It’s been an open secret since the Monday before the early signing period that elite defensive back Onis Konanbanny was likely going to flip from Tennessee Football to the Florida Gators before Wednesday’s National Signing Day. As a result, ON3’s announcement Tuesday that he did just that wasn’t surprising.
However, it had concerning results.
After a strong finish to the 2024 season to finish 8-5, Florida now enters Signing Day with the No. 8 ranked 2025 recruiting class on 247Sports Composite. Tennessee’s class, meanwhile, fell to No. 11, with two other SEC teams separating them, the Texas A&M Aggies and LSU Tigers.
While the Vols have traditionally not competed with LSU, Texas A&M or Florida for recruits, the age of NIL has done enough to allow everybody to go a bit more national. Also, for the foreseeable future, Tennessee will still be playing Florida annually.
As a result, UT should be incredibly worried about Billy Napier finally getting things turned around and generating a level of momentum at the school that was made only possible through the incredible patience of his administration. Sure, we mocked the Vinnie Sunseri hire, but he’s done a lot of things right recently.
We can safely say Florida is a far cry from the team that couldn’t pay the NIL money it promised Jaden Rashada and that had back to back losing seasons under Napier. Even during that lull, which carried through this year when they played the Vols with a losing record, UT still struggled with them.
Remember, Tennessee needed overtime to beat Florida this past year, they needed a defensive stand to win in 2022, and they lost pretty easily in 2023 down in Gainesville. What do you think is going to happen now that Florida is moving back ahead of them on the recruiting trail?
True, Josh Heupel seems like a much better X’s and O’s guy and in-game coach than Napier will ever be. That doesn’t mean the curse that always plagues Tennessee when it comes to Florida doesn’t get more difficult as they are able to generate more talent.
Konanbanny flipping is part of that, and as a result, Tennessee’s got to be concerned now. Of course, they have more chemistry and embedded talent in the program thanks to the work Heupel has done, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t an issue.
