Florida beats out Ohio State, Texas A&M to land 4-star edge from Texas
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Florida won a big-time recruiting battle on Friday.
KJ Ford is the newest Gator commitment. The elite edge out of Texas named Florida, Ohio State, Alabama and Texas A&M as his finalists, committing to play for Billy Napier‘s program.
Out of Duncanville (Texas) High School, Ford is listed as measuring 6-4 and 245 pounds. On the 247Sports Composite, Ford is rated 4-stars, the No. 15 edge defender, No. 17 player in the Lone Star State and No. 116 prospect overall in the Class of 2026.
Ford picked up scholarship offers from 38 programs during his recruitment. He took visits to his 4 finalists over 4 weekends from May 30 to June 20.
With Ford on board, Florida has 17 verbal commitments in its 2026 recruiting class, which ranks No. 15 nationally on the Composite. Gator Nation can check out Ford’s highlights (below) to get a preview of what he brings to The Swamp:
Gators newest commit KJ Ford
— Dylan Olive (@DylanOlive_UF) July 12, 2025
6’3.5, 245 LBs
top 120 composite recruit, top 100 on 247sports
Strong late pushes from Ohio State and Alabama
57 tackles(16 TFL), 7 sacks, 1 FF, 1 FR, and 15 hurries as Jr.
Only lost 2 games in 2 years at Duncanville!!!
Jr film(#10) pic.twitter.com/X9rWEHNXNa
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
