With NFL rosters largely locked in for the 2026 season, Florida’s reach across the league is easy to spot. The Gators will have more than 40 former players in uniform this year, but that group also includes 10 ex-Florida players who finished their college careers elsewhere and still made it onto NFL rosters.
Some of the names are easy to track. Caleb Douglas, once a receiver Florida never quite unlocked, transferred to Texas Tech and turned himself into a key target before the Miami Dolphins made him a third-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Chris McClellan followed a similar path in a different lane: after starting as one of the crossover players from Dan Mullen to Billy Napier, he left for Missouri and became a third-round selection of the Green Bay Packers in this year’s draft.
Jack Pyburn’s route has been even stranger. After transferring to LSU, he landed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this weekend, only to be waived and claimed by the Kansas City Chiefs. He had a solid training camp and preseason, and Pyburn has said he plans to stay with the Chiefs rather than try to return to LSU.
Donovan McMillon is another former Gator who found his footing somewhere else. He barely saw the field in Gainesville, logging fewer than 100 snaps in both 2021 and 2022, but transferred to Pitt in 2023 and quickly became a productive starter. He went undrafted, stuck with Cleveland last year, played in all 17 games mostly on special teams, and is currently being kept on the Browns’ 53-man roster.
Feleipe Franks is still hanging around too, which says plenty about how far his career has traveled. Florida’s former quarterback lost the job to Kyle Trask after suffering a horrific injury early in 2019, then moved on to Arkansas, where his 2020 season included a 68.1% completion percentage. Now in his fifth NFL season, he has converted to tight end and is beginning to see real snaps at the position with the Carolina Panthers.
Jacoby Brissett remains one of just two former Gators on an active NFL roster at quarterback, alongside Anthony Richardson, with Graham Mertz on injured reserve. Brissett left after the 2012 season, before the transfer portal existed, sat out a year at NC State, and then used strong 2014 and 2015 seasons to get drafted in 2016. He has spent years as a journeyman, but he posted career highs with Arizona last season and enters 2026 as the Cardinals’ expected starter.
Jalen Farmer’s rise came the hard way. A mid-tier three-star recruit who barely played in his two years at Florida, he transferred to Kentucky and became a starter at guard almost immediately. He finished the 2025 season with 818 snaps, then went in the fourth round to the Indianapolis Colts and is set for his rookie year.
James Houston’s path is the most unusual of the bunch. His Florida career began with a suspension tied to his role in a credit card fraud scheme, but he still played close to 600 snaps over the next three years under Dan Mullen.
After transferring to Jackson State before the 2021 season, he exploded for 16.5 sacks and 24.5 tackles for loss that year. Originally a sixth-round pick of the Detroit Lions, he has bounced around since and played 305 snaps for the Cowboys last season.
Trevor Etienne’s transfer from Florida to Georgia was one of the first major signs that Billy Napier’s battleship had a massive crack in it. In his rookie year, Etienne was used mostly as a punt returner, and he is starting the 2026 season on injured reserve but is expected to return later.
Ty’Ron Hopper rounds out the group. He flashed enough in 2021 to make you think there was something to build on, but instead he transferred to Missouri ahead of the 2022 season. Since then, the Packers have used him largely on special teams in his first two years.
In Other News...
Florida May Not Keep This Rising Assistant Much Longer
Greg Gasparato has already built a reputation as one of the sharper defensive minds on Floridas staff, and now the attention is starting to spread beyond Gainesville. The Athletic included the Gators linebackers coach on a list of 25 rising coaches to watch heading into the 2026 season, a reminder that his path has moved quickly through some significant stops.
Gasparatos resume helps explain why bigger opportunities may not be far off. He was a defensive coordinator and interim head coach at Troy before following Jon Sumrall to Tulane and then Florida, and his work has drawn interest from Power Four programs looking for coordinators. For the Gators, that makes him both a valuable piece of the staff and the kind of coach who may not stay under the radar for long. [Read more 🡒]
Floridas New Staff Faces Immediate Pressure In Sumralls First Test
Floridas 2026 season will arrive with a new sideline look, as first-year coach Jon Sumrall brings in Buster Faulkner to run the offense and Brad White to coordinate the defense after hiring both from Power Four programs. The pair comes with plenty of pedigree and plenty of cost, too, with Faulkner set to make $2.1 million and White at $1.85 million, a figure that places the duo among the SECs priciest coordinator tandems.
For Sumrall, the hires are more than just rsum additions. They reflect an immediate push to stabilize both sides of the ball and give Florida a staff that can match the expectations that come with the job, especially as the offensive outlook gets sorted out in real time. The early pressure on this group is obvious: the salaries signal ambition, but the bigger test will be whether Sumralls first staff can turn that investment into fast results. [Read more 🡒]
Florida Fans Have A Few SEC Games Worth Watching Closely Week 1
With Floridas opener on the horizon, theres still a little room on the Week 1 viewing schedule for SEC score watching, and the league has lined up a few games that could matter to Gators fans before the season really gets rolling. The appeal is obvious: some matchups come with enough name value, enough timing overlap and enough uncertainty to make them worth flipping over to, even if Floridas own game is the main event.
The most interesting part of the slate is how the other SEC games stack up against each other in terms of competitiveness and relevance to Floridas season outlook. A ranked guide like this points fans toward the contests most likely to hold up in real time, with the bigger programs and the tighter lines drawing the most attention while the rest mostly serve as background noise until the Gators take center stage. [Read more 🡒]