Recruiting insiders divided on Florida’s shot at elite EDGE

Recruiting continues to be a roller coaster ride for the Florida Gators, and the pursuit of four-star EDGE KJ Ford is no different. For the past week, Florida was in a great position to land the top 100 overall prospect, helping ease the sting from missing out on a couple of other top EDGE prospects.

But now, as Ford gets ready to make his decision on Friday night, a "new" school has reentered the mix, and recruiting insiders are torn on where Ford is going to wind up.

KJ Ford to make commitment

On3 logged a flurry of predictions on Thursday as to where Ford was going to land. Initially, they logged multiple predictions that Ford was going to wind up with the Gators, which is where he had been trending to since last week.

But about three hours after those predictions were logged, Steve Wiltfong, Vice President of Recruiting for On3, came along and predicted that Ford was going to wind up at Alabama.

That raised eyebrows considering that Ford just recently dropped his final three, and Alabama wasn't on it. Ford did take an official visit to Alabama, but it was Florida, Texas A&M, and Ohio State who comprised his final three.

There is no getting around that Florida's class of 2026 will be in some trouble if they miss on Ford. After missing on Trenton Henderson and Jake Kreul, Ford was a perfectly fine backup plan who would have given the Gators a top-level EDGE in the class of 2026.

While Florida has 16 commits, they do not currently have an EDGE committed. If they miss out on Ford, they will need to consider a flip elsewhere, as 46 of the top 50 EDGEs have made verbal commitments, with Ford being one of the four not committed, and Florida isn't in the running for the other three.