Florida football recruiting: Gators land commitment from Fletcher Westphal

Florida football recruiting has been on a hot streak on the trail for a while now, getting as high as the No. 2 recruiting class in the country per On3.

Ohio State has since passed them for that second spot, but the Gators haven’t slowed down one bit.

Today, they added to a position of need in their ’24 recruiting class when they landed Fletcher Westphal, an OT out of Leesburg, Virginia.

And Westphal is a big-time addition to the already impressive Gators’ class.

https://twitter.com/KreweGraphix/status/1678431009900036096?s=20

Florida football recruiting: One of the biggest humans on earth

Westphal is pretty well equipped to be an offensive lineman in the SEC. Standing at 6’7”-295, you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody bigger than him on an opposing defensive line.

He’s ranked in the top 300 nationally according to On3’s Industry Rankings and is a top-20 offensive tackle in the 2024 cycle.

He’s also rated as a top-five player out of Virginia.

All that size he has isn’t just for show either. Fletcher is an absolute bully on the football field, and I’m surprised more guys don’t just give up when they see him lined up across from them.

Winning Westphal’s recruitment is big for Billy Napier and his staff for a couple of reasons.

First, Fletcher is the highest-rated OT in the Gators class by a wide margin. Before his commitment, Marcus Mascoll was UF’s best OT recruit with a national ranking of 637 and a positional ranking of 38.

As I said, Westphal is 259th in the country and 19th in his position.

Improving the OL class like this is a sign that Napier isn’t going to let this team have any holes and isn’t taking any breaks on the trail.

Second, the Gators came back from behind Clemson in Fletcher’s recruitment, another sign that the Gators aren’t that far behind some of the big dogs on the trail.

Hopefully, we don’t need to wait much longer for the next big commitment in Florida’s class.

This is pretty fun.