Florida Football continues to play the long game in the transfer portal as Billy Napier and his team work to decide which wide receiver they want to enter the portal.

However, according to the rumors, they seem to be getting closer to at least one candidate for DJ Lagway’s passport in 2025.

Florida Football: Mystery Box

J.Michael Sturdivant was on campus last weekend and is expected to visit Georgia this weekend.

The metrics for the wide receiver out of UCLA paint a complicated picture as to whether or not he is a better answer to the portal compared to some of the other players the Gators either passed on or failed to land.

Sturdivant was a top 200 player out of high school and signed with Cal. He had a breakout season in 2022 with 65 catches for 755 yards and seven touchdowns.

He then transferred to UCLA, where he dropped to 36 catches but still managed 597 yards, an impressive 16.6 yards per catch. He ranked 50th in yards per catch in 2023 among the 286 wide receivers with at least 50 targets.

But there was another statistic from the 2023 season that made Sturdivant caution. His yards per route run was 1.50 in 2023, 221st out of the same 286 receivers.

In other words, Sturdivant caught the ball relatively rarely compared to the number of times he was sent out on a route. His reception rate of 51.4% (36 catches on 70 targets) was 267th in the same group.

This year, his production dropped even further to 22 catches for 315 yards. Of the 329 wide receivers with at least 40 targets, Sturdivant ranked 311th in yards per route run.

Again, his performance was poor as many times as he was sent off for passing.

In comparison, Elijhah Badger was seventh best in the country in this metric, and Chimere Dike ranked 77th.

The counterargument is that DJ Lagway is a much better QB than Ethan Garbers. The latter ranked 84th in completions over 20 yards this season. Plus, we weren’t sold on Dike coming to Gainesville last season, and he ended up having a nice season.

Additionally, Sturdivant is listed at 6’3″ and would fill the role of the taller wide receiver that Florida’s roster will need to complement players like Eugene Wilson, Tank Hawkins or incoming freshman Vernell Brown.

Gators Online’s Keith Niebuhr thinks there’s a real chance Sturdivant ends up in Gainesville, but only time will tell.