ORLANDO, Fla. — There was a time when DJ Lagway and Xavier Filsaime believed in Billy Napier’s vision for the University of Florida.
Now, one of the things Lagway said he’s looking forward to most about suiting up for the Gators is getting the opportunity to bury his shoulder into Filsaime’s chest.
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“I can’t wait to meet him in the hole,” Lagway said last month before he, Filsaime and a few other current and former Gators recruits played in the Under Armour All-America Game in Orlando.
Don’t confuse Lagway’s candor for serious disdain.
The 2023 Gatorade National Player of the Year and star quarterback is still close to Filsaime, a fellow Texan and five-star cornerback who flipped from Florida and signed with Steve Sarkisian’s in-state Longhorns.
Still, Lagway and a few other baby Gators did not hide the fact they were not pleased with what happened to Florida’s roster and recruiting class — once ranked No. 3 nationally — over the past few months.
It started when Jamonta Waller, a top-100 edge rusher from Mississippi, flipped from Florida to Auburn on Nov. 11. A day later, Louisiana four-star cornerback Wardell Mack dropped the Gators and joined Texas’ class. Three days after that, four-star defensive lineman Nasir Johnson switched from Florida to the home-state Georgia Bulldogs.
In all, eight blue-chip prospects — including four ranked among the top 100 in the 247Sports Composite — decommitted from the Gators since the start of the 2023 season. Texas A&M, which underwent a coaching change, is the only program to lose more pledges and still sign a top-25 class in the 2024 cycle.
| School | Decommits | 5-stars | Top-100 | Blue-chips |
|---|---|---|---|---|
11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
10 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
10 | 2 | 3 | 8 | |
9 | 0 | 0 | 2 | |
8 | 1 | 4 | 8 | |
8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
8 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
7 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
*Includes Class of 2024 signees who have since transferred due to a coaching change.
The defections from the roster were just as damaging.
Sophomore running back Trevor Etienne, who averaged 5.8 yards per carry, bolted for rival Georgia. Princely Umanmielen, a second-team All-SEC edge rusher, left for Ole Miss. Starting left guard Richie Leonard IV transferred to rival Florida State. Scooby Williams and Jaydon Hill — the team’s third- and fourth-leading tacklers — followed linebackers coach Jay Bateman to Texas A&M.
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Lagway acknowledged having a few second thoughts late in the process but said he never came close to straying — despite strong efforts from USC and Texas A&M — because he believes he can be the difference-maker at Florida.
The Gators return quarterback Graham Mertz, a sixth-year senior, but Lagway has been told he’ll have packages in every game as a true freshman to help his development.
“I believe in myself,” Lagway said. “If (Napier’s) job is on the line, I feel like I’m the guy who can go in there and get the job done. My cousins had won a total of five games in their high school careers (at Willis High) before I got there. I never shied away from competition. IMG, Mater Dei tried to get me to leave and go there. But I never ran away from the competition and the challenge. Loyalty is important to me.”
Five top-100 recruits ended up signing with Florida, which has the No. 15 class heading into the February signing day. Lagway and linebacker Myles Graham, the son of former Gators and NFL running back Earnest Graham, committed to the program when they were high school juniors. Both were among 16 freshmen who started classes in Gainesville earlier this month. Three more will join them this summer, including four-star linebacker Aaron Chiles and tight end Amir Jackson, a pair of top-100 recruits.
Graham said he knew early on he was going to sign with Florida no matter what. He committed to the Gators in August 2022 before Napier coached his first game with the program. He then moved from Atlanta’s Woodward Academy to Gainesville (Fla.) Buchholz before his senior year so he could graduate early.
Alabama attempted to flip Graham throughout the process, but he resisted the temptation to even take a visit.
“Obviously, we went through a lot of adversity, and it wore on me at times, but my heart was always at the University of Florida,” he said. “The University of Florida is everything to me. I want to be a catalyst to help us get back to where it used to be. I think we have the right guys, right tools in place. We’re going to do it here very soon.”
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Graham was stunned and saddened when Bateman — who was set to be his position coach — left for Texas A&M right after the early signing period. But he chalked it up to the business of college football.
“If you leave, you weren’t really a Gator at heart,” Graham said. “If you’re not a Gator, you’re Gator bait.”
Not everyone, though, could see past the Gators’ on-field struggles and coaching changes. Filsaime committed to Florida in April 2023 during an unofficial visit. He stayed publicly committed until two days before the early signing period but first started to reconsider his decision when the Gators ended their season on a losing skid and some of the team’s best players entered the transfer portal. Filsaime said what concerned him was “the stability of the program.”
“For me, it started after they fired (defensive backs coach Corey) Raymond right after I was there for the Florida State game,” Filsaime said. “I wanted to go to Florida badly. I was going to wait it out, see who they brought in. They brought in coach (Will) Harris. He’s a really good coach. But there was just something telling me not to go there. You can’t fight your feelings. Trust me, it was hard.”
Filsaime said he called Lagway, Graham and a few other Florida commitments before he went public with his decision.
“I’ve still got a good relationship with those guys,” Filsaime said. “I still got love for them guys over there. I wish them the best.”
Filsaime said NIL “never played a factor” in his decision to switch schools.
“If that was the case, I wouldn’t have gone to Texas,” he said. “There were other schools offering crazy things. You can’t buy me. It sounds crazy and like I got bought because Texas was my last offer. But that’s not the case.”
Filsaime said watching Texas up close as it prepared for a College Football Playoff appearance was different from what he saw from the Gators down the stretch of the regular season. He didn’t see enough “buy-in” from Florida’s players.
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“I pay attention to all those little details — the way meetings are run, the way players respond to coaches,” he said. “It just shows how much respect the players have for the coaches and how much impact the coaches have on the players.”
Linebacker Adarius Hayes, a top-100 recruit from Largo, Fla., flipped to Miami on the first day of the early signing period. He grew up a Gators fan and committed to Florida in January 2023. Hayes said he didn’t decide he was flipping until after his official visit to Coral Gables on Dec. 15. He said Miami’s coaches convinced him he could be the next Ray Lewis.
“It changed my mind big time,” Hayes said.
Hayes, though, said Florida’s season-ending loss to Florida State was sort of the beginning of the end for him and other Gators commitments. He told Bateman he was decommitting the day before he signed with Miami.
“It was kind of sad, but at the same time, I had to do what was best for me and best for my future,” Hayes said. “They tried to keep me, fight for me. But I told them this was what I wanted.”
Since the end of the early signing period, Florida has added two more blue-chip prospects to its incoming class: four-star defensive lineman D’antre Robinson (Texas signee) and four-star cornerback Jameer Grimsley (Alabama signee). Robinson was let out of his national letter of intent, and Grimsley — who is technically a transfer — was free to find a new school after Nick Saban retired.
Napier, meanwhile, signed nine other transfers. Among them were ex-Washington starting safety Asa Turner and Wisconsin’s 2022 leading receiver, Chimere Dike.
Florida’s schedule — as usual — is a doozy. It includes a visit from in-state rival Miami (and Hayes) on Aug. 31 and a Nov. 9 trip to new SEC rival Texas, where Filsaime is already enrolled.
There is considerable pressure on Napier, who is 11-14 overall and 6-10 in the SEC, to show marked improvement in Year 3.
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“We just need to trust in him, trust the process,” Graham said. “Nothing is going to happen overnight. We obviously want to win games, but a lot of programs turn it around after the second year. Hopefully, we’re going to be one of those programs, have a winning season — win eight or nine games — and do our thing.”
(Top photo: David Rosenblum / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)