Last week in the newsletter, I did re-rankings of the Gators’ starters on offense. I took the ratings they got from the 247 Sports Composite — low, middle, or high 3-star or 4-star — and corrected them based on what we’ve seen on the field so far.
This week, I’m doing the same for the defensive starters. I’m using the projected starters as listed in this year’s Athlon preview magazine, as I’m relying on its depth charts for other talent evaluation projects this summer. I wouldn’t change anything about it, though, so it might as well be my own expectations for the starters.
I’m sticking to 247’s rules of thumb on prospect grades: 5-star means a potential first round NFL Draft pick, 4-star means impact player, 3-star means reliable starter, and 2-star means role player.
Jabari Zuniga
High school: mid 3-star
Re-rank: high 4-star
Zuniga not getting a blowout grade as a prospect is defensible to an extent. He redshirted his first year on campus, and as an underclassman he dominated bad teams while disappearing against good ones. As a junior a year ago, he found a new level of performance and was consistently good regardless of opponent quality. He figures to have his best year yet in 2019 with the starter at Buck no longer being a dedicated sackmaster. He should be able to dominate and end up in the first couple rounds of the draft.
Adam Shuler
High school: mid 3-star
Re-rank: high 3-star
Shuler was in an interesting spot last year, playing defensive tackle after being a defensive end at West Virginia. His breakout game came with his nine tackles against Tennessee, and he closed strong with 14 tackles and his 1.5 sacks in the season’s last four contests. He’s not a wrecking ball inside like you’d want from an elite-rated tackle, though the nose has more of that role in Todd Grantham’s defense. He’s solid but not spectacular, though he is deserving of a slight upgrade.
Kyree Campbell
High school: high 3-star
Re-rank: Same
A lot of the focus inside last year started with T.J. Slaton and the senior Khairi Clark, but Campbell beat them out to become a stabilizing presence in the middle. Like Shuler next to him, he won’t let you down even if he won’t wow you often. His best showings came against teams with bad offensive lines in Tennessee (seven tackles), South Carolina (five tackles, one sack), and FSU (five tackles), but you don’t really measure nose tackles by stats.
Jonathan Greenard
High school: low 3-star
Re-rank: low 4-star
When 247 did its re-ranking of Greenard, it bumped him up to the low 4-star range at 0.9100 (the cutoff for 4-stars is 0.8901). I haven’t studied tape of him, so I’ll take their word for it. I was tempted to raise him even higher because of how good his numbers from 2017 look. He racked up 15.5 tackles for loss with seven sacks. His production didn’t just come from beating up cupcakes. He had nine tackles against BC, and ten of his TFLs and five of his seven sacks came against P5 opponents. He’s legit.
David Reese II
High school: high 3-star
Re-rank: mid 4-star
Reese might be the epitome of the recruiting that went on at UF in the years prior to Dan Mullen’s arrival. His recruiting ranking doesn’t blow you away, but he turned into a very productive player worth more than that ranking. Even so, he’s not elite. He lacks high-end speed, meaning he can get beat around the corner by 4 and 5-star running backs, and he was almost as lost in pass coverage as Vosean Joseph was. He earned a solid 4-star re-rank and will go down as a true Gator great, but I can’t go higher because of those shortcomings.
Amari Burney
High school: mid 4-star
Re-ranking: Same
Burney helps prove the point I was making about Reese and pre-Mullen recruiting. A spot opened in the starting lineup with Joseph’s departure, but it wasn’t filled by an existing 3-star guy who sometimes plays better than that. It got filled in by a comfortably 4-star-rated Mullen recruit who didn’t even play linebacker last year. Burney simply has better tools and upside than older 3-star guys like Kylan Johnson or Ventrell Miller, and he showed it by beating them out for this position.
Marco Wilson
High school: mid 4-star
Re-rank: Same
Wilson looked like he could be much better than this ranking with ten pass breakups as a true freshman, but his season-ending injury last year throws some doubt into his story. He didn’t participate in spring as he continued to recover, so he still has to prove he’s back to his full powers this fall. If he does, he certainly has the potential to move up.
CJ Henderson
High school: mid 4-star
Re-rank: 5-star
Florida may not officially have a 5-star recruit on the roster, but it has a guy who plays like one in Henderson. He’s an elite cover corner, and showed an ability to be an effective blitzer off the edge last year. Wilson got all those pass breakups two years ago in part because teams were trying to throw away from Henderson. He’s gone, gone, gone after this fall and should go in the top half of the NFL Draft’s first round.
Brad Stewart
High school: mid 4-star
Re-rank: low 4-star
Stewart made some midseason All-SEC teams a year ago after his pick six to seal the LSU win, but I wasn’t sure why. He was good in coverage but often was out of place and ineffective in run support. That got better over the rest of the year, though he still has room to grow. He has the highest ceiling among the safeties and should bear out his blue chip rating, but he also has to stay on the field to do it. He can’t miss games because of non-football related issues again like he did last year.
Donovan Stiner
High school: mid 3-star
Re-rank: high 3-star
Stiner’s most memorable play is emblematic of Year 1 in a new system. He blitzed up the middle and sacked Nick Fitzgerald to slam the door on the Mississippi State win, but he was actually supposed to stay back in coverage. Had the Bulldog QB looked right he’d have had an easy long completion, but the Gators lucked out that the play went left and Fitzgerald didn’t have the time to survey the whole field. It’s also somewhat fitting for Stiner, as he has the athleticism to sometimes make up for his mental mistakes. I give him a slight bump up in rank, but he won’t make anyone forget the great UF safeties of the recent past.