Gators nab ’16 DE Eric Mitchell from South Florida

By Adam Silverstein
February 18, 2015

The Florida Gators‘ attack on South Florida continued with a vengeance on Wednesday as the program gained commitments from a pair of 2016 prospects with defensive end Eric Mitchell (Miami, FL) becoming the second recruit to make a verbal pledge to the program.

Mitchell (6-foot-2, 223 pounds) committed to Florida four days after being offered by co-coordinator and linebackers coach Randy Shannon.

The Miami Central High School prospect became the eighth player from South Florida to commit to the Gators, two of which are 2016 prospects as linebacker Vosean Joseph (Miami, FL) announced his commitment just hours earlier. Mitchell was a former teammate of Joseph’s at Miami Norland Senior High School.


Mitchell is listed as a three-star prospect by Rivals but is not yet rated by most recruiting services. His only other listed offer is from Florida Atlantic.

Florida’s 2016 recruiting class now stands at three members with Mitchell joining Joseph and three-star wide receiver Rick Wells (Jacksonville, FL).

8 Comments

  1. g8ter27 says:

    Seems like we are making offers pretty quick to lower rated talent. Sure hope we have room for some big names in 12 months.

    • Michael Jones says:

      We’ll be fine, chicken little. These are tough kids down there hungry for an opportunity.

      Besides, these guys know what they’re doing. “Build it. . and they will come.”

      • 1974Gator says:

        My 2 cents: Tough or not, if you watch his highlights there weren’t many (not any) right OTs who even put hands on him. Saw one impressive bull rush play ending with a sack. If his HS competition was sub-par let’s hope he is coachable.

  2. Michael Jones says:

    Coach Shannon is killing it!!!

    Go Gators!!!!

  3. Fernzpat says:

    Ratings mean absolutely NOTHING at this point. Got to trust that the coaches know what they are doing at this point. Loucheiz Purifoy was a lightly recruited guy early on as well and had a great (if too short) career for us.

    • Buster says:

      I hate anecdotal evidence. It means nothing.

      You’re right. It is a little early to worry about stars, but the fact is the recruiting services get it right most of the time.
      5 star players are more likely to be great college players and make it to the NFL more than 4 stars and 4 stars more than 3 stars and so on.

      Stars do matter and we better start getting some more of them.

  4. DGATORFAN says:

    Stars matter some what but it’s way to early I’m just glad we are still building off the positive signing day we had two weeks ago. These kids are 3 stars in feb of 2015 they can easily be 4 stars when signing day comes feb.

  5. Ken (CA) says:

    I think it is partially right that stars don’t mean much at this point, but it is also a clear indicator of where they have developed. There are certainly 2-3 * that excel anecdotally, but the fast majority of them are backups or never see the field in a major level program. There are also 4 and 5 star players that are busts, but you are far more likely to have success because they are showing early talent and athleticism that has huge upper bound.

    that said, Stars are sometimes also affected by who is recruiting. You get UF on these kids and then other schools take a look and sudden bama, FSU, others start also tossing offers their way, you will see stars rise, they are subjective and the schools recruiting players plays an effect as well.

    You also might consider why they are being offered. Could be best friend of a 4 or 5 star in the program giving us better chance to bring them in, could just be promise to a coach to keep a pipeline open for other communication. Many reasons we never know about as to why someone got an offer on top of the contribution they may make.

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