Florida football recruiting: Four-star 2020 CB Avery Helm commits to Gators

The Florida Gators got one shot in the arm on the recruiting trail on Saturday with the recommitment of 2020 quarterback Anthony Richardson.

By sunset on Sunday, they had received another, this one from four-star Texas cornerback Avery Helm.

Helm is rated a four-star player by the 247Sports Composite, and appears to have very good size for the cornerback position, given that he is listed at 6’2” by 247Sports and Rivals and at 6’1” by ESPN. And he puts that size to good use in the highlights of his junior year for — deep breath — Missouri City’s Fort Bend Thurgood Marshall High Buffalo Soldiers.

No wonder they opted for Buffs on their uniforms.

You might want your second highlight to not include getting beat off the line, I suppose, but Helm’s recovery on that play is good, and his play to break up the pass is instinctual. There’s plenty more like that in the reel, but Helm looks like what you expect a bigger corner to look like: Physical, rangy, and good at plucking the ball out of the sky, if perhaps in need of some work on finesse and quickness.

And Helm’s alma mater has produced some decent talent despite existing for just under two decades, with NFL running backs Knile Davis and DeAndre Washington and Ohio State corner Kendall Sheffield all previously playing as Buffalo Soldiers.

Helm is Florida’s ninth commit for the 2020 cycle, and the Gators’ seventh with a four-star pedigree per the 247Sports Composite.

That’s part of why Florida currently has the nation’s No. 5 recruiting class, with upward mobility very much possible if the Gators continue to make waves on the field and trail.