Arkansas OT Devon Manuel commits to Florida Gators
A towering presence along the offensive line is staying in the SEC following an official visit to Florida.
Devon Manuel, an Arkansas transfer who stands nearly 6-foot-9, 300 pounds, just committed to Billy Napier and the Gators. He arrived in Gainesville on Wednesday and finished his visit on Friday afternoon.
Now, the native of Arnaudville, Louisiana is teamed up with the SEC East program.
A former 3-star prospect in the 2021 class, Manuel appeared in nine games this past season, having started in four of them. He redshirted as a freshman and appeared in one game during the 2022 season.
The Gators return both starting offensive tackles in Austin Barber and Damieon George, but Manuel should challenge George at right tackle. If not, he definitely provides depth at a position needing more talent and experience.
Manuel, a redshirt sophomore, was the No. 1,049 overall recruit in the 2021 class. That is according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.
Additional schools that offered Manuel in the portal include USC, Kentucky, Colorado, Missouri and Oklahoma State.
Transfer portal background information
The NCAA Transfer Portal is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.
The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.
Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.
The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.
A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.
He currently does not have an On3 NIL Valuation publicly listed. The On3 NIL Valuation is the industry’s leading index that sets high school and college athletes’ projected annual value (PAV). The NIL valuation does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date. It rather signifies an athlete’s value at a certain moment in time.
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