Florida looks to be less than a month away from adding its third commitment of the 2014 recruiting cycle.
As first reported by The Sun, cornerback Duke Dawson (Cross City, Fla./Dixie County) will announce his college choice on Jan. 8 at his high school.
“I’m going to have a ceremony in our auditorium after school,” he said.
His finalists are UF and FSU, but the Gators have been his leader for months. Florida was the first school to offer Dawson following his performance at the June 12th camp session. The Seminoles offered three days later at their camp.
But since then, the 5-foot-11, 184-pounder has been to Gainesville six times and Tallahassee just once (for the UF-FSU game). His most recent visit to Florida was this past weekend, two days after coach Will Muschamp and defensive backs coach Travais Robinson attended his basketball game.
“I came down Saturday and left Sunday,” Dawson said. “I didn’t go the banquet, but I got to watch practice and enjoyed that. I like the way coach Muschamp and coach T-Rob work with secondary. I met with them afterward and then hung out with the players and commits that night. So it was a good visit.”
Dawson said the Gators lead heading into his decision because he feels comfortable at UF and the coaches have recruited him harder than any other staff.
“They’ve put in more effort than everybody else in my recruitment and I can tell they really want me,” Dawson said. “Plus I like the school and I could see myself going there for the next four years.”
Dawson is rated a four-star prospect by Rivals.com and should be one of the top cornerbacks in the state when positional rankings are released.
Pretty much Mr. Dawson is all GATOR! Keep em coming, Zach. Appreciate your work,man.
And now we have Robinson! Boom!
Will Florida have enough space with all these recuits committing. Must be losing all the jrs. to the NFL and Muschamp must know about several transfers and dismissals already. Gators need one more interior defensive lineman for sure.
This kid will be in the 2014 – he won’t count in the upcoming class, unless he enroll s in January 2014 and we have space to add him to the 2013 class, which it doesn’t look like that will be the case, unless we have more transfers than expected.
Robinson looked at LT official as a commitment threat and pulled the trigger to not get left out. Duke going to be in the fold soon looks like as well as Greir I hope. Gator Future is looking better all the time. Now all we have to do is hold on to our coaches.
Zach, do you think the UF coaching staff goes after TE Durham Smythe now that he has decommitted from UT?
Hey Zach before everyone sings the praise of this kid, theres some coaches in that area who have a much lower opinion of him. Not his athletic ability, but his toughness
Are you a troll Paul? Why do you come on here bad mouthing a kid that all the services seem to be pretty high on? If Muschamp has offered this kid, I’m betting that he’s pretty tough. After the issues he had with the team last year (calling them soft), I doubt he’s going to be bringing in kids that he doesn’t believe are tough. I’d love to see this kid in the orange and blue! GO GATORS!
His toughness isn’t a question. He plays all 4 downs on both sides of the football.
-Rob
Friend of the Dawson family!