Miami Trying to Poach Top 100 Commit Ben Miami (Fla.) Booker T.

 

Miami (Fla.) Booker T. Washington upset Southridge on Friday night by a score of 27-14. Top100 Florida Gators cornerback commit Ben Hanks Jr. made his impact on the game felt, snagging an interception in the game, and almost getting a second. The win moves the Tornadoes to 4-3 on the season, and Hanks thinks that it could bring some confidence to the team in the remaining weeks this season.

 

“I feel like I played good, the team played good, and we came out with the victory,” Hanks Jr. told 247Sports Gaby Urrutia. “I missed one [interception], so I knew I had to get that back. It was a good team win at the end of the day.”

Florida senior running back Montrell Johnson Jr., who suffered a game-ending injury a week ago at Tennessee and was subsequently listed as “questionable” on UF’s availability report Wednesday, has been downgraded to “out” on Friday night’s availability report.

Johnson was in the midst of arguably his most effective rushing performance thus far in 2024 when he suffered an undisclosed injury against the Volunteers. Prior to exiting in the third quarter, Johnson had rushed for 85 yards on 12 carries as part of a UF offense which reached the red zone on three occasions in the first half yet came away with solely a field goal within the first 30 minutes of the contest.

In Johnson’s absence, Florida turned to freshman rusher Jadan Baugh and former JUCO transfer Ja’Kobi Jackson, though the pair weren’t nearly as effective as Johnson from a statistical standpoint, combining for 41 yards on 17 carries.

With Johnson unavailable, the Gators will start a freshman at quarterback and running back in Saturday’s contest against Kentucky, scheduled for 7:45 p.m. ET at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

 

On Monday, UF head coach Billy Napier indicated Johnson was trending in the right direction, though he didn’t indicate an imminent return was on the horizon.

“We don’t anticipate it being a long-term issue,” Napier said Monday. “We’re hopeful we may get a couple guys back. Now, that’s to be determined as we speak here. We’re in that process of evaluating a couple of those guys that have been out, so we’ll have a better idea the next couple days. Some of those guys are trending in the right direction, Montrell being in that group. We’ll know Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. There will be 100% clarity once we get there.”

In addition, Napier later insinuated there’s optimism the Gators could get sophomore Treyaun Webb and KD Daniels back against the Wildcats, though Daniels was ruled out on Wednesday, with Webb listed as questionable Wednesday before being removed from the availability report Friday.

Johnson entered the season ranked No. 5 nationally among active running backs in career rushing yards (2,496) and is coming off back-to-back years in which he paced his team in single-season rushing yardage with 841 as a sophomore in 2022 and 817 as a junior last year. The former Louisiana transfer has also accumulated 17 total touchdowns over the last two seasons and ranked second among SEC running backs in receiving yards (236) in 2023, which allowed him to cross the 1,000-yard threshold in total yardage for the first time in his career.