Envisioning Roles for Florida's Transfers: LB Deuce Spurlock

All Gators is projecting roles and fits for each of Florida's 2023 offseason transfers, concluding the series with a look at linebacker Deuce Spurlock.

Photo: Deuce Spurlock; Credit: Florida Gators Creative Media 

When Billy Napier arrived in Gainesville, he made his plans for Florida football clear: Tear everything down and rebuild the Gators from scratch.

If Napier's transparency throughout his first offseason in charge wasn't enough to convince UF fans of that reality, his last three months as the program's head coach certainly should. 

Since the second half of November 2022, Florida completed its first repeat losing season in the SEC since the 1950s, saw 22 scholarship players enter the transfer portal, welcomed ten FBS transfers into the university after acquiring six last offseason and signed Napier's first complete high school recruiting class, a haul including two or more signees at six different positions.

Florida football is going to look different in Napier's second year at the helm, undoubtedly. Whether it will be improved or not remains to be seen, but the incoming transfers — the majority of them, at least — will be expected to push the Gators in the right direction sooner rather than later.

All Gators is projecting roles for every Florida transfer acquisition ahead of the 2023 season. Having previously covered quarterback Graham Mertz, running back Cameron Carroll, offensive tackles Damieon George Jr. and Kiyaunta Goodwin, guard Micah Mazzccua, defensive linemen Caleb Banks and Cam'Ron Jackson, and linebackers Teradja Mitchell and Mannie Nunnery, we'll conclude the series by focusing on Michigan linebacker transfer Deuce Spurlock.

Out with the old, in with the new has been the theme at linebacker for Florida this offseason. The losses of Ventrell Miller and Amari Burney to the NFL Draft called for experienced reinforcements in the form of Mitchell and Nunnery, and with room left over at the position from Diwun Black's transfer to Temple, Florida sought Spurlock for his long-term upside.

A hybrid safety/outside linebacker and wide receiver for Madison (Ala.) Academy in high school, Napier and his coaching staff pursued Spurlock at their previous program, Louisiana, before he signed with Michigan as a member of the Wolverines' 2022 recruiting class. As a senior in high school, Spurlock posted a whopping 186 tackles, eight sacks and 27 tackles for loss, according to his HUDL.

It was in Ann Arbor where Spurlock began his transition to inside linebacker. Bulking up to 6-foot-1, 231 pounds after being listed at 200-flat in high school, Spurlock was able to take the field defensively by the second game of his Michigan career and did so again in Week 3.

His season ended there, resulting in a redshirt year, but Spurlock showed enough to eventually receive significant interest in the portal. After producing three tackles as a freshman, the Athletic reported that Florida, Auburn, Oklahoma, LSU, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi State and Arizona State vied for Spurlock's services as a transfer. 

The Gators won the battle, and thanks to the nature of his limited action with the Wolverines, Spurlock will have four seasons of eligibility to utilize at Florida.

The presence of Mitchell and Nunnery, paired with returning linebackers Shemar James, Derek Wingo and Scooby Williams will likely leave Spurlock among the position's reserves for his first season in Gainesville, unless he is to impress enough to unseat incumbents and more experienced players on the depth chart. 

But, even in a depth capacity, Spurlock should certainly see more action in 2023 than the 12 snaps he collected as a freshman. 

Five different inside linebackers tallied 100+ defensive snaps for UF in 2022 — Miller, Burney, James, Wingo and Williams — suggesting that if Spurlock's development gets up to speed quickly within the Gators' defense, he'll be able to carve out a rotational role. 

At the very least, Spurlock will earn a spot on Florida's special teams during his debut campaign with the program. Interestingly, despite his brief emergence on defense, he didn't take a single special teams snap at Michigan in 2022.

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