How Florida Gators, Billy Napier built a top-5 transfer portal class
TAMPA — Not much has changed with the Florida Gators’ approach to the spring transfer portal period.
Just the results.
That’s evident by the three blue-chip transfers Billy Napier has added this month: USC offensive lineman Jason Zandamela, Arizona State receiver Elijhah Badger and the former No. 1 cornerback recruit in the country, Colorado’s Cormani McClain. They’ve propelled the Gators’ transfer class to fifth in the country — two spots ahead of rival Florida State, according to 247Sports.
It’s a huge shift from last May, when the Gators were left behind with an approach that Napier considered methodical and fans criticized as slow. UF failed to host a transfer on an official visit during the spring period’s opening weeks and only landed a backup safety (R.J. Moten) and a Florida International offensive lineman who started twice (Lyndell Hudson).
But Napier refused to speed up his evaluation process; the risk of error was too high.
So what changed between then and now? Time.
“When we first got to Florida, the pool of players that were available in the portal we didn’t really have a history with or relationships with, right?” Napier said Monday before a stop at The Westshore Grand on his Gators Caravan tour. “We hadn’t evaluated that pool of players.”
Now they have. That’s a product of Napier and his staff being in their second full offseason. They’ve had enough time to study everything about that pool of players, from talent and medical history to academics and fit.
There wasn’t much work left to do when Zandamela entered the portal in April because the Gators already recruited him in the 2024 class out of Clearwater Academy International. Round 2 of his recruitment was a matter of needs aligning. Napier compared him to Grayson Howard, a Jacksonville native who initially signed with South Carolina before moving to UF.
“A guy that maybe you were close on (the first time) that wanted to come back to the state of Florida,” Napier said.
McClain was a similar situation. The five-star 2023 prospect was expected to join Florida out of Lakeland High but committed to Miami, then flipped to Deion Sanders’ Buffaloes. Napier can’t comment on McClain because his addition is not yet official, but he and his staff obviously knew enough about him from the first recruiting process to determine he deserved a shot — despite Sanders’ less-than-flattering remarks about McClain’s work ethic.
Badger is slightly different; this staff wasn’t at Florida when he was coming out of high school. But he wasn’t a stranger, either. Napier is a former Sun Devils assistant, and the Gators’ top receiver last year (first-round pick Ricky Pearsall) spent two seasons with Badger at Arizona State. Those ties helped Badger and the Gators vet each other quickly, sending 142 career catches and more than 1,500 career yards across the country to a position group that’s talented but young.
“It gives us time to grow up some of the young players in the room and will certainly give (quarterback Graham) Mertz an additional weapon for his final year,” Napier said.
Ideally, Napier said, Florida wouldn’t need to do much business during the spring transfer window. He’d rather shop in the winter period when the talent pool is deeper. He likened the spring to NFL free agency, presumably because limited supply and frenzied demand drive up the name, image and likeness market for top talent.
But he was also glad to make some exceptions this month with three known commodities that filled roster needs.
“Ultimately,” Napier said, “I think we’ve made the most of our opportunities.”
All he needed was time.
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