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Photo via Jalen Kimber
On Friday afternoon’s press conference, new Gators head coach Billy Napier said that Florida would be adding new players via the transfer portal within the next eight to ten days. Apparently, Jalen Kimber didn’t want to wait that long.
Jalen Kimber, formerly of the Georgia Bulldogs, won the starting cornerback role for Kirby Smart’s defense opposing Derion Kendrick this past offseason when he suffered a shoulder injury that ultimately knocked him out for the season. He tried his best to play through it, playing sparingly against UAB, but then decided to undergo surgery and end his year.
Kimber entered the transfer portal shortly after the Bulldogs won the national championship. Today, he announced his intentions to transfer to Florida. With the departure of Kaiir Elam, Kimber could potentially play right away. Jason Marshall seemingly has one of the two starting cornerback roles locked down, but there’s sure to be some heavy competition for the CB2 role.
And even if Kimber doesn’t wind up starting as the CB2, depth is never a bad thing to have in the secondary. One way or another, Jalen Kimber is going to play.
Originally a consensus four star product from just north of Dallas in the 2020 recruiting cycle, Jalen Kimber boasted offers from pretty much every major program in college football. Among them: Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Ohio State, LSU, Michigan, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Arkansas, and Florida.
His high school tape told the story of an extremely athletic kid with top-tier physicality and fundamentals. His man coverage and ball skills are among the best in his class. That said, scouts who watched him play in high school warned that he only displayed those traits in bursts, as opposed to on a consistent basis.
But there’s no denying what he’s capable of doing, and oftentimes, college is where kids who show flashes of certain desirable characteristics learn to make these characteristics habits, embed them into their muscle memories, and utilize them consistently.
Kimber will be the second major piece of the Gators’ 2022 defense to make the Georgia-to-Florida transfer move. Defensive end Brenton Cox did the same thing back in 2019.
