Jeremiah Moon covering for the injured Ventrell Miller in 2021.
UF had good players during this time. Reese is remembered fondly by the fan base, and Joseph, Burney, and Miller all got drafted out of UF. Ty’Ron Hopper was drafted out of Missouri. Diabate is carving out an NFL career after going undrafted following his one year at Utah, and James Houston was drafted after moving both down a level (to FCS Jackson State) and up a level (from inside linebacker to edge).
Even so, the unit struggled to play well and cohesively under the watch of Mullen’s linebackers coach Christian Robinson. Players too often overran ball carriers or took bad angles in run support, and they looked completely lost in coverage. Something had to change.
The Napier Era
For a couple of years, it didn’t look like anything had changed. Miller and Burney performed well enough to be drafted after playing on another bad defense in 2022, but the rest of the room wasn’t great.
James, who originally committed to Mullen before decommitting and then re-committing to Florida after Napier’s arrival, was far and away the top player in 2023. Mullen’s top-rated linebacker signee Derek Wingo continued to struggle to find playing time, and Scooby Williams appeared to lack good inside linebacker instincts after playing edge in high school. Transfers Mannie Nunnery and Teradja Mitchell didn’t move the needle appreciably either.
So how did it get so much better so quickly? Slowly, and then all at once.
In 2022, Napier began recruiting Grayson Howard and Jaden Robinson. Both took their first unofficial visits to Florida in March of that year, even. Both committed to South Carolina in the summer, Howard on June 27 and Robinson on July 4. Robinson subsequently visited Gainesville again though, and he flipped to Florida in August. He played some during 2023, but unsurprisingly he looked like a freshman.
But while UF lost out on Howard initially, the linebacker had second thoughts after a season in Columbia. Florida had been a finalist for his services the first time around, and Napier parlayed that pre-existing relationship into getting Howard to come as a transfer.
Having two good linebacker targets from the 2023 high school class in Robinson and Howard wasn’t enough. Napier signed two top-ten inside linebackers from the 2024 cycle in Aaron Chiles and UF legacy Myles Graham. Graham played an increasing role as the season went on and looked terrific doing so, and Chiles looked promising in more limited action than Graham’s.
It would’ve been nice for the team if James had stuck around, but UF has a terrific core four of Howard, Robinson, Graham, and Chiles. That said, there isn’t much margin for error if someone goes down for a time, like how Howard went out with what ended up being a season-ending injury against Texas. Beyond that quartet is only true freshmen and preferred walk ons.
Yet with the current base defense being nickel with an edge rusher, the team only needs four inside linebackers to fill a two-deep. Provided Graham and Chiles progress this offseason as they’re expected to, this easily will be UF’s best two-deep at linebacker since 2016.
That’s how inside linebacker went from being cringeworthy past its top player in 2023 to being able to withstand the loss of that top player likely just fine after the following season. It took years of recruiting and development with a fortuitous choice from Howard to leave South Carolina.
After many years of converted players, mismanagement, some bad injury luck, and a handful of personnel whiffs, 2024 and 2025 should make two straight seasons where inside linebacker is a strength on the team. Finally.