Six out of the ten official visitors that were on campus this weekend were Florida Gators commits but those guys still were able to see different things.
Running back commit Malik Davis (5-11, 190, Tampa, FL. Jesuit) was one of those commits on campus and he was able to see things that he hadn’t been able to experience before this weekend.
“It was great,” Davis said of his official visit. “I got to see things more behind the scenes. I hung out with the players and see how they live and how things are at Florida. It was good to hear that from the players and see their side. I think that was my favorite part was seeing the players point of view, it just makes you feel that much more comfortable about going there. I really enjoyed it and thought the visit was one of the best weekends of my life. I give the trip a ten out of ten for sure.”
While on campus Davis was hosted by freshman running back Lamical Perine who shared a message with Davis about playing early at Florida.
“He told me if I come in and work hard then I will play and that was pretty much all,” he said of what Perine told him. “He said to stay focused on the field and off the field in the classroom and everything will fall into place.”
Davis also had the chance to meet one-on-one with running backs coach Tim Skipper and watch film on the Gators current offense.
“I spent a lot of time with the running backs coach Tim Skipper,” Davis said. “He told me he feels I am different from the other running backs and to just come in and work hard. He showed me some film of plays they run. He was saying that if I get in the open field to make guys miss, and he thinks I do that well. He said he wants a guy that can be a homerun threat.”
A lot of times recruits have a more business-like approach when hanging out with the coaches but Davis says that isn’t the case when he’s around Florida Gators head coach Jim McElwain.
“He was around us the whole weekend not just a little bit of the time, literally the whole time,” he said of McElwain. “He is so funny and down to earth and he is just a great person to be around and just likes to have fun. Sometimes a head coach can be uncomfortable to be around but not him, he is cool and down to earth.”
This weekend Davis had the chance to get to know the coaches better but also had the chance to bond with some of his future teammates.
“We all have a group chat so we all have been talking in it for a while now,” he said of hanging out with the rest of the commits. “A lot of these guys though it was putting a face to the name. I liked hanging out with everyone and we all met. We had a great time together and I am excited about getting up there.”
Davis and the five other commits also put their recruiting cap on during the visit while recruiting the other four targets.
“I think Elijah [Conliffe] is a guy that we have a pretty great chance to land,” Davis said of the guys he was recruiting. “We all had fun and I could tell he was having a great time. I think we have a great chance with all the guys that visited. I would say some things to them and the would just smile. They didn’t say much but we had a great time together and I don’t think they will have a better official visit than they did at Florida.”
After having a solid high school career, you would expect schools to try and get a visit from Davis despite his commitment and that’s exactly what has happened but the running back isn’t entertaining those schools.
“A few schools tried to come by my school to see me and my head coach just sent them away and tells them I am 100-percent committed,” Davis said on his recruitment. “I’m signing with Florida.”