Florida Football Recruiting: Review of the film from Jerrae Hawkins

We chronicled last month the pursuit of Jerrae Hawkins from Florida football. The Gators are in the final six for the four-star receiver out of West Virginia that is currently training at IMG Academy.

If you know anything about Hawkins, you know he is one of the fastest prospects in the nation. But how does that speed translate to the field?

Florida Football: Need for speed

Hawkins is listed at 5’9″ and 165 pounds. But is lack of size is more than compensated for by his pure speed. He has a verified track speed with a personal best in the 100-meter dash of 10.37 seconds, which he ran at the Texas Relays this season.

He currently has the fourth fastest time in all of Florida and could legit say screw it to football and be a sub-10 by the end of college if he focused solely on track.

On the field though, his speed is immediate on film. He doesn’t necessarily make catches with regularity that one would say are of high difficulty, but he is often wide open because no one else has the speed to keep up with him.

It’s not just straight-line speed that Hawkins can burn guys one. His stop-and-start ability is also top-notch, and when he catches in space, he is close to impossible to bring down.

The pursuit of Hawkins will be an interesting one to follow. He is ranked overall 182nd in the national composite, and while 247 has him just outside the top 100 at 103rd, On3 and Rivals have him outside the top 300.

And we know Florida and Billy Napier have a number of guys they are looking at, including Mario Craver and TJ Moore. This doesn’t include DJ Lagway trying his hardest to flip Jeremiah Smith from Ohio State and convince Joshisa Trader to choose the Gators over the Hurricanes.

But with some other receivers like Nitro Tuggle and Chance Robinson off the board, there shouldn’t be many complaints if Hawkins lands in Gainesville.

Hawkins took an unofficial visit to Penn State over the weekend but is slated for an official visit to Florida in June.