It’s not a pretty picture overall, but a few Sunshine State products have had productive careers in Austin.
The Texas Longhorns will host the Florida Gators on Saturday for their fifth conference game of 2024, the UT program’s first season as a member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). It will be the Longhorns’ fourth all-time matchup against the Gators, and first since 1940. A direct flight from Gainesville, Florida to Austin, Texas takes less than three hours. In the era when Texas and Florida last met on a football field, the typical mode of transportation for long-distance road trips was by train. For that game on Saturday December 7, 1940, the Longhorn team went on a 42-hour train ride that got them into Gainesville at about noon on the day before the game. And then, after dispatching with the Gators by a score of 26-0, they returned home in the same manner.
In the first 131 seasons of University of Texas football, the team very rarely played Florida foes. This week’s game will be just the 12th time Texas has faced a Sunshine State opponent. Of the first eleven of those contests, three were against Florida, two against Florida Atlantic, two against Central Florida, and four against Miami.
Florida is now the third-most populous state (behind only California and Texas) with over 22 million residents, and it is annually among the top talent-producing states in terms of college football prospects and NFL draft picks. The University of Texas has recruited Florida on a much heavier level over the past decade than it did in prior years, and according to the 247Sports prospect database, the Longhorn staff has offered 25 prospects from Florida high schools in the 2025 class.
The history of Florida high school products suiting up in burnt orange is still a short and mostly undistinguished one, both in terms of chronology and the number of players. Only two have won letters at Texas in four consecutive seasons, and only one has won first team all-conference honors with the Longhorns. Several who signed with Texas and showed great promise as prospects went on to have injury-riddled college careers and/or transferred before their senior year.
As recently as 2013, there were only two Longhorn football lettermen who graduated from Florida high schools, and most fans probably couldn’t have named either of them. But there are now eleven, and that number should continue to grow in the coming years with four Floridians on the current roster and the Longhorns’ 2025 recruiting class boasting commitments from Florida prospects Jaime Ffrench and Myron Charles, and 2026 quarterback Dia Bell from Fort Lauderdale being one of the team’s two current commits in that class. UT’s recruiting efforts in that state are unlikely to slow any time soon.
Below, I present the brief history of the Florida high schoolers who’ve been part of the Longhorn football program.
Longhorn football lettermen from Florida high schools
Greg Wright (1980-84) — Stuart (Florida) Martin County
The first Longhorn letterman from a Florida high school was a Texas native who spent most of his high school years in the Sunshine State. Greg Wright grew up in Plano, Texas, but moved with his family to Florida before his sophomore year of high school, a move that might have swung the result of one or two state championships. Had he remained in his hometown, he would have played on Plano’s teams that ultimately won a state championship in 1977, lost in the Class 4A state championship in 1978 to Craig James’s Houston Stratford team, and lost by three points in the second round of the 1979 playoffs to eventual state champion Temple.
At Martin County High School on Florida’s Atlantic coast, he earned all-area honors for three years and was the Palm Beach Post’s Defensive Player of the Year as a senior in 1979. He signed with Texas as a member of its 1980 recruiting class and was pursued by the staff as a defensive lineman, while some other programs recruited him as an offensive lineman.
He was a very promising player at a listed 6’3” and 240 pounds with the reported strength to bench press 350 pounds, but his Longhorn career was marked by instability due to frequent injuries and multiple position switches. During his first three years in Austin he had seasons ended or shortened due to a broken arch in one of his feet, a separated shoulder, and torn ligaments in his left knee. He was a backup defensive tackle early on, a reserve offensive lineman as a junior in 1983, then finally a regular starter on the offensive line as a fifth-year senior in 1984, spending time at both left tackle and guard.
Will Madison (1989) — Fort Walton Beach (Florida) Choctawhatchee
Madison was a walk-on receiver who was awarded a letter for the 1989 season but apparently never appeared in a game for the Longhorns.
Andrew Beck (2014-18) — Tampa (Florida) Plant
Mack Brown was still coaching the Longhorns when Andrew Beck committed to the program in April of 2013. By the time Beck played his last season in burnt orange in 2018, Tom Herman was the Longhorns’ mentor.
He was a two-year starter at Tampa powerhouse Plant, where he played primarily at linebacker and was an all-state honoree and a three-star linebacker prospect in the 2014 class. He played tight end as a Longhorn and saw action in 37 games during his first three seasons with the program (2014-16), but made only 12 receptions. An injury sidelined him for the 2017 season, but he came back as a fifth-year senior in 2018 and made 28 catches for 281 yards and a pair of touchdowns, earning All-Big 12 first team honors from the conference’s coaches.
He went undrafted in 2019 but ended up catching on with the Denver Broncos and played for four seasons with that team before signing a free agent deal with the Houston Texans in 2023. He has played in 69 NFL games over parts of six professional seasons and is currently a free agent after having been released by the Green Bay Packers on October 22.
John Burt (2015-19) — Tallahassee (Florida) Lincoln
Burt signed with Texas in the 2015 recruiting class and arrived in Austin as an acclaimed wide receiver prospect and one of the country’s top high school track athletes. He produced some highlights on the football field, but his gridiron career peaked early and he shone brighter on the track during his time as a Longhorn.
As a true freshman in 2015 he started every game for a 5-7 Longhorn team and caught 28 passes for a team-leading 457 receiving yards and two touchdowns while running routes for the QB duo of Jerrod Heard and Tyrone Swoopes. Burt played four more seasons in Austin (he played in only four games in 2018, preserving his redshirt and allowing him to play one last year as a fifth-year senior in 2019), but his reception and yardage totals decreased with each successive full season. He followed up his 28 catches in 2015 by making a combined 35 receptions over the last 39 games of his career.
To be sure, he showed some flashes of what his speed could do on a football field. His 84-yard touchdown reception against Kansas in 2015 and his 90-yard catch and run against Oklahoma State in 2017 (see below) were the program’s two longest passing plays during the entire decade of the 2010s.
Texas WR John Burt (#1) almost to the house (90 yards) against Oklahoma State (10/21/17). #NFLDraft pic.twitter.com/ZjFaP2YeJF
— PFDZ (@PFDZ44) January 11, 2018
But by the time he was a senior in 2019 he’d been passed on the depth chart by Devin Duvernay, Collin Johnson, and Brennan Eagles, and he recorded just five receptions that year.
On the track, he was consistently one of the Big 12’s top hurdlers and was a four-time All-American. He was twice the conference’s indoor champion in the 60m hurdles (2019-20) and also won the Big 12 outdoor 110m hurdles title in 2018. Only one Longhorn has ever run the 60m hurdles faster than Burt, and he is fifth among the program’s all-time leaders in the 110m hurdles.
Davante Davis (2015-18) — Homestead and Miami (Florida) Booker T. Washington
In the final days of Mack Brown’s tenure as the Texas Longhorns head coach, he scoffed at any notion that his days in that position were numbered, telling 247Sports at the time, “I’m in Florida recruiting. If I had decided to step down, I sure wouldn’t be killing myself down here.” That remark may have been a desperate gesture to show he had no intention of ceding the head coaching position to Nick Saban (as was rumored at the time) or anyone else, and “killing myself in Florida” provided fodder for Longhorn message boards for a few days, but Longhorn recruiting in the Sunshine State didn’t truly kick up a notch until the arrival of Brown’s successor Charlie Strong, who had spent 16 years of his coaching career at the University of Florida and had a long history of recruiting in the state.
Davante Davis began his high school career at Homestead High School in Homestead, Florida, located south of Miami. For his senior year he attended Miami’s Booker T. Washington High School and was an all-state defensive back for Washington’s 2014 team that won Florida’s Class 4A state championship for a third consecutive year. He was among a quintet of Florida natives in the 2015 recruiting class who took official visits to Texas in the fall of 2014 and were dubbed by the recruiting media as “the Florida Five”. Along with Davis, the other other four members of that group — all of whom were Texas commits for a time — were safety Tim Irvin, linebacker Cecil Cherry, tight end Devonaire Clarington, and prep school wide receiver Gilbert Johnson.
Davis was the only member of that ballyhooed group to ever play a snap for the Longhorns. Irvin flipped to Auburn two weeks after committing to Texas in January 2015, Cherry signed with Texas but left the team after less than a handful of practices in the fall of 2015, and neither Clarington nor Johnson ever made it to campus.
Davante Davis was a solid if unspectacular cornerback for the Longhorns, starting games in each of his four seasons with the team (2015-18). In all he played in 48 games and started 26 of them. He twice received honorable mention All-Big 12 honors and finished his college career with 119 total tackles, four interceptions, 3 forced fumbles, and 24 pass deflections.
Trey Holtz (2015-16) — Tampa (Florida) Plant
Holtz, the son of then Louisiana Tech head coach Skip Holtz and a grandson of legendary former college coach Lou Holtz, was a walk-on to the Longhorn program who was a member of the team for five years (2012-16). He redshirted in 2012, then was on the roster for each of the next four years as a reserve quarterback, and in his final two seasons he appeared in 23 games as the holder on field goal and extra point attempts.
He followed his father and grandfather into the coaching profession after graduating from Texas, and he is currently an offensive analyst on staff at LSU.
Chris Nelson (2015-18) — Lakeland (Florida) Victory Christian
Nelson was a three-star defensive tackle prospect in the 2014 recruiting class from Victory Christian High School in Lakeland, which is in central Florida about halfway between Tampa and Orlando. He committed to Louisville before the start of his senior year, but de-committed after its head coach Charlie Strong took the head coaching job at Texas, and Nelson ultimately followed Strong to Austin and signed with the Longhorns on National Signing Day 2014.
After redshirting as a freshman in 2014 he was a four-year contributor at defensive tackle and started 29 games over his last three seasons (2016-18). He was an honorable mention All-Big 12 performer in 2016 and 2018, was a team captain as a senior in 2018, shined academically and was named to the Academic All-Big 12 First Team in 2017, and finished his Longhorn career with 109 tackles, 15.5 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery.
Ayodele Adeoye (2018-21) — Bradenton (Florida) IMG Academy
Adeoye was a Missouri native who attended Ritenour High School in St. Louis through his junior year. He was a Missouri all-state performer in 2016, then transferred to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida and spent his senior season there. A four-star linebacker prospect in the 2018 class, he signed with Texas during the December signing period and was an early enrollee in January of 2018. A knee injury in 2018 limited him to four games and inadvertently preserved his redshirt. He compiled 45 of his 57 career tackles during the 2019 season, in which he was a starter in ten games. Injuries limited him to just two games played in 2020, and he found himself behind others on the linebacker depth chart in 2021 and made just seven tackles in six games played. He played in 25 games overall in his four seasons in Austin.
Adeoye entered the transfer portal in November of 2021, and though he had four years of experience, he still had two seasons of eligibility remaining due to his redshirt being preserved in 2018 and the extra year given to athletes who played in the 2020 COVID season. He played defensive end at Sacramento State in 2022, then transferred for a final time and was a sixth-year “super senior” at Incarnate Word in 2023, and for his play at defensive end he was named to the All-Southland Conference first team.
Marcus Tillman, Jr. (2019-21) — Orlando (Florida) Jones
Tillman was a three-star linebacker prospect in the 2019 class who signed with Texas and enrolled early in the 2019 spring term. He played in four games as a true freshman before his season was ended by a knee injury. He appeared in two games during the 2020 season, but did not see action in 2021, and entered the transfer portal in December of that year. He spent the 2022 season at Navarro Junior College and publicly committed to Memphis, but doesn’t appear to have ever joined that program.
Tarique Milton (2022) — Bradenton (Florida) Manatee
Milton was a three-star wide receiver prospect from Manatee High School in Bradenton, Florida who signed with Iowa State as a recruit in the 2017 class. He spent five seasons with that program (redshirting as a freshman in 2017), and transferred to Texas in 2022 to use his extra year of eligibility due to the 2020 COVID season. As a 24-year-old sixth-year super senior, Milton appeared in 12 games with the Longhorns in 2022, but recorded just two catches and returned one punt.
CJ Baxter (2023-24) — Orlando (Florida) Edgewater
After an outstanding career at Orlando’s Edgewater High School, Baxter was graded as a five-star prospect and the nation’s top running back recruit in the 2023 class, according to the 247Sports Composite. He was very young for his class and only turned 18 in late June of 2023, but despite his youth he initially won the starting running back job with the Longhorns as a true freshman. He later moved into a backup role behind Jonathon Brooks, who was the first running back selected in the 2024 NFL Draft. Baxter finished his freshman year with 659 yards and five touchdowns rushing, and caught 24 passes for another 159 yards.
He was named to the Doak Walker Award watchlist going into the 2024 season, but was ruled out for the season in early August after needing surgery to repair the lateral and posterior collateral ligaments in his right knee.
First-year Longhorns from Florida high schools
Amari Niblack — St. Petersburg (Florida) Lakewood
Niblack was a highly-rated tight end recruit in the 2022 class who signed with Alabama out of Lakewood High School in St. Petersburg. He played in 24 games in two seasons with the Crimson Tide and made 20 receptions for Alabama’s 2023 team that qualified for the College Football Playoff.
He transferred to Texas in 2024, and so far he has appeared in six of the Longhorns’ eight games and made three catches while being penalized as many times for either holding or an illegal block in the back. If he sees the field on Saturday it will be his first time to play against his home state Florida Gators, and hopefully he’ll contribute to a win.
Jerrick Gibson — Gainesville (Florida) and Bradenton (Florida) IMG Academy
Gibson played football for three different high schools before signing with Texas as a four-star running back in the 2024 class. He attended Gainesville High School in Gainesville, Florida as a freshman, attended a Georgia high school as a sophomore, and spent his junior and senior years at talent factory IMG Academy.
After the season-ending injuries to running backs CJ Baxter and fellow freshman Christian Clark, Gibson was all but certain to see increased snaps as a true freshman. Through UT’s first four games he totaled 42 carries for 210 yards and three touchdowns, but in the four games since then he has just seven offensive touches, with none since the win over Oklahoma.
With Texas down to just three “healthy” scholarship running backs, Gibson could be in for more offensive snaps in the final third of the season, and helping Texas beat Florida would be a great way to show his value to this year’s team.
Jordon Johnson-Rubell — Bradenton (Florida) IMG Academy
Johnson-Rubell spent his junior and senior seasons of high school at IMG Academy after previously attending Brewer High School on the west side of Fort Worth. He was rated as a four-star safety prospect by the 247Sports Composite in the 2024 recruiting class, and signed with Texas along with his teammate Jerrick Gibson.
As a true freshman this fall he has appeared in five games and made three tackles.
Michael Kern — Fort Lauderdale (Florida) St. Thomas Aquinas
Kern was a punter and kicker for Florida powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas, and played on three consecutive state championship squads between his sophomore and senior years. He was one of the highest-rated punter prospects in the 2024 class and signed with Texas, which had a need at punter with the graduation of grad transfer Ryan Sanborn after the 2023 season.
Through eight games this fall he has punted 15 times for an average of 41.1 yards.
Non-lettermen from Florida high schools
Cecil Cherry — Frostproof (Florida) and Lakeland (Florida) Victory Christian
An erstwhile member of the vaunted “Florida Five”, Cherry was a three-star linebacker prospect who signed as a member of UT’s 2015 recruiting class. He left the team shortly after fall practices began in 2015, and ended up transferring to South Florida, where he played for one season in 2016. He also spent time at Coahoma Community College (2017), Grambling State (2018), and Tennessee-Martin (2019).
Jordan Pouncey — Winter Park (Florida)
Pouncey was a composite three-star prospect who signed with Texas and its new head coach Tom Herman in February 2017, a few weeks after de-committing from Notre Dame. He redshirted as a freshman in 2017, played primarily on special teams in 2018, and made his only two receptions as a Longhorn in 2019. Despite appearing in 15 career games, he is not listed as a Longhorn football letterman. He appeared in UT’s first eight games of the 2019 season before entering the transfer portal in late October. He enrolled at Florida in 2020, and in three seasons with the Gators he appeared in 28 games but was primarily a special teams contributor, and made just three catches for 31 yards while on offense.
Jaden Alexis — Coconut Creek (Florida) Monarch
Alexis was a composite four-star wide receiver who signed with Texas in the 2021 class. He was redshirted as a freshman after requiring surgery on an injured knee, and he appeared in only one game as a redshirt freshman in 2022. He entered the transfer portal in the spring of 2023 and ended up at South Florida. He played in all 13 of USF’s games in 2023 and was fifth on the team with 23 receptions for 280 yards. He has not appeared in a game for USF in 2024. (Note: Texas lucked into Xavier Worthy in the 2021 class after he was released from the letter of intent he had signed with Michigan. The other three receivers the Longhorns landed in that class were Alexis, Casey Cain, and Keithron Lee. Yikes!)
Agiye Hall — Valrico (Florida) Bloomingdale
Hall was a high four-star wide receiver prospect in the 2021 class from Bloomingdale High School in a Tampa suburb. He signed with Alabama and played in seven games as a true freshman with the Crimson Tide in 2021, making four catches for 72 yards, but was suspended for a violation of team rules. He transferred to Texas in 2022 and was suspended before the season even began. He went on to appear in three games but recorded just one reception, equaling the number of arrests he had for criminal mischief in Austin. He did not see the field after appearing in the October 1 win over West Virginia.
He entered the transfer portal in December of 2022, but got no takers. In July of 2023, he was caught at the Orlando airport with bags containing 40 pounds of marijuana, and was arrested later that year and eventually charged with a first-degree felony for drug trafficking, to which he plead no contest. He was reportedly set to join the Central Florida program as a walk-on at one point, but has not been on that team’s roster.
Payton Kirkland — Orlando (Florida) Dr. Phillips
Kirkland signed with Texas as an offensive line prospect in the 2023 class from Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando. He did not appear in a game as a true freshman on UT’s College Football Playoff qualifier in 2023, and entered the transfer portal after spring practices in 2024. After less than a week in the portal he committed to Colorado, a program that needed offensive line help in the worst way. Now a redshirt freshman with the Buffaloes, he has yet to appear in a game in 2024.