Looking ahead to the 2026-27 season, nearly half of the Florida roster will be brand new.
The Gators welcomed 50 new players, including 29 transfers, 20 high school recruits and one junior college recruit. Meanwhile, they retained 62 players from last season, including five core players: Jadan Baugh, Myles Graham, Vernell Brown III, Dallas Wilson and Jayden Woods.
“I'm not fully comfortable fully assessing our roster because I've been with them for a month-ish,” head coach Jon Sumrall said Wednesday in his first press conference of the spring. “I would always take more depth on the line of scrimmage. The offensive and defensive line, I would have liked to have maybe gotten a couple more.”
Despite this, the most prevalent gap in the roster following the opening of the transfer portal was the question mark at the quarterback position.
After DJ Lagway entered the portal following his sophomore campaign, the program continues to search for what will be its next starting quarterback.
Retained from last season, sophomore Tramell Jones Jr. is one piece of the quarterback room. The rising sophomore played two games last season and threw for 191 yards and two touchdowns, completing 21 of 35 passes.
“Tramell has got a really high ceiling, too,” Sumrall said. “It's not just down to those two guys yet. My first year at Tulane, Darian Mensah was the third quarterback until two weeks before the first game. We're going to compete.”
The two other quarterbacks in question are Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo and four-star commit Will Griffin.
Philo, the rising redshirt freshman, saw action in five games last season as a true freshman and amassed 565 passing yards on 38-for-74 passing. The Bogart, Georgia, native had plenty of opportunity to work with Florida’s new hire at offensive coordinator out of Georgia Tech, Buster Faulkner. Despite their familiarity, Faulkner assured Philo, and others who followed him, that they will have to earn their positions.
“That's one thing that these guys that did make the trip with me, they know there's nothing guaranteed. I'm all about competition. We're going to play the best player,” Faulkner said.
The last prominent option at quarterback is Griffin. The four-star out of Tampa Jesuit is Florida’s longest-standing commit in its 2026 class, having committed June 1, 2024.
In his last high school season, he completed 186 of 286 passes for 2,213 yards and led his team to the regional semifinals of Florida’s 4A playoffs, per 247Sports.
Despite the accolades of the quarterback room across the board, nothing is set in stone for the Gators.
“There is no starting quarterback yet,” Sumrall said. “Everybody is going to get what they earn.”
What is expected to be solidified is the focal point of the running back room. Arguably the biggest success for this new group of coaches so far, Florida managed to retain Baugh, the propeller of the Gators’ offense last season.
“He has a chance to truly leave a legacy and have a place where he can always call home,” Faulkner said. “That was a selling point for us, but it also meant something to him.”
Another acquired piece from Georgia Tech, Harrison Moore, will be called upon to replace the impact of last season’s All-American center, Jake Slaughter.
“I can just tell you that he would probably be very similar to the last guy that was here. He's an extremely tough overachiever,” Faulkner said. “He's also going to have to come in here and compete and earn everything that's out there, but we're excited for him, excited he's here and he's a mentality type guy.”
Rounding out the offense is Faulkner’s vision for the wide receivers.
Retaining Brown III and Dallas Wilson, and Baugh’s development as an option at receiver, has given the team a solid place to start.
“I want to be able to push the field vertically, horizontally, over the middle, every which way we can, get them involved in the run game, whatever it takes,” Faulkner said.
Heading up the defense, new hire at defensive coordinator, Brad White, has begun developing his own system. After seven seasons as the defensive coordinator at Kentucky, White brings an established system to Florida, a decision he said took him only 30 seconds to make.
Also from the Wildcats, he brings with him safety Cam Dooley, one of Florida’s major additions.
“His comfort level with the system, us as coaches here, I think that resonated. Obviously, I know how he'll fit into this scheme,” White said.
Dooley will bolster the defensive side of the ball beside retentions Woods and Graham, who also earned high praise from White.
While some core players have emerged on the defensive front, White emphasized having a volatile roster.
“I don't carry a pen around,” he said. “I only carry pencils because a guy can flip around and I can erase, and a guy can go from first team down to third, third team up to first.”
While many pieces of the roster for the upcoming season remain uncertain, at Florida’s helm, there seem to be few concerns.
“I'm comfortable in uncertain situations,” Sumrall said. “There will be a sign that gets put up in my office pretty soon that will say nothing but coach the team. That's all I'm really worried about is coaching the team. We're going to lose players at times, even at Florida.”
Contact Ava DiCecca at adicecca@alligator.org. Follow her on X @avadicecca24.
Ava is a sophomore sports journalism student and the Spring 2026 sports editor. Previously for The Alligator, she covered volleyball and did sports enterprise. Ava enjoys watching and playing sports in her free time and has been a Boston sports fan all her life. (Brad Marchand is still everything.)
