Recruiting in the modern era can take a ton of wild twists and turns. With no commitment ever being final, prospects can flip and change their plans at the drop of a hat and catch everyone off guard.
That was certainly the case back in 2023 with Austin Simmons, who is now Missouri’s starting QB.
This Saturday will finally serve as a chance for a juxtaposition between Simmons and the program he was once committed to in Gainesville.
Austin Simmons and Florida finally get to face off
Simmons is off to a solid enough start for the Tigers in 2026. He has a 65% completion rate with 11 TDs and no interceptions. His connection to Florida forces a recall of one of the more wild recruiting situations in recent years.
Simmons committed to Florida in April of 2023 as a class of 2025 prospect. At the time, it seemed like the Gators were getting DJ Lagway for 2024 and then Simmons would come in 2025. We said back in March of 2023, when he first popped up on the radar for Florida, that:
“He can make all throws you want to see in a highlight package. His deep shots hit his receivers in stride as do his slant route throws. He also can hit the out route, something a certain former Florida football QB struggled with.
Simmons doesn’t have much wasted motion when he throws and when scanning the field he will flip his hips quickly when opting to throw to the other side of the field. The handful of times he does get pressure he stays poised and will climb the pocket as needed.”
Then in June there were rumblings that Simmons would reclassify from the class of 2025 to 2023. After some initial confusion, Simmons did, in fact, reclassify. He just happened to also flip to Ole Miss at the same time.
When he flipped, his father came out and said: “But the schedule is too tough, and they want DJ Lagway.”
That’s not something we would necessarily say out loud, but to each their own.
Simmons was in Oxford from 2023 through 2025 and was the starting QB for the Rebels to begin last year, but he suffered an ankle injury in week two and lost his spot to Trinidad Chambliss. Lane Kiffin left for LSU in the offseason, but Simmons didn’t follow. Instead, he wound up at Missouri.
The irony of the comments from the Simmons camp about Lagway blocking the way is that, had Simmons come to Gainesville in the class of 2023, there is a good chance he would have played. As 2023 played out, Graham Mertz got hurt, and instead of Max Brown coming in, it could have been Simmons.
The real question is if Simmons had come in 2023, would he have had the inside track to be the backup QB in 2024, which would have led to him being the starter by the end of the year?
In the end, we’ll never know.
What we do know is that Florida has to find a way to stop a QB that could have been a Gator in an alternative universe.
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