Florida’s coaching staff can’t be pleased with recent comment from former Gator Chauncey Gardner-Johnson
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Chauncey Gardner-Johnson just fired off a comment that’s likely going to be used against Florida on the recruiting trail.
Whether he meant to provide Florida’s rivals with ammunition or not, that’s likely going to be the result of Gardner-Johnson’s Friday comment, which can be seen below.
It’s not clear exactly what brought on this comment from Gardner-Johnson or which, if any, Florida coaches this is specifically directed at but Dan Mullen did make comments suggesting that none of his undergraduate players were ready for the NFL near the end of the 2018 season.
“I don’t know if we have a lot of pro guys on our team right now, to be honest with you,” Mullen said during November of Gardner-Johnson’s junior season. “That might be shocking to some people, and especially to guys in the locker room, because the NFL is a different animal. I know everybody just assumes, ‘Oh, well I play at Florida, so I’m going to the NFL.’ That’s certainly not the case. That certainly has not anything to do with it.”
Following his junior season, Gardner-Johnson declared early for the 2019 NFL Draft after racking up 161 tackles, 12 pass breakups, nine interceptions, three pick-sixes, and four sacks in three years on the field for the Gators.
The New Orlean Saints drafted Gardner-Johnson in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. During his rookie season in the NFL, he made 16 appearances, with seven starts, and registered 49 tackles, with eight pass breakups and one interception.
Regardless of the intent of this post, you can be sure SEC rivals attempting to recruit against Mullen’s program will be quick to pass this message on to recruits.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
