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Florida football recruiting: Versatile Georgia LB Adonis Thomas commits to Gators

Florida's about 40 percent of the way to a crop of linebackers that could be historic.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Linebacker Adonis Thomas became the second Georgian in as many days to commit to Florida on Friday, doing so in a commitment ceremony early Friday evening.

Thomas, rated a four-star prospect by the 247Sports Composite and carrying four-star ratings from RivalsESPN, and Scout, picked the Gators over Alabama, citing "comfort" with Florida to Rivals's Woody Wommack as one of his reasons for doing so. He is Florida's 10th commitment in the 2015 class, and his decision caps a whirlwind fortnight for the Gators on the recruiting trail that featured four decommitments and three commitments.

Thomas is an outside linebacker at the high school level, and will probably start on the strong side at Florida — he mentions playing the Sam position at Florida in the video linked in the last sentence — where his speed and decision-making can be most valuable.

But he's got the skills to move around, too.

Thomas stands And as you can also see in the highlights above, Thomas plays wide receiver as well as linebacker, which probably puts his ball skills a cut above most Sam backers.

With Thomas's commitment, Florida can boast having two of the nation's top 10 linebackers (Ohio athlete Jerome Baker profiles as a linebacker in college) committed — something no other school can match. And there's a good chance Florida will keep adding talent at various linebacker positions: Tevon Coney of Palm Beach Gardens seems like a Florida lean with interest in Notre Dame, Friday Night Lights participant Jeffrey Holland of Trinity Christian in Jacksonville may effectively turn his recruitment into a Florida-Auburn battle, and fellow Friday Night Lights visitor Roquan Smith will probably choose between Georgia and Florida.

And then there's CeCe Jefferson, who could be a BUCK player at Will Muschamp's hybrid DE/LB role in Florida's defense, and has been close to the Gators for about a year now.

Thomas mentions wanting to recruit Coney, Holland, and Smith to Wommack, and there's no doubt that Florida's growing legion of dedicated Twitter users/commits will be on those three players (and Jefferson) in the coming months.

There's a long way to go until National Signing Day in 2015, obviously, and much could change in Florida's recruiting, most importantly Muschamp's job status. But the best-case scenario seems quite bright at the moment.

Some of that can be credited to savvy long-term planning. After loading up with four linebackers in its 2013 class, Florida took no linebackers in 2014, effectively staggering its depth at the position.

With the 2015 class potentially yielding the Gators five of them — all of whom would be among the nation's consensus top 200 players, maybe the top 150 — that decision is looking rather prescient right now.

If Florida were to reel in Coney, Holland, Smith, and sign all five of those 2015 LBs, its 2015 depth chart at linebacker would include, at a minimum, five top-200 true freshmen, three top-100 2013 linebackers — Alex Anzalone, Daniel McMillian, and Matt Rolin — and Jarrad Davis, who has outshined his better-esteemed cohort so far. And the Gators will probably have Antonio Morrison in 2015, too.

It's a dream for now, but that dream is unquestionably of an embarrasment of riches.