The Florida Gators lost a commitment on the Fourth of July in three-star defensive tackle Jamir Perez, as he flipped his decision to the Ohio State Buckeyes. It wasn’t without expectations, as it had been trending that way for some time.
After his commitment, Perez went on the Austin and Birm podcast to talk about his recruiting strategy and explained how he rushed his decision to commit to head coach Billy Napierand the Gators.
“Personally, for me, it feels great. It’s been a lot on the build up side, and for me, all the offers are such a rush. You know, my sophomore year, I was, I was injured, and I have sophomore year, so in my junior year, I had a broken hand at risk, so, but still playing through that and playing through adversity. So once the off season hit and I just started blowing up out of nowhere. Everything was such a rush. Everything was such like, oh, what should I do with so excited and everything, and that commitment to Florida, I kind of rushed because I didn’t really see the politics in the game today.
“The coaches they weren’t particularly in a rush to get me to commit at all. It was mainly me, because I didn’t understand everything at that time. And I was just like, I think that’s the best option for me right now. And so therefore, I can’t entirely blame myself, you know. But just recently, not too insincere. He committed. And I’ve been having thoughts previously, within the last couple weeks, of just thinking like, was it the best decision? Did I really make the right decision, or was it just all a rush, you know?”
This is a tough one for the Gators to swallow, as Perez highlights that they didn’t do anything particularly wrong when it came to his recruitment. As many high school athletes aren’t aware, this is a very complex situation they go through when it comes to recruitment.
Teams are going to be putting pressure on you to do a certain thing and it can sway a young man to make a decision that he isn’t necessarily ready for. It doesn’t sound like the Gators put immense pressure on him to make a commitment, but rather Perez, who had never gone through the process before, rushed himself.
It stings for the Gators, but this kind of thing is all too common when it comes to the recruiting process.
