Gators Commit Nick Evers Finishes Third in SIAA Elite 11 Rankings
Photo: Nick Evers; Credit: Brooks Austin, SI All-American
The Elite 11 finals have officially come to an end and Florida Gators commit, Flower Mound (Texas) quarterback Nick Evers, was one of the best of the bunch, finishing in third place in Sports Illustrated All-American's Elite 11 rankings out of 20 participants. He finished in the top eight in each quarterback workout.
Quarterback Cade Klubnik out of Westlake (Austin, Texas), would earn SIAA's MVP honors of the competition.
"I’m pretty satisfied with how I compared to all the other guys,” Evers told AllGators after the final event. “I wasn’t really too focused on the rankings as much as my craft, trying to show how I can get better and constant improvement.”
The Elite 11 competition is one that the Florida football staff is all too familiar with and the second-straight year one of its commitments has stood out.
Last year, the program had freshman quarterback Carlos Del Rio in attendance. The year prior, the Gators sent now-sophomore Anthony Richardson, while Emory Jones took part during the 2017 finals, UF head coach Dan Mullen's first quarterback enrollee.
The competition would take place in Manhattan Beach (Calif.), with Evers owning one of the most impressive showings during the Accuracy Gauntlet drill on day three of the competition. Evers, 6-foot-2.5, 188 pounds would go on to score an average of 2.033 out of 3 on the gauntlet, making him the third-best quarterback on the day.
You can read SI All-American's recap of Evers' performance from the week below.
3. Nick Evers (Florida)
Day one ranking: 4
Day two ranking: 8
Day three ranking: 3
Among the top five prospects in our final rankings, Florida commit Nick Evers may have been the most underrated entering Elite 11. He exited the week as one of the consensus favorites among the SI All-American staff.
Generating power from a quick release, on the move and in the pocket, came with extreme ease for Evers. His showing in the Accuracy Gauntlet was spectacularly streaky as Evers nailed eight on-target throws in a row - six of which passed through the bullseye and were deemed perfect - in the midst of the challenge.
What stood out to us about Evers the most was his ability to quickly pick up on new footwork concepts. Hailing from a spread option-heavy offense that operates out of the gun, under center and play-action roll-out dropbacks are a bit foreign to Evers. Despite shaky footwork in some of those specific drills, Evers maintained his impressive velocity and accuracy on the majority of his reps.
It appears the quarterback accomplished most of what he set out to do on the west coast, proving that he belongs among the best of the best quarterbacks in the nation in the class of 2022.
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