Photo credit: Joseph Maiorana, USA Today
Florida lost a prospective member of its QB room when Nick Evers decommitted, but made up for that loss today with the addition of Jack Miller.
Miller, who signed with Ohio State out of high school as a member of the Buckeyes’ 2020 recruiting class, entered the transfer portal almost a month ago with freshman QB CJ Stroud seemingly taking command of the Ohio State QB job with an excellent season in 2021. Today, he pulled the trigger on his new destination, and will play for the Florida Gators.
The move completes Miller’s journey across the country, and gives new head coach Billy Napier some much-needed depth at the QB position. Originally from Arizona, Jack Miller was tabbed as the 13th best pro-style quarterback in the 2020 recruiting class. A consensus four-star prospect, Miller chose Ohio State over just about every other top program in the country, boasting an offer list that included Alabama, Auburn, FSU, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Oklahoma State, and Texas A&M.
You can watch his high school highlight tape here.
The tape shows an overall smart quarterback. He’s not the fastest QB around, but there’s a baseline ability to escape the pocket and take off for respectable gains if the pocket collapses. The arm strength is very good, albeit not elite. Miller does show an ability to understand the different throws that are needed at different times, lobbing rainbows when his receiver has a step vertically and firing bullets into fast-closing windows over the middle. And he also shows an ability to scan the field and go through his progressions, something that was lacking this year (without naming names).
At first glance, the addition of Jack Miller feels strictly like a depth move. Anthony Richardson seems like a lock for the Gators’ QB1 role moving forward once he recovers from surgery. And we all knew Napier had to add some numbers to his QB room after Nick Evers departed. But depth is not something to be discounted.
Aside from 2020, the last season in which Florida was not forced to go to its backup QB due to either injury or on-field struggles was 2008. History says that it’s never a bad idea to build depth at quarterback, and not just from a body count standpoint, but in terms of quality, too. So this is a solid pickup for Napier and his staff.
The only noticeable knock against Miller was an off-field mistake he made last month, which may have played a part in his entrance to the transfer portal. He was arrested in November for driving a vehicle while impaired. While objectively dumb and selfish, that’s typically not a mistake that college kids will make twice. Here’s hoping he’s learned from that incident and will make nothing but positive contributions to the program moving forward.
