Florida Football: 4-star 2023 DL names Gators in top 5

4-star 2023 DL Kelby Collins names Florida Gators in top 5

The Florida football program has been consistently trying to improve its 2023 recruitment class ever since new head coach Billy Napier took over.  With this, many recruits that the Gators have a high interest in have been listing them in their top teams recently, and many of the top prospects have had visits and offers from the Gators as well.  The most recent of these prospects to name UF in their top 5 is a defensive lineman from Gardendale HS, Kelby Collins.  Collins announced his top 5 yesterday via social media, which consists of Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Georgia, and South Carolina:

All of the teams he has in contention are very good talent-wise, with 4/5 of the teams in the SEC and Oklahoma residing in the Big-12.  Obviously, this will provide some competition to the recruitment process, with Alabama being Collins’ home-state team.  While Florida has a lot of defensive linemen rostered, 1 has transferred to TE (Dante Zanders) and there are quite a few upperclassmen who could move on next year to the NFL, including standout DL Gervon Dexter.  This will leave the Gators with a need at defensive line for the foreseeable future when the 2023 NFL Draft comes around, so getting ahead of it with 2023 recruits is the best route to take.

In terms of what Kelby Collins brings to the field and why he is a highly recruited prospect, there is a lot to go over.  First off his size, at 6’5″ 280 pounds, he clearly is already prepared to make the jump to college ball in that aspect.  In terms of his rankings among other defensive linemen in the 2023 class, he is ranked 6th among DL according to 247Sports composite and is the 70th overall prospect regardless of position.  As of now, he lines up at multiple positions, but he seems to be best suited to play as a 3-tech based on his physicality and raw strength.  He has quick hands and a very quick first step, which makes him a scary combination of explosive and strong.

He is also productive statistically which is nice to see, as he accrued the following over his 3 years in high school:

• 21 total games played
• 138 total tackles (90 solo, 48 assisted)
• 15 sacks & 27 TFL
• 3 forced fumbles & 2 fumble recoveries

It is also worth noting that he only played 1 game in the 2020-2021 season, so these numbers could have been even more impressive with some more time to play.  Regardless, he has been absolutely phenomenal at the high school level, and if Florida football can be the team that he commits to, they could be significantly improving their defensive line unit for years to come.