Photo via LJ McCray, twitter
Follow the world of college football recruiting long enough, and you’ll learn to detect when hyperbole is being thrown out there and when the pundits mean what they say. For example, whenever a school that’s struggling through a rough season lands a solid four-star prospect, you might see some tweets or messages couching the prospect as a game-changer, or a program-definer. Of course, any analysis of any recruit could turn out not to age well, but some high school prospects simply come with greater reason to be excited and lesser odds of not living up to his hype.
Sitting at 5-2 and seemingly ahead of schedule in year two under Billy Napier, Florida isn’t a program in need to make itself feel better with a recruiting victory the way that, say, Clemson is, or South Carolina is. So here goes: in the case of LJ McCray, the Florida Gators landed that type of elite player.
In landing LJ McCray, Billy Napier and Florida scored a direct hit at the expense of rivals FSU, Georgia, and Miami. It’s true that the Seminoles subsequently landed its own trench monster in Armondo Blount, and that Georgia has the #1 class in the country, but don’t let any troll on the internet fool you: everybody in the country wanted LJ McCray. There’s no room for debate on this point. Florida landed the type of player that every single school in the country would like to have.
In addition to Florida, Miami, FSU, and Georgia, McCray also had offers from Alabama, Texas A&M, Auburn, LSU, Michigan, Oklahoma, USC, Notre Dame, Colorado, Penn State, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M. He’s ranked as a five-star prospect in both the 247Sports Composite rankings and the On3 Industry rankings. Depending on which recruiting service you respect, he’s listed somewhere in the top ten of the defensive line rankings; On3 has him as #1, 247 has him at #2, and ESPN has him at #6; all three also have him listed as a top 25 recruit in the entire class, regardless of position.
If you’re in the mood to learn about mathematical anomalies, we can talk about his Rivals ranking for a minute. Rivals is the extreme outlier, having LJ McCray ranked as the #23 defensive lineman and #250 overall prospect in the country, which gives him a lower-to-middle level four-star ranking. It’s because of Rivals that he’s not a unanimous top 25 prospect in the class, though, again, that hasn’t stopped either the 247Sports Composite or the On3 Industry rankings from anointing him as a five-star.
But there’s a reason that Rivals’ analysis is ridiculous beyond simply the fact that LJ McCray is a Florida commit.
You can watch his high school highlights here.
Let’s start with McCray’s frame. He stands 6’6 and 1/2 and has an enormous wingspan. Those two traits alone led to intrigue among college coaches and scouts, but the high school analysts say he really took off in the summer between his junior and senior seasons. He had a strong junior campaign for Mainland High School in Daytona, racking up 17.5 tackles for loss (including three sacks) and 47 tackles overall, but over that ensuing offseason, he added a few pounds of muscle and learned some pass-rush moves- and has become unstoppable as senior.
The increased devastation that LJ McCray brings with his hands has resulted in a world of problems for opposing offensive linemen. They just can’t contain him. In past years, McCray would simply use his long limbs to “over-athlete” his way into making plays, but now his paws carry some pop. These days, McCray has the ability to cross-chop or simply slap an opposing lineman aside with one hand and grab hold of a ball carrier with the other.
But it’s more than even that. McCray has shown the ability to time up snap counts and breeze into the backfield before the o-line has even fired out of its stance- check out his highlights against Deltona for a particularly vicious example of that in the above hyperlink- and has a great motor that allows him to make tackles all over the field. While he’s probably going to be most effective as a pass-rusher, this engine can help him make the case to be a little more.
It’s possible that McCray needs another year to fully develop into the best version of himself. He’s really only been using strong pass-rush moves for one season. And he also hasn’t even come close to filling out his frame yet. But if he bulks up, tacks on another fifteen pounds of pure muscle, and learns the way things work in the SEC, Florida might have found its game-wrecker of a defensive lineman. We’re talking real NFL Pro Bowl potential here.
With the addition of LJ McCray, Florida’s already loaded 2024 recruiting class gets even stronger. That class currently sits squarely at #3 in the country behind Georgia and Ohio State in both the On3 Industry and 247Sports Composite rankings. McCray is the third five-star prospect in the class, joining QB DJ Lagway and safety Xavier Filsaime in both.
In particular, McCray bolsters a defensive line class that was already one of the best in the country before he committed. The Gators had already gotten commitments from edge Jamonta Waller and interior lineman Amaris Williams, who 247Sports’ Composite rankings deemed to be two of the top 50 overall prospects in the nation; add in Nasir Johnson, and Florida had commitments from three defensive linemen ranked among the top 75 prospects in the entire class. Now throw in McCray, and the Gators have a bona fide headliner to that stockpiled defensive line class of 2024.
That’s the kind of class that can make or break a coach’s tenure, or in more positive terms, define it. The defensive line is arguably the most important position in the game of football outside of quarterback, and by loading up with this much talent at that position, Napier is giving himself the pieces he needs to build for the future.
Blue Chip Billy, indeed.
