Back in the day, a coach could hand-pick his recruits and know they weren’t going anywhere for four or five years. With the realities of the transfer portal and NIL, modern-day roster building is far more complex than it used to. This is where Florida went out and hired former Jacksonville Jaguars GM Dave Caldwell to be their GM moving forward.
Caldwell was on 1010XL in Jacksonville on Monday, and he highlighted one of the very real realities that Florida fans need to accept when it comes to building a modern roster in college football.
Florida grapples with how to build a roster in the modern era
Caldwell spoke on the realities of NIL and the realities that teams can no longer stack talent in the same manner as they used to back in the day:
“You have to prioritize, and there are times when you have to walk away and say, ‘Hey, this is what we can offer you, understand that this school may offer you that.’
And we just have to walk away, and we talk about this with our coaches all the time. You can have this player, but we can't if we pay this player this. We can't get these two other players, so would you rather have these?
These are the types of conversations we have with our coaching staff. They all have representation. I would say probably 80 percent of them, there's a lot of carryover from NFL agents that are now dealing in NIL.”
Former Jaguar GM and current Florida Gator GM Dave Caldwell joins the Drill | 04-20-26 https://t.co/aBt4D40QiD
— 1010 XL / 92.5 FM (@1010XL) April 20, 2026
Show me the money
Like it or not, Florida does not have unlimited funds. Some would debate where exactly Florida ranks among the big dogs in the sport in terms of NIL funding, but even if they were on top, these conversations would still happen.
Caldwell briefly touched on Florida using an NFL model, but didn’t expand too much into their philosophy. One of the things we argued for this offseason was that it made more sense to try and lock up the strongest roster of 45-50 dudes possible, even if it meant roster spots 51-105 were going to suffer. The reality is that for a single season, a team is only really going to use 40-50 guys. Indiana, for example, had only 37 players who took at least 100 snaps last year.
It’s worth keeping in mind when Jon Sumrall muses about the overall depth of Florida because the way Caldwell phrases it, it seems like depth is hard to come by in 2026 now that real dollar signs are involved. Paying Dallas Wilson, Jadan Baugh, and Vernell Brown III means someone else can’t get paid.
We’ll see how Florida’s initial attempt at roster construction with Sumrall and Caldwell pans out when Florida takes the field for real in September.
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