Thoughts of the Day: June 13, 2026

A few thoughts to jump start your Saturday morning:

To paraphrase Churchy la Femme, the turtle from the Pogo comic strip, who thought the 13th of every month was Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th comes on a Saturday this month. Instead of a bad luck day, Jon Sumrall could turn this into a good luck day for the Florida Gators.

Back when he was Florida's head coach from 2011-14, Will Muschamp could have been nicknamed “Flipper” because he never gave up on a recruit, often flipping long time commitments to another school to the Gators, sometimes on signing day. Jon Sumrall might be worthy of the same nickname if he pulls off a double flip job this weekend.

On campus are defensive tackle Jalen Brewster (6-3, 313, Cedar Hill, TX) and wide receiver Easton Royal (5-11, 189, New Orleans, LA Brother Martin), both 5-star recruits. Brewster is currently committed to Texas Tech and Royal to Texas. Texas and LSU are pushing hard for Brewster and Royal is being hotly pursued by LSU.

Both Brewster and Royal are thought by many recruiting experts to be leaning Florida’s way. Nobody on the recruiting trail is hotter right now than Sumrall, who has taken Florida recruiting from the hinterlands to what ESPN recently ranked the No. 3 class in the country for 2027. The Gators are also very much in the running for 5-star wide receiver Eric McFarland (5-9, 175, Las Vegas, NV/Bradenton, FL IMG Academy).

Add three 5-star recruits to Florida’s impressive haul and the Gators might vault ahead of Texas A&M for the No. 1 class in the country. The last time Florida had the No. 1 class was 2010 when Urban Meyer brought in the likes of Ronald Powell, Dominique Easley, Shariff Floyd, Matt Elam, Chaz Green and Jaylen Watkins.

ESPN top 25 recruiting classes for 2027 as of June 12, 2026: 1. Texas A&M; 2. Oklahoma; 3. FLORIDA; 4. Miami; 5. Notre Dame; 6. Clemson; 7. UCLA; 8. Ohio State; 9. Michigan; 10. Auburn; 11. Texas Tech; 12. Southern Cal; 13. Oregon; 14. Virginia Tech; 15. Washington; 16. Penn State; 17. Kentucky; 18. Ole Miss; 19. California; 20. Nebraska; 21. Texas; 22. Wisconsin; 23. Minnesota; 24. Georgia; 25. Louisville

DENZEL ABERDEEN STILL WAITS FOR AN NCAA RULING

The NCAA has yet to act on Denzel Aberdeen’s request for a waiver that will allow him to play next season. That can be viewed as both strange and typical of the NCAA. Strange in that the NCAA has already granted Washington transfer Franck Kepnang a waiver to play a seventh season of college basketball at Kentucky. Typical of the NCAA for its inconsistency.

Kepnang has played in 111 college basketball games dating back to his freshman year at Oregon in 2000. He played 147 minutes in 17 games that first year. In year three, his first at Washington, Kepnang played in eight games before he was injured, logging 183 minutes on the floor. All told, he has played 1,924 minutes in a college career that includes 46 starts. He will be 25 years old when the season begins in November.

Denzel Aberdeen has played in 119 games over the past four years, three at Florida where he was a valuable contributor off the bench when the Gators won the 2025 national championship, and a year in purgatory at Kentucky. During his freshman season in 2022, Denzel played all of 41 minutes in 12 games. Denzel has played 2,226 minutes with 40 career starts. He will graduate with a degree from the University of Florida. When it comes to academics, a degree from Florida is meaningful. Kentucky isn’t an academic bottom feeder, but the Florida degree can open doors anywhere in the world.

Now, if the NCAA is concerned about doing the right thing, then it should grant the waiver that will allow Denzel to play one more season. The problem is we don’t know which NCAA will show up when the waiver request is heard – the one that is concerned with doing the right thing or the one that is about as consistent with dog dating – one sniff and “that’s the girl for me!”

Should the NCAA balk at another year, then Denzel does have options in the courts where the NCAA typically gets clobbered. See Trinidad Chambliss (Ole Miss), Brendan Sorsby (Texas Tech) and Diego Pavia (Vanderbilt). You can bet the farm that there is a friendly judge in Alachua County or the surrounding area more than willing to issue a temporary restraining order against the NCAA that will allow one more season for Denzel.

The issue really isn’t if Denzel Aberdeen is going to play. It’s more a case of who makes the determination – the NCAA or the courts?

RICH DORMAN EXPECTED TO BE NAMED UF PITCHING COACH

Based on numerous reports from several different sources, Florida baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan is on the verge of landing Rich Dorman of Oregon State as his pitching coach. When it comes to pitching coaches, if Dorman isn’t the best in the business, then he is at least on a very short list.

Florida pitching hasn’t lacked for talent in the past 10 years but the Gators have only posted three seasons in which the ERA was less than 4.00 (2.41 in 2020; 3.46 in 2018; 3.45 in 2017). In the last three seasons the team ERA was 6.05 in 2024; 4.89 in 2025 and last season 4.61. A 4.61 with a staff that included Liam Peterson, who figures to go in the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft next month, All American Aidan King, the SEC Pitcher of the Year, All-American Cade McDonald and hard throwing relievers Jackson Barberi and Josh Whritenour.

Enter Dorman, whose five years at Oregon State produced seven All-Americans and whose 2026 staff produced a 3.22 ERA. His staffs typically produced high volume strikeouts, very few walks and the ball rarely left the yard.

With a core group of King, McDonald, Barberi and Whritenour returning along with the addition of Jacksonville State transfer Maddox McDougall (2.76 ERA), Dorman won’t lack for talent to coach up. This is 5-star hire by O’Sullivan.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: In the face of a firestorm of criticism over its support of Brendan Sorsby, Texas Tech did itself no favors with this round table video propaganda piece that included school prez Lawrence Schovanec, athletic director Kirby Hocutt, head coach Joey McGuire and associate athletic director for student health Grant Stovall. The key word in the video is integrity, as in Texas Tech trying to convince us it showed plenty of integrity in support of Sorsby and its plan to play him this fall.

Oh please.

Try as it might, there is absolutely no way Texas Tech can gift wrap this. Brendan Sorsby would still be gambling if he hadn’t been caught by law enforcement monitors. Then and only then did he check himself into a rehab facility to deal with his gambling addiction. Now after 30 days in that facility Texas Tech is trying to convince people with functioning brains that Sorsby is cured, safe to play and is being adequately punished with a two-game suspension that will hold him out of games with Abilene Christian and Oregon State. Abilene Christian is a D1AA school from something called the United Athletic Conference. Oregon State of the newly revived Pac-12, is projected No. 96 by Lindy’s, No. 101 by Athlon.

Two games that will be over by halftime no matter who’s playing quarterback for Texas Tech. This goes even beyond Kirby Smart’s idea of tough love, which is to require a couple of laps around the practice field and sitting out a scrimmage as adequate punishment for an overnight in the Clarke County jail for yet another moving vehicle violation. At least Kirby doesn’t do a video with the AD and school prez to boast about his integrity. Kirby Smart does whatever he feels is required to win football games. If Texas Tech had any integrity at all it would simply admit that with Sorsby the Red Raiders are the best team in the Big 12 and favored for a second straight year in the College Football Playoff.

At least by telling the truth Texas Tech would come across as pragmatic rather than hypocritical. What they’re doing now is nothing more than posturing for their own people. Texas Tech alums and boosters are so starved for a bite of the national championship apple that they’ll believe anything, even if it is far-fetched.

In its entire athletic history, Texas Tech has won three national championships – one in indoor track, one in outdoor track and a women’s basketball title that dates all the way back to 1993. They want to be relevant which is why multi-gozillionaire Cody Campbell is forking out millions from a fortune made in the west Texas oilfields to bring in however many mercenaries it takes to win a national championship in something. Anything.

Campbell paid pitcher Nijaree Canady more than $1 million a year to bolt from Stanford to scenic Lubbock, home of countless scorpions, rattlesnakes and tumbleweeds. She got the Red Raiders to the national championship best-of-three series twice but lost both times to Texas. Although Canady got the million, Campbell spread the wealth in paying Mia Williams (Florida), Kaitlynn Terry (UCLA), Taylor Pennell (Tennessee) and Jackie Lis (Southern Illinois). Texas Tech is pretty average without them. The way Texas Tech went about it and the lack of class shown by the entire organization caused non-Big 12 opponents refused to play Texas Tech. The Big 12 opponents didn't have a choice. There is a reason why the Florida Gators refused to shake hands with the Red Raiders after they won the Gainesville Super Regional.

Campbell has spent big bucks propping up Grant McCaslin’s basketball team and he’s spending even more on football. Try $5 million for Sorsby, who played two years at Indiana and two at Cincinnati before taking the bait and transferring to Texas Tech. This is where the Sorsby saga has bitten Campbell and Texas Tech in the butt. They spent all this money on Sorsby and didn’t do the diligence ahead of time to discover this guy is a compulsive gambler who made more than 2,000 bets totaling more than $90,000, some on his own team. They were caught flat-footed when Sorsby got caught but rather than seek another QB, Texas Tech has chosen to fight.

So far they’ve won in the courts, but they’ve alienated the rest of the college football world. It’s one thing for Ole Miss to seek an injunction for QB Trinidad Chambliss who didn’t play two full seasons at Ferris State, one of which he missed due to injury. It’s something altogether different to put everything on the line for a gambler.

Unless the NCAA can get emergency relief in the courts, Sorsby will play this fall. The Big 12 could intervene by declaring any game Sorsby plays will be scored as a forfeit, but the potential for endless lawsuits most likely eliminates that as a threat. All the other conference commissioners, school presidents and athletic directors speaking out aren’t going to make a dent in this case. And, don’t, for the life of you, expect the Congress to do anything.

Basically, unless there is a miracle of feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and a couple of small fish proportions, we’re stuck with Sorsby and Texas Tech basking in the glow of its own self-importance.