Florida CB Ethan Pouncey enters NCAA Transfer Portal

Florida cornerback Ethan Pouncey has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, On3 has learned. He will have multiple years of eligibility remaining.

He is a cousin of former Florida offensive linemen Mike Pouncey and Maurkice Pouncey.

After not playing during the 2020 season, Pouncey played in 11 games in 2021 then just three in 2022, when he took a redshirt. He also did not play in 2023.

In 14 games played, Pouncey has just six career tackles.

Pouncey played high school football at Winter Park (Fla.) High School, where he was a four-star prospect. He was the No. 178 overall recruit in the 2020 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire. 

The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.

Florida head coach Billy Napier is high on the defensive transfer the Gators have added

If Florida‘s going to make year over year improvement against a tremendously difficult schedule it’s going to take a significant amount of growth on defense.

Simply put, if the Gators had to rely on their defense a year ago they were in trouble.

However, coach Billy Napier sees some positives in last year’s struggles. First and foremost, the team has developed some additional depth by virtue of having to search for answers last fall.

“Well we’ve got experience. I think for the first time there if you look at that group as a whole, lot of players playing last year, first time that they’ve played,” Napier said. “I think they went into this offseason understanding what’s required in this league to play.

“You added a few pieces to the puzzle, a couple young freshmen that are going to be impactful and then some portal players, in particular in the back end. So overall I think the experience piece is important. We also made a couple changes on the staff and I think that’s gone well so far.”

Florida replaced three coaches on the defensive side of the ball. Gone are defensive line coach Sean Spencer, linebackers coach Jay Bateman and secondary coach Corey Raymond.

Replacing them are defensive line coach Gerald Chatman, linebackers coach Ron Roberts, who will co-coordinate the defense with Austin Armstrong, and secondary coach Will Harris.

Napier already sees positives with both the new staff construction and with the additional depth Florida’s defense has added.

“I think in particular for us with where we’re at as a program, we are still building a roster that can be a contender, so I think we had some glaring issues from a depth perspective on our team last year,” Napier said. “And we’ve been able to add not only talent and traits, but I think this year in the portal we took the approach, ‘What is the extra dimension that these players add to the team?’ The leadership, the character component, can they get along? Every player that we got in, we got them around our team and we got feedback from our players, ‘Hey does this guy fit? Will he help grow the culture that we want here?’ I think it’s one of the areas we did a really good job in this cycle.”