Florida football recruiting: Gators flip four-star safety Dylan Purter from LSU on National Signing Day

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Image Credit: UAA

A strong incoming recruiting class only got better for head coach Jon Sumrall on Thursday as four-star safety Dylan Purter (Tuskegee, AL), previously committed to LSU, flipped to the Florida Gators on National Signing Day. He marks the lone addition to the Gators’ Class of 2026.

Purter (6-foot-1, 165 pounds) is ranked as the 207th overall prospect in the 247Sports Composite, and he joins Florida at a position of need considering its inconsistencies across the secondary last season. He is now the sixth-highest rated player in the Gators’ class.

He had long been recruited by Sumrall while he was leading Tulane, and now that he upgraded to a Power Four program, the defensive back saw an opportunity to play for a familiar face.

The addition boosted the Gators to No. 15 in the 247Sports Composite team rankings, a more-than-satisfactory position for a transition class. In fact, it’s Florida highest-ranked such class since Will Muschamp took over for Urban Meyer (when one considers that Dan Mullen’s transition was filled with late commits that boosted the ranking but never actually played for UF).

The lone player UF lost during this period is four-star running back Carsyn Baker (Fairburn, GA), who decommitted last week and signed with Texas A&M on Thursday. He had been committed to the Gators since June.

NIL contracts and a seriously flawed college football schedule locked in more players than perhaps would have otherwise stayed in transition classes across the nation.

It is now up to Sumrall to prove to these players that they remain a fit with Florida while simultaneously attempting to recruit the active roster from entering the transfer portal and searching for veteran players to bolster the team in 2026.