Florida Football Recruiting: Will Hardley Gilmore follow Austin Simmons?

As the headliner of the class of 2025, QB Austin Simmons will have a lot of sway with who comes to Florida football. One of his first targets might be one of his former high school teammates at Pahokee High School.

Because while Simmons is a top-level QB, he had a top-level wide receiver to throw it to last season.

Florida Football: Hardley breaks a sweat

Hardley Gilmore is listed at 6’1″ and 165 pounds on On3, and 6’2″ and 175 pounds on his Hudl. He plays both wide receiver and defensive back.

Typically, we here at Hail Florida Hail will first watch the film on a player before checking out his recruiting profile, and perhaps it’s the players he was matched up against, but he felt way lankier than even a player listed at 6’2″.

On defense, he uses his length extremely well to disrupt opposing receivers, and it felt the stronger of his two positions. He reads plays well, and is quick to break on the ball.

But the intriguing part for Florida football fans will be his work as a wide receiver. Catching passes from Simmons, Gilmore has a smooth stride that gallops away from defenses once the ball is in his mitts.

It obviously helps to have Simmons putting the ball in perfect locations, but Gilmore is solid, catching passes in traffic as needed, and wins more than his fair share of 50/50 balls.

One critique is that even with his length, he tends to let the ball come into his body rather than extend and catch out in front.

But his ceiling is high, and currently, all four major recruiting services have him in the top 150 nationally for the class of 2025, with Rivals ranking him the highest at 79th.

He visited Gainesville yesterday, and if Simmons has his way, Gilmore will be running out with him on Saturdays in The Swamp.