Kendall Guervil was a key recruiting win for the Florida Gators back in July. Billy Napier and crew had to beat out Texas to land the four-star defensive lineman out of Fort Myers and he was part of the wave of commits Florida landed this summer.
Guervil seemed set up for a massive senior year of high school before coming to Gainesville, but now a knee injury is going to impact his timeline once he does arrive.
Kendall Guervil out for the season
The Palm Beach Post and Gators Online have both reported that Guervil tore his ACL and his meniscus during his week one game to start his senior season of high school, and he will be getting surgery.
It's a setback for a player we here at Hail Florida Hail were high on even before he committed to the Gators.
He is a consensus four-star, with 247 rating him the highest at 81st overall. Listed at 6'4" and 315 pounds, this is what we said of Guervil when reviewing his junior year film:
"On film, it's easy to see why Guervil is rated as high as he is. He can play inside or outside, and either way, he seldom gets stopped. Teams try to double-team him, and that doesn't seem to work either.
His first step burst would need to be a touch better if he was trying to crack the top 50 nationally, but he is going to walk onto someone's campus next year with the size to be immediately plugged into a Power Four defensive line and not look out of place."
Given the lack of depth at defensive tackle heading into 2025, Florida is going to be hoping for a speedy recovery from Guervil, as there is a very real pathway for him to get meaningful snaps with Florida in 2026.
Florida has one other defensive tackle committed for the class of 2026, JaReylan McCoy out of Mississippi.