Florida Football: Gators courting former Graham Mertz teammate in portal

When Florida football went out last year and grabbed Graham Mertz out of the transfer portal, many fans, including us at Hail Florida Hail, questioned the move. It turns out the move worked out all right for Billy Napier.

It is with that in mind that Napier is once again looking to the Wisconsin Badgers to try and fill a position of need for 2024.

Florida Football: Badger Badger Badger Badger...

Chimere Dike is a wide receiver listed at 6'1\" and 200 pounds. Coming out of high school, 247 Sports had him as a four-star prospect, while ESPN and Rivals had him as a three-star.

He committed to Wisconsin as part of the class of 2020 and was a one or two catch a game kind of player in 2020 and 2021. His most notable season came in 2022, when he caught 44 passes for 653 yards. His career-best game came again at Northwestern that season when he caught 10 passes for 185 yards and three touchdowns.

The quarterback that was slinging the rock to Dike that day was none other than Mertz.

Florida football is now in pursuit of Dike, and he is part of a handful of players visiting campus this weekend out of the transfer portal.

With Mertz gone from Wisconsin, Dike regressed back to his 2021 production. This season he only had 19 catches for 328 yards.

His average depth of target (how far down the field he was for each attempt to pass toward him) was 14.4 yards this season, but with Mertz, in 2022, it was 11.5 yards. By comparison, Ricky Pearsall had an ADOT this season of 11.1 yards.

It is an indication that Florida isn't going after the flashiest receiver in the portal, at least as of now. We highlighted some of the more notable names in the portal earlier this week, and publically Florida has yet to be linked to any of them.