Amid the biggest wave of news for the Florida Gators in the latter half of December– featuring an easy bowl win over Tulane, the poaching of five-star receiver Dallas Wilson, and the departure of Jack Pyburn to LSU, there has been a lot of relatively smaller bits of news to come in the world of the Florida Gators.
For starters, the Florida basketball program is off to a spectacular start, having just flattened North Florida to improve to 12-0 following its first real test of the year against North Carolina. In All Kinds Of Weather will cover basketball more as the season progresses. But for now, back to football.
Defensive coordinator Austin Armstrong has departed for Houston. This news comes as somewhat of a surprise, but in the same sense not really: Billy Napier hired Ron Roberts, essentially a more experienced and older version of him, to share the role of DC after Florida’s defense finished ranked 70th in the FBS in terms of yards per game in 2023. Then, in 2024, Florida’s defense finished ranked 45th, a slight improvement but still way outside the top ten– where the Gator defense finished in eleven of the twelve years from 2005 to 2016.
So, Austin Armstrong is off to Houston, which leaves a void at Florida. Napier can choose to elevate Roberts to DC full-time, or he can choose to hire someone from the outside, possibly even with a different defensive philosophy. That’s certainly another storyline to watch. And it was certainly a sad moment for Gator fans to watch linebacker Shemar James leave for the NFL– which hurts, but only somewhat, as Pup Howard, Aaron Chiles, and Myles Graham showed great promise in their first seasons in the Florida linebacker room.
But the biggest pieces of news that have been hidden by the bowl win and the Dallas Wilson fiasco have been the trio of transfer portal additions they’ve landed in the December cycle.
Well, actually, the Florida Gators have landed four transfers. The first was punter Tommy Doman from Michigan. With the departure of Jeremy Crawshaw, the Gators had to fill that spot, and they did. But the fact that Florida also has much bigger needs left that bit of news to receive only cursory bits of attention.
The party got started in earnest on December 19, when the Florida Gators landed UCLA wide receiver transfer J. Michael Sturdivant. His numbers have actually decreased since a breakout freshman season at California, but there’s no denying what he can do when he’s healthy with talent around him. In 2022 at Cal, he pulled in 65 catches for 755 yards and seven touchdowns. He then transferred to UCLA, where over the next two years, he contributed with 58 catches for 912 yards and six touchdowns.
When he’s on the field, though, Sturdivant is a serious issue for defenses. A contested catch machine, Sturdivant went off against crosstown rival USC with five catches for 117 yards. He’ll have to battle the wealth of talent Florida has amassed at wide receiver for playing time, but if he can make plays like that in practice, he’ll be difficult to keep off the field.
Four days later, Florida landed Charlotte QB transfer DeShawn Purdie. Originally a three-star prospect from the Washington, DC area, Purdie enjoyed a solid freshman season with the 49ers before deciding to upgrade to the highest level of college football. With Georgia, Mississippi State and North Carolina all pursuing him, he chose to come to Florida, telling On3 that he appreciated seeing how the Gator coaches “have a good chip on their shoulder.”
Does Purdie have a chance to unseat Lagway atop the QB depth chart? Probably not. But we’ve also seen Florida have to go to its backup quarterback for non-mop-up duty playing time in each season since 2008 other than 2020. Besides, depth is never a bad thing to build at any position– particularly quarterback.
Purdie also has three years of eligibility remaining, so there is a path for him to play eventually. He could sit behind Lagway this year, take a redshirt, use his sophomore year in 2026 when Lagway is a junior, and then if Lagway elects to go pro after that, he’d have two years of eligibility left.
Florida also got Kofi Asare from Massachusetts later that day, a defensive end who is almost certainly Napier’s response to losing Jack Pyburn to LSU and TJ Searcy to Texas A&M. The Gators would have certainly liked to have had both Pyburn and Searcy back, but with George Gumbs and Tyreak Sapp set to return, Billy Napier simply shrugged his shoulders and allowed them to walk, knowing he’d replace them later in the portal. And now he has.
The Minutemen were downright pathetic in 2024, finishing a paltry 2-10, but Asare was one of their few bright spots. He racked up 30 tackles, including three sacks, and also forced and recovered a fumble against Liberty.
All in all, it’s a nice start to the transfer portal cycle, but it would be really nice to land even more pieces in the spring. The portal will re-open for a brief ten-day window, beginning on April 16 and closing again on April 25.
