Florida football: Gators’ Princely Umanmielen getting some NFL Draft hype

Florida football, despite the low expectations for the team’s overall performance, has a good bit of NFL talent on its roster.

One guy that is starting to get a little more buzz as we get closer to the season is Princely Umanmielen, who’s entering his junior season with the Gators.

With Brenton Cox Jr. no longer a part of the defense, Princely will become the feature edge rusher for the Gators and has a lot to prove.

As somebody who really likes the way that he plays, I’m excited to see what he can do in the spotlight.

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In a recent piece by On3, “10 highly regarded NFL prospects on defense not being talked about enough“, Princely’s name came up.

As of right now, he’s being graded as a third-round pick, but I see him playing himself up into that second round if not all the way up to the top-32 picks.

In his sophomore season, he totaled 39 tackles, 9.5 TFL, 4.5 sacks, and two forced fumbles. That’s pretty solid production for being (for the first half of the year) the second-best EDGE on the team, and a member of a defense that overall wasn’t any good.

This season, with some new energy and high hopes with new DC Austin Armstrong, Umanmielen could easily take the next step.

UF coach Mike Peterson told On3 during the spring:

"“He’s a guy that can do a lot of things for you on defense…For a guy with that size, he’s able to drop into coverage. He can definitely rush the passer. We’ve been talking about showing everybody that he can also play the run. So he has all the tools.”"

With the emergence of guys like Shemar James and Justus Boone, all of the attention won’t be on Princely, which will allow him to work 1-on-1 and win a lot of reps.

Gator fans can expect a great year out of Umanmielen, and we’ll hear his name called early on in the 2024 Draft.