Gators Recruiting Talk: Opening week buzz, an injury update & more

With Game 1 of the 2025 season set for Saturday at The Swamp, the Florida Gators have 19 commitments and the No. 13 recruiting class in the Rivals team rankings. Fourteen of those players are 4-star prospects. What’s the latest in UF football recruiting? Blake Alderman, Corey Bender and Keith Niebuhr of Gators Online tackle a range of topics, provide the latest intel and offer analysis of UF in this edition Gators Recruiting Talk.

Here are today’s show topics:

—How important are game-day visits in this NIL era of recruiting? And which recruits probably do they matter most to right now? Also, what are the benefits of hosting a smaller group of recruits for Saturday’s UF-LIU game, as opposed to the larger number of prospects that will attend bigger UF games down the road?

—Blake and Corey provide the names of players expected at Saturday’s game. And they give some insight into a defensive lineman committed elsewhere that is worth tracking in Gainesville this weekend. It’s his first visit to UF as a recruit.

—The Gators Online crew visited three big-name recruits last week—quarterback Will Griffin, linebacker Malik Morris and EDGE Asharri Charles. Griffin and Morris are Florida commits; Charles is a Miami pledge. Griffin passed UF great Tim Tebow on the state of Florida’s career high school passing list in his game Friday night. We have the latest on these prospects.

—Blake provides a major injury update on a key 4-star Florida Gators commitment—defensive lineman Kendall Guervil. Unfortunately, this player likely will be lost for the season. Guervil is one of the most important members of the UF class.

—Blake and Corey name two recruits they want to watch play this season and go in depth as to why.