Florida had a busy offseason in the transfer portal. With 30+ players departing Gainesville via the portal, new head coach Jon Sumrall had a ton of slots to fill for the 2026 roster. One of the groups that saw a massive wave of transfer leave was at wide receiver, and even though the Gators kept Vernell Brown III and Dallas Wilson, they were still in need of another productive guy for the group.
Seemingly overnight, Florida had one of the bigger names from the transfer portal fall into their lap.
Jon Sumrall highlights the process to land Eric Singleton
When the Gators landed Eric Singleton out of the transfer portal from Auburn, it morphed Florida’s wide receiver room into one of the more fearsome units in the SEC. Florida had previously seen Eugene Wilson III, Aidan Mizell, and Tank Hawkins all depart, so landing Singleton helped ease those losses.
During his press conference on Wednesday, Sumrall highlighted the process that led Singleton to Gainesville:
"So Eric's first offer in high school was from Troy University, and I was the head football coach. Then he hit some track times that spring that were like electric in the 100, and his recruitment picked up, and he ended up going to Georgia Tech. He played for Trent McKnight as his position coach and Buster (Faulkner) as the coordinator. And then he left there and transferred to Auburn, where he played, and Marcus Davis was his position coach.
So we had the luxury of having a lot of people on staff who already knew him. I knew him from high school. Buster and Trent knew him from Georgia Tech, and Marcus knew him from Auburn.
Early in the process, we knew we wanted to retain VB3 and Dallas (Wilson), those were priorities for us. We wanted to maybe try to add one more potential big play threat on the perimeter, along with retaining the other guys outside of VB3 and Dallas. But we felt like let's go get another guy that maybe has top-end juice.
And so he declared for the draft, and we were like, well, that's not happening. And then when we got some rumblings back from some people, He had been invited to the Senior Bowl, Drew Fabianich, who runs the Senior Bowl, is a friend of a lot of ours on staff. And Drew and I communicated. He's like, hey, Eric may go back to college. Just want to give you a heads up. And when I heard that, I was like, if he does go back to college, you need to be ready.
And so he decided to return, entered the portal, came down to us, and a couple of other schools. I think familiarity helped. Anytime you can eliminate some of the variables or unknowns, it makes the decision-making process easier. I think his familiarity with the staff helped. And so that was huge.
And then what does he add? I think top-end speed. I mean, he's an Olympic-fast type runner. Like, he can run, run. I think we're working on some change direction stuff with him. I think it's going to help him elevate his game. But he can take the top off of coverage. And he's a guy that you get the ball in his hands and see, can a guy make a tackle in space versus him? It's hard.”
Eric Singleton is the third man
When Singleton signed with the Gators, we highlighted how he has the ability to be a matchup nightmare for opponents in 2026. Singleton had two straight years of 700+ yards at Georgia Tech and still posted over 500 yards this past season at Auburn.
Singleton did run track for Georgia Tech and posted a personal best in the 100-meter dash of 10.32 seconds. He also placed 5th in the 100-meter dash at the 2024 ACC track and field championships.
Combine his speed with the speed of Brown III and the length of Wilson, and it is going to be quite the challenge for opposing secondaries to find a way to match up this season against Florida.