{"id":13549,"date":"2018-02-07T06:10:21","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T11:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosoncfb.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=13549"},"modified":"2025-09-13T16:02:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:02:58","slug":"armour-american-wr-florida-commit-justin-watkins-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2018\/02\/07\/armour-american-wr-florida-commit-justin-watkins-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Under Armour All-American WR Justin Watkins Signs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/dan-mullen-2.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dan Mullen<\/a><\/strong> and the Florida Gators coaching staff have signed one of the top wide receivers in the country. Under Armour All-American and Florida commit <strong>Justin Watkins<\/strong> has signed his NLI to the University of Florida. This is a huge signing for the Gators as Watkins is one of the best receivers in the country. Florida head coach Dan Mullen adds a big-time wideout like Watkins who fits Mullen\u2019s offense perfectly. The Gators are in need of slot receivers since <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/players\/brandon-powell-1.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Brandon Powell<\/strong><\/a> is on his way to the NFL. Watkins is one of two wide receivers that is signing with the Gators in the early signing period with <strong>Jacob Copeland.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/laamar_05\/status\/954869961394212865\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/laamar_05\/status\/954869961394212865<\/a><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\">Who is Justin Watkins?<\/h3>\n<p>Justin Watkins is a four-star WR out of East Ridge High School in Clermont, Florida. The Florida WR commit is one of the elite wide receivers in the country. He is an Under Armour All-American and a big-time playmaker. Watkins is one of the most explosive wideouts in the class due to his speed and agility. He is terrific with the ball in his hands which could really help him see early playing time with the Gators. Watkins chose Florida over Alabama, LSU, and Texas.<\/p>\n<p>According to the 247 Sports Composite, Watkins is the 84<sup>th<\/sup> ranked recruit and the 16<sup>th<\/sup> ranked wide receiver in the country. According to ESPN, Pitts is the 17<sup>th<\/sup> ranked recruit and the second-ranked athlete in the country. The Gators have added a big-time slot receiver who could really make an impact in the upcoming season. Watkins could come in and push for some playing time either at receiver or as a returner if he plays as a true freshman.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-13577\" src=\"https:\/\/lwosoncfb.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/01\/6_8001822.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/01\/6_8001822.jpg 620w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/01\/6_8001822-300x155.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dan Mullen and the Florida Gators coaching staff have signed one of the top wide receivers in the country. Under Armour All-American and Florida commit Justin Watkins has signed his NLI to the University of Florida. This is a huge signing for the Gators as Watkins is one of the best receivers in the country. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2113,"featured_media":13577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1197,244,2999,2963,126,20],"class_list":["post-13549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-dan-mullen","tag-florida-gators","tag-florida-gators-recruiting","tag-justin-watkins","tag-ncaa","tag-sec"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77896,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13549\/revisions\/77896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}