Evaluating Austin Simmons
Can Florida's new QB commit bring championships back to Gainesville?

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Pahokee QB Austin Simmons committed to the Gators earlier this week continuing a run of impressive recruiting at the QB position for Billy Napier.

After signing Max Brown (1558th nationally) in his transition class, Napier has now signed Jaden Rashada (81st nationally in 2023), DJ Lagway (21st nationally in 2024) and now Simmons (56th nationally in 2025) in consecutive cycles. There are even rumors that Simmons may reclassify, which would make the QB haul for Napier even more significant.

Obviously, Rashada isn’t going to work out as a Gator after an NIL snafoo, but the fact remains that Napier is clearly emphasizing QB recruiting in a way that nobody has in Gainesville since Urban Meyer.

While I put a ton of stock in QB recruiting rankings, I also think it helps to go into depth beyond just the rankings with prospects at that position. And when you look at his high school statistics and film, there are a lot of things to really like about Austin Simmons.

High School Stats

Simmons is a really rare prospect in that he got major playing time as an eighth grader, amidst some controversy. Not only that, but he completed 60 percent of his throws that season for an average of 7.9 yards per attempt. A lot of prospects don’t achieve that in their senior seasons.

But Simmons was just getting started.

His freshman year he completed 66.2 percent of his throws and averaged 11.6 yards per attempt. And last year, he completed 67.4 percent of his throws at a clip of 13.1 yards per attempt. Those are elite-level numbers that surpass the senior season of Rashada (64.1%, 9.2 yards per attempt) and the junior season of Lagway (67.0%, 10.4 yards per attempt).

In fact, the sophomore stats for Simmons grade out well when looking at the senior seasons of a bunch of high-level QB prospects we’ve seen in the past few years

From 2015-2020, there have been 48 QBs who have been top-100 recruits according to the 247Sports composite rankings. Of those, 15 (31.3%) have been drafted (or will be this year) and 9 (18.8%) have been drafted in the first round (or will be). So with two more years of production in high school at his current level, we would expect Simmons to turn into an NFL prospect at a 31 percent clip and a true star 19 percent of the time.

But it’s better than that. If we filter those 48 players further by eliminating those who had a completion percentage at or below 62 percent in their senior year of high school, the percentage drafted increases to 41 percent (13 of 32) and the number of first rounders to 22 percent (7 of 32).

I haven’t been able to delve too deeply into it, but I suspect that players who had multiple seasons in high school with elevated completion percentages turned out at a higher rate still. It certainly was true for Joe Burrow. That means we’re probably looking at a greater than 50 percent chance that Simmons turns into an NFL player.

That’s reenforced even further when I look at the comps from the list who had completion percentages between 66 and 70 percent with yards per attempt values above 10.0. That list includes Spencer Rattler (Oklahoma, South Carolina), Jake Browning (Washington), Dorian Thompson-Robinson (UCLA), Trevor Lawrence (Clemson), Davis Mills (Stanford), Jacob Eason (Georgia) and Harrison Bailey (Tennessee).

Only Bailey was a bust. Rattler will be drafted, Browning led Washington to the playoff, Thompson-Robinson just completed nearly 70 percent of his throws for UCLA last season, Lawrence was a star, and Mills and Eason are playing in the NFL.

Giddyup.

Film Study

It’s hard to find full game tape of Simmons in his time at Pahokee. So keep in mind that anything I show you below comes from highlight tapes designed to make him look good. Still, I think it’s instructive to see some of the things he does well, and some of the things he needs to work on.

In my opinion, this is the most impressive Simmons makes in his highlights. He is initially looking at the outside receiver at the top of the screen. But the opponent sends both defensive backs to double that receiver. In the meantime, the offensive line has allowed the edge rusher to come unblocked.

Simmons drifts backwards to buy time while finding the safety on the backside. That safety had drifted towards the receiver running a go route at the bottom of the screen, leaving the slot receiver in one-on-one coverage down the center. Simmons throws a strike off of his back foot, not just allowing the completion, but enabling his receiver to take it to the house.

This one made me say “wow”. Simmons is again getting pressured as he drops back and right as he’s about to get hit, I don’t see an open receiver. Simmons anticipates him coming open as the route continues and throws a touch pass over the linebacker while leading the receiver away from the safety. Seeing this sort of anticipation to know what’s going to happen as the ball is let go rather than waiting and then trying to gun the ball in is really impressive, especially for a sophomore.

It’s hard to quibble with a 20-yard TD throw, but given the look the defense was giving, I think there was a more efficient throw to be made. I’ve highlighted the three defensive backs who are on the right side to cover the two receivers to that side. When the linebackers to that side come on the blitz – and with the running back going out into the route – there are three defenders for three receivers.

But nobody on defense picks up the running back. The safety gets caught in no-mans land and Simmons zips the ball in. Given the safety’s positioning, this isn’t a bad throw. But the running back is wide open in the flat and that is a much higher percentage throw.

Finally, we see the fact that Simmons is still a young QB. This ends up as a completion, but it shouldn’t have. You can see Simmons try to look off the safety at the start of the play, but the safety stays put. That means Simmons has an open receiver with all kinds of green grass in front at the top of the screen. Instead, he forces the ball into double coverage to his receiver at the bottom of the screen. He gets away with the throw here, but that’s an interception in the SEC.

That’s really what you see on film when you watch Simmons’ highlights. He clearly trusts his arm, and sometimes that trust gets him in trouble. Pahokee’s season ended in a 21-20 loss to Hawthorne in a game where Simmons played great (19-28, 312 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT), but that interception was a pick-6 where he threw into what looked like triple coverage.

But overall, it’s pretty clear what Billy Napier and company see in Austin Simmons.

Takeaway

By pure recruiting ranking, Austin Simmons is the 10th best QB that has committed to Florida since 2000, ranked slightly above Ingle Martin and slightly below Feleipe Franks.

But those guys were ranked that high because of projections of what they could become. Martin completed 45 percent of his throws his senior season, while Franks completed 59 percent of his. Using the metrics I cited above, I wouldn’t have expected the odds of either of them becoming a star to be nearly as high as Simmons.

He’s not a statue, but he isn’t going to strike fear into anyone with his running ability (3.1 yards per rush). That will be part of the game used to keep others honest, but not to keep them up at night.

He’s going to make his mark throwing the ball, and there I have to keep reminding myself that he’s a sophomore while watching the film. He does things that you can’t teach, and while I think he may be turnover prone early, he’s going to make some huge plays as well.

I also don’t think we should gloss over that Simmons is from the state of Florida. While I wouldn’t care if he was from Zimbabwe given the film, the fact that Billy Napier is keeping an in-state player of Simmons’ caliber in the state is a major step forward. He’s currently the eighth best player in the state, and Napier only has two top-10 Florida kids in his 2022 and 2023 recruiting classes combined.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about whether this might impact the commitment of DJ Lagway. All indications are that it will not, and that the players will welcome the competition the other provides. That’s fantastic for Florida because if Lagway is great and Simmons beats him out or vice versa, then the Gators are going to be really good on offense.

The top-6 offenses in the SEC all had QBs with a Yards Above Replacement (YAR) rating over 1.0 (good-but-not-great) and not one of the offenses ranked 7-14 had a QB with a YAR that high. You don’t need my QB stat to tell you that good QB play is important, but you aren’t even coming close to making the playoff without it.

Recruiting is about stacking skilled players to make sure the odds are in your favor of getting elite play at that position. Simmons may flame out. He may be a star. He may be somewhere in between or hold a clipboard while watching DJ Lagway lead the Gators back to prominence.

But he’s a huge part of Florida and Billy Napier stacking talent at the most critical position on the field.

Negativity, Statistics and the Cross

Sports have continued to grow in popularity (perhaps to outsized proportions) over the past couple of decades as television contracts have grown. But the reason those TV contracts have exploded is that sports is really the only remaining DVR-proof entity out there.

The anxiety that comes with watching a game live as it happens goes away if you know the result, and in the world of twitter and text messages, there isn’t any way to avoid knowing what the result is before tuning in if you’re not watching live.

That’s great when you’re talking about sports as a distraction from life. It’s not so great when you’re talking about real life.

Recently, a CDC study came out that showed that 57 percent of teen girls in the US felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 and that 30 percent seriously considered suicide. That comes at a time when the US life expectancy has shrunk more than two years on average since 2018. Some of that is due to COVID-19, but a large chunk of it is due to unintentional injuries (i.e. drug overdoses) and suicides.

Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise, given another recent poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal in conjunction with NORC at the University of Chicago. That poll showed that since 1998, the percentage of Americans who believe patriotism (70% to 38%), religion (62% to 39%), having children (59% to 30%) and community involvement (47% to 27%) are important has fallen drastically. The only item they surveyed that increased in importance was making money (31% to 43%).

The conclusion I draw from these polls, and my personal experience, is that making the most money possible doesn’t seem like a fulfilling purpose for one’s life. That’s doubly true if you aren’t able to succeed at that endeavor.

It’s no secret that I often am critical of the Gator football program. Some of you have been nice enough to let me know that you think I need to pump sunshine from time to time, sometimes in strong language. In some ways though, the tone of my writing is actually a result of the analytical approach that I take. If you believe in statistics and that they can help predict what’s coming next, you have peace knowing that your projections are grounded in truth.

In many ways, that’s the story of Easter as well.

Christians celebrate this weekend for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons I value this holiday more than others is that it is a reminder that I know how this game is going to end. I don’t mean that I know how this website will turn out or that everything will be okay tomorrow. What I mean is that if the crucifixion and resurrection story is true, then it’s like watching a Gators game on the DVR after I’ve already checked the score and know they win. Zero anxiety.

That’s what I think Paul is talking about in his letter to the congregation he had established in Philippi when he said: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” – Phil 6-7

About 12 years ago, I was really struggling with faith. I was invited by my friend Chuck to a men’s event where the speaker was Bill Rieser, a can’t miss basketball prospect who suffered a catastrophic knee injury falling out of a tree while coked-up in college. Rieser described what was going on in his head and heart at that time. He had lost everything he identified with. His wife had confronted him about his infidelity. He described what I’m remembering 12 years later as an anxiety that felt like a physical pressure on his chest. I didn’t have the same story as him, but I knew exactly what he meant by that pressure.

A few weeks afterwards, my former company went through a downsizing. Chuck came to tell me he had been part of the cuts, and before I could even console him, flashed a smile and sat down to plan how we were going to get our work completed in the few weeks that he had left.

He worked overtime over the next month to make sure that a patent we were working on went through. He honored a company that didn’t care about him, and he honored me as a colleague who needed his help. When I asked him why he even bothered, he told me he had faith things would work out.

I didn’t get it. It wasn’t how I would have reacted, certainly. And if I am completely honest, I thought he was a rube for reacting that way.

But here’s the truth. I had to let down my pride (and it took a while), but he showed me that I would never be the person that I claimed to want to be until I found some semblance of peace in my life. That I would only be a pale imitation pursuing a phantom that could never make me happy, no matter how far I rose up the corporate ladder and no matter how much money I made.

Close your eyes and be honest with yourself. Would you rather be the person bristling at the world for being unfair every time something goes wrong, or would you rather have the peace that Chuck had in that moment where most people would be spiraling into anger or despair? It turns out, we all have a choice.

That heavy weight on your chest that I described above exists for a great number of you. I know it does because it did for me too and the statistics say that a bunch of you are struggling with anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation now in a way that you weren’t even two years ago.

Paul says to thank God and make your requests, but nowhere in that passage does he say God will grant those requests. Instead, he says that God will give you peace. You just have to be able to drop your pride enough to receive it. I pray that you will.

Happy Easter!