(Photo via Hylton Stubbs)
Two days after celebrating a rivalry win over FSU, the Florida Gators can now celebrate a different type of win over another in-state rival.
Yes, it’s true. The Miami Hurricanes walloped the Florida Gators when the teams met back in August. That doesn’t seem to matter to four-star safety Hylton Stubbs (Jacksonville, FL/Mandarin HS), who flipped from the Canes to the Gators tonight.
It’s almost like… things can change. And as things changed, Florida’s persistence was rewarded.
Hylton Stubbs initially committed to USC back in March, but the Gators and Canes both stayed in hot pursuit. He wound up taking four visits to Florida over the next three months and two to Miami, and eventually flipped his commitment from USC to Miami in June. Florida remained after him, though, keeping in contact and making sure he hadn’t forgotten about the program.
In the end, Florida’s relentlessness won them the Hylton Stubbs sweepstakes. And oh, what a prize they get as a result.
Back in January, I had Stubbs rated as one of the Gators’ top ten prospects on the board in the 2025 recruiting class. You can watch his high school highlight tape here.
He’s not a five-star prospect, but he might as well be. Stubbs is an elite and versatile safety who can make all types of different plays for a defense.
Ask him to run up to the line and press and jam in man coverage, he’ll do that. Tell him to play center field and watch for the deep ball, he’ll can track the ball as well as any receiver can, go up in traffic and high-point the ball away from everyone else. Require his help in run support, and he’ll run up into the tackle box, sift through the garbage and deliver a violent shot on the ball-carrier that just might knock the ball free. Need him to charge at the QB on a safety blitz, and you’ve programmed a monster.
If there’s a weakness in his game, it’s his speed. He’s fast enough to play in the SEC, but he probably won’t be able to rely on that as a strength. If he adds on a few pounds of muscle to his 6’1, 190 frame and improves his technique just a little bit more, though, Hylton Stubbs is a potential three-year starter for the Gators.
As he joins his high school teammate Trammel Jones in Florida’s class, the commitment of Stubbs vaults that class all the way into the top ten of the 247Sports Composite rankings and just outside the top ten of the On3 Industry ranking. That’s some feat given where the class sat just six weeks ago– outside the top 50 of the 247Sports Composite rankings and outside the top 30 of the On3 Industry rankings. And perhaps most impressively is the fact that Florida’s not even getting previously uncommitted prospects; they’re outright flipping kids away from other schools.
Ah, the life of winning games in college football, which makes such joyful alpha moves possible.
And the Gators still aren’t done– there are several available slots in the 2025 class still remaining, with Florida hot on the tails of some of the top prospects left standing.
