Blue-chip safety names Gators among top 12 schools
Monday evening, four-star safety recruit CJ Heard updated his recruiting status by releasing a 12-team shortlist. The Gators were named as one of the teams who make the cut. Florida isn’t necessarily a finalist — being included among a dozen teams isn’t exactly a love letter — but it’s good to see the team’s trending in the right direction with a talented Georgia-based recruit.
Heard is ranked near the dividing line between three- and four-star prospects, with 247Sports placing him as the 245th ranked recruit and On3 pushing him to 315th. That means big-name programs see him as a developmental guy who can eventually fill a role, whereas small teams see him as one of the better players in the 2024 recruiting class they gave a shot at landing.
As a result, his offer list is as long as you’ll see outside of the top handful of players in any class. Teams from Grambling State to Georgia Tech to Michigan and everyone on the spectrum in between are all taking their shot.
Back in April, Heard told On3 that the teams recruiting him the hardest are Ole Miss, Florida State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Arkansas and Kentucky. The first two on that list, Ole Miss and Florida State, seem to be the leaders for the defensive back at this early stage of the 2024 recruiting cycle, as Heard also divulged to On3 that Lane Kiffin is one of his favorite coaches in college football and he grew up dreaming of playing for the ‘Noles.
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