Florida Football Recruiting: Start the Austin Simmons hype train

Class of 2025 QB Austin Simmons received an offer yesterday from Billy Napier to join Florida football. By all accounts, he had a great visit and the Pahokee, FL native told Corey Bender of On3 that “I feel like this could possibly be home.”

If you are not familiar with the four-star QB, do yourself a favor and take a look because the hype train surrounding Simmons is just getting revved up and is ready to leave the station.

Florida Football: Just getting started

Simmons plays at Pahokee High School, located along Lake Okeechobee. Listed at 6’3″ and 180 pounds, he already has the height needed for the next level and just needs to keep adding muscle.

Simmons is mostly a pocket passer and only ran the ball 30 times for 92 yards in 2022. He shines with arm though, throwing for 3,161 yards, the 7th most yards in all of Florida and the 2nd most among sophomores.

He can make all throws you want to see in a highlight package. His deep shots hit his receivers in stride as do his slant route throws. He also can hit the out route, something a certain former Florida football QB struggled with.

Simmons doesn’t have much wasted motion when he throws and when scanning the field he will flip his hips quickly when opting to throw to the other side of the field. The handful of times he does get pressure he stays poised and will climb the pocket as needed.

Perhaps the one knock you could say about Simmons is the level of competition he plays against. Pahokee is in 1 Rural division in Florida, the smallest division in the state. The opposing defensive lineman he has to stare down aren’t exactly the most imposing and Simmons does have a clean pocket for a number of his throws.

But there is also something endearing about the grittiness of playing at Pahokee. One of the downsides to recruiting someone from IMG or a school like St. Thomas Aquinas is that the player is already used to playing on nice surfaces and having things like a nice locker room. It takes a lot more to impress them with your facilities.

Pahokee on the other hand has a field that was a complete mud pit by the end of its season.  There is a certain level of grit required to still play at a high level when the field is that poor. It could also be part of the reason why Simmons didn’t run all that often.

Simmons also plays baseball and hit .400 last season. It will be interesting to see if he stays at Pahokee or gets scooped up by a program like St. Thomas or IMG. He’ll be in Fort Lauderdale on March 26 for a Rivals Camp Series event.

Simmons has offers from FSU and Miami as well. As the top-rated 2025 QB in Florida, that list is only going to continue to grow.