{"id":36390,"date":"2021-08-13T12:47:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T16:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=36390"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:45:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T19:45:25","slug":"florida-lands-texas-am-graduate-transfer-elijah-blades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2021\/08\/13\/florida-lands-texas-am-graduate-transfer-elijah-blades\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Lands Texas A&M Graduate Transfer Elijah Blades"},"content":{"rendered":"

After landing a big commitment in Shemar James<\/a>, Dan Mullen and his Florida Gators coaching staff has landed another top defensive player. Texas A&M Aggies graduate Elijah Blades has announced he will transfer to the University of Florida.
\nBlades played just one season for the Aggies as he signed with Texas A&M out of Arizona Western College. He did play in the 2020 season although he opted out of the end of the season due to the COVID-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n

Who is Elijah Blades?<\/h3>\n

Elijah Blades was a redshirt-senior cornerback out of Texas A&M University. Coming out of high school, Blades was one of the top recruits in the 2017 recruiting class. On Rivals, Blades was the 87th ranked recruit and the seventh-ranked cornerback in the country. He committed to Florida but ultimately signed with the Nebraska Cornhuskers but never made it to campus and enrolled at Arizona Western College.<\/p>\n

As a JUCO recruit, Blades was once again one of the top recruits in the country. On Rivals, Blades was the third-ranked recruit and the #1 cornerback in the country. Blades had 19 offers and signed with Texas A&M over Alabama, Florida, LSU, Miami, Oregon, Texas, and others.
\nDuring his time with the Aggies, Blades played in seven games as a junior in the 2019 season. He made 19 total tackles with 2.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, and pass defended. Blades was expected to play a larger role in 2020 but decided to opt-out.<\/p>\n

Scouting Report<\/h3>\n

At 6\u20192\u201d 180 pounds, Blades is a tall, long corner that still has room on his frame to bulk up. He is a good coverage cornerback that also tackles pretty well. Blades coming to Florida is big for the Gators due to lack of depth at the cornerback position.<\/p>\n

Kaiir Elam<\/a> is one of the top cornerbacks in the country and a projected first-round pick but the other side of the field is a question mark. Jaydon Hill<\/a> was expected to get a lot of playing time but tore his ACL in practice and his season is over. The Gators have a top freshman cornerback in Jason Marshall and Missouri transfer Jadarrius Perkins.<\/p>\n

With the commitment of Elijah Blades, add more depth for the Gators at the cornerback position. Blades has some experience in the SEC and can also play at a high level. Blades should make an immediate impact for Todd Grantham and the Florida Gators defense.<\/p>\n

\n
Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After landing a big commitment in Shemar James, Dan Mullen and his Florida Gators coaching staff has landed another top defensive player. Texas A&M Aggies graduate Elijah Blades has announced he will transfer to the University of Florida. Blades played just one season for the Aggies as he signed with Texas A&M out of Arizona […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2113,"featured_media":36408,"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":[2,35573,7316,3,35575],"tags":[79,7810,244,126,4600,20,64],"class_list":["post-36390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-florida-gators","category-recruiting","category-sec","category-texas-am-aggies","tag-college-football","tag-elijah-blades","tag-florida-gators","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-transfer-portal","tag-sec","tag-texas-am-aggies"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36390","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=36390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77647,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36390\/revisions\/77647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}