Florida Gators receive National Letter of Intent from five-star DE CeCe Jefferson

By Adam Silverstein
February 9, 2015

Five days after announcing his verbal commitment to the Florida Gators on National Signing Day, five-star defensive end CeCe Jefferson (Glen Saint Mary, FL) officially became part of Florida’s 2015 recruiting class by faxing his National Letter of Intent to the Gators.

Jefferson submitted his letter, which was signed live on national television last Wednesday, on Monday, finally ending speculation about his commitment status. The Gators subsequently confirmed receipt and

Though he never publicly wavered in his pledge to Florida, Jefferson was not able to send the letter last Thursday, as coaches expected. Various inconsistent explanations were offered by Jefferson’s father, who was reported to be refusing to sign the letter and even said so publicly only to backtrack and put the onus on his son.

Jefferson (6-foot-2, 275 pounds), the No. 7 overall player and No. 2 defensive end in the 247Sports Composite rankings for 2015, ended a long recruitment when he chose UF over Auburn and Ole Miss last Wednesday.

Head coach Jim McElwain, defensive coordinator Geoff Collins and defensive line coach Terrell Williams led Jefferson’s recruitment only for Williams to leave the Gators the day after National Signing Day. McElwain replaced Williams with Chris Rumph, who previously recruited Jefferson at Alabama and with Texas this past season.

Jefferson wrote on Twitter over the weekend that his father and Collins had a long phone conversation. He also bumped into the coordinator at Florida’s basketball game against Kentucky on Saturday.

“Today is the day that I officially become a Florida Gator,” he wrote Monday on his Twitter account. “Sorry for the wait #GatorNation!”

A dominant force for Baker County High School, he was selected to the 2015 U.S. Army All-American Bowl after recording 17 sacks and 24 tackles for loss as a senior.

Jefferson was the second five-star prospect to commit to the Gators on National Signing Day, boosting a signing class that began the week ranked No. 66 in the country and finished at No. 21.
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22 Comments

  1. G8rman95 says:

    Welcome to the GatorNation Mr. Jefferson!!!

  2. betamath says:

    Finally!! Thanks for brilliantly covering this year’s recruiting circus, Adam. Keep up the excellent work!

  3. Gatoralum88 says:

    As Shakespeare once said “All’s well that ends well”. Welcome aboard Cece! Mac did a great job closing out a solid class. I can’t wait to see him & his staff mold this team into a contender. From what I’ve seen in clips of Mac’s time at CSU, his coaching style (encouragement rather than yelling) should be a refreshing change for the players. Also, considering former CSU QB Garrett Grayson was a 2* prospect out of HS & now the 6th best NFL draft QB prospect, I’m not too worried about Mac’s ability to develop either Harris or Grier. Go Gators!

  4. Dave K says:

    Glad we got him! SO DISAPPOINTED TODAY WHEN I OPEN A STORY AND GET THE PICK YOUR POISON MARKETING CRAP. I quit reading the Gainesville Sun Sports section because of that. Now, my favorite Gator site has this stuff. It’s just a sneaky way for Google to collect facts about the readers personal preferences…blended togather by Google so they will know what ads to put on your screen. VERY DISAPPOINTING…don’t know if I’ll hang around anymore. 🙁

    • Dave- It was only for the National Signing Day-week stories. This is a completely free website. Those that contribute to the website will have those surveys blocked on the rare occasions they show up in the future.

    • Ken (CA) says:

      you realize there is a “skip this survey” option right below the choices? I never answer the surveys, for the reasons you give. Google has too much info on me already, I don’t need to help their marketing, so I just choose the skip this survey option then read the story

    • Matt says:

      You’re not under oath, Dave. I don’t ever comment on the insignificancies but I’ve seen quite a few comments directed at it. The extra click it requires to read a well put together article from an informed source for no cost bares the question; What else do you want? Pay the man, click the survey or buy a tape and take a journalism class. Google already knows what day of the week you wash your undies, anyway.

      Adam, thanks for everything you put into this site. When funds allow, I too plan on contributing.

      • Thanks, but I do empathize with the annoyance. The point of the surveys is to capture the one-time visitors not to annoy the repeat customers. But on the rare occasions the surveys are placed in stories in the future, those that contribute should not see them if I can get it coded correctly. It will be just another added benefit. 95% of stories on this site have never seen a survey and that will continue. It’s just been a run, that’s what happens when 14 kids commit in 11 days.

    • Sammage says:

      It costs money to run a website and publish a paper. Both deserve to get paid for their efforts…they don’t get any cut of your internet access fees. I love that Adam runs a free site since I never got my monies worth from the paid Gator fan sites (don’t need the kind of stuff they have on there) but if he did go to a sub model and it was reasonably priced I’d pay because I know his time is worth something.

      Dave, I’m sure you don’t think that paying someone for their work (and researching and writing accurate articles like Adam does certainly classifies as work) is a wrong. So why are you so upset by an ad? You wouldn’t expect to walk up to a news stand and take a paper for free so you could read the sports section would you?

      • I don’t think Dave is upset by an ad but rather the particular type of ad – the survey. And his opinion / comment was valid, so while I appreciate everyone’s kind words about the site, he wasn’t complaining so much as stating why he didn’t like them. That being said, he also contributed to the site today, so give him a break. 🙂

  5. Ken (CA) says:

    Coach Mac has still got his work cut out for him next season as well. As many kids as were uncommitted on NSD this year, next year seems exactly the opposite where most of the top kids have actually already committed somewhere.

    He has proven he can sell UF to already committed kids, but depending on who he targets, especially at the QB spot, he looks to have another challenging recruiting year before he get a full year of work in on the trail.

  6. Kurt says:

    Coach Mac referred to some other potential surprises at his news conference last week. Are we expecting anyone? How about the 4 star Georgia LB, Roquan Smith, who was supposed to go to UCLA until he heard their Def Coordinator just left to coach LBs for the Falcons under Dan Quinn?

  7. Mario says:

    Mazel Tov!!

  8. Suedawgue says:

    I would like some information, please.

    Your site is the best there is, so keep it up.
    Thanks, a Gator in West Texas.

  9. Suedawgue says:

    Got it….Thanks

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