Florida Football continues to play the long game in the transfer portal as Billy Napier and crew are working on deciding which wide receiver they want to take in the portal.
From the rumblings, though, they appear to be getting closer to at least one candidate to catch passes from DJ Lagway in 2025.
Florida Football: Mystery box
J.Michael Sturdivant was on campus last weekend and is slated to visit Georgia this weekend.
The metrics for the wide receiver from UCLA paint a complicated picture as to whether or not he is a better answer to grab from the portal compared to some of the other players the Gators either passed on or couldn't land.
Sturdivant was a top 200 overall player coming out of high school and signed with Cal. In 2022, he had a breakout season with 65 catches for 755 yards and seven touchdowns.
He then transferred to UCLA, where he dipped down to 36 catches but still managed 597 yards for an impressive 16.6 yards per catch. He was 50th in yards per catch in 2023 among the 286 wide receivers with at least 50 targets.
But there was another stat from the 2023 season that painted a word of caution for Sturdivant. His yards per route run was 1.50 in 2023, 221st out of those same 286 receivers.
In other words, Sturdivant seldom caught the ball relative to the number of times he was sent out on a route. His reception rate of 51.4% (36 catches off 70 targets) was 267th of that same group.
This year, his production dipped even further to 22 catches for 315 yards. Of the 329 wide receivers with at least 40 targets, Sturdivant was 311th in yards per route run.
Again, for as many times as he was sent out on a passing play, his production was low.
Elijhah Badger, by comparison, was 7th best in the country in this metric, and Chimere Dike was 77th.
The counter-argument is that DJ Lagway is a much better QB than Ethan Garbers. The latter was 84th this season in completions over 20 yards. Plus, we were not sold on Dike last season coming to Gainesville, and he wound up having a nice season.
In addition, Sturdivant is listed at 6'3" and would fill the role of the taller wide receiver that Florida's roster will need to complement guys like Eugene Wilson, Tank Hawkins, or incoming freshman Vernell Brown.
Keith Niebuhr of Gators Online does like the chances of Sturdivant landing in Gainesville, but only time will tell.