Billy Napier reveals what impressed him most about former wrestler-turned-DL transfer Joey Slackman

Billy Napier likes alpha dudes on his football team and Joey Slackman fit the bill during the latest transfer portal cycle.

Slackman, a former defensive lineman for the University of Pennsylvania, transferred into the program after a breakout season. But, he wasn’t even on the college football radar until he finally switched back to the sport following his wrestling career.

Amid myriad injuries and surgeries, Slackman turned his 2023 season into an opportunity to play SEC football and garner NFL Draft interest.

“He’s an alpha personality, very articulate and very intelligent,” Napier said, via The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman. “It’s important to him. He’s very motivated and driven. The biggest compliment I can give him is when he took his official visit here, I literally got 12 to 15 players coming up to me saying, ‘Coach, we gotta get that guy.’ He checked all the boxes.”

Slackman told Feldman he heard from around 50 schools during the recruitment process and went on visits to Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, North Carolina, Auburn and of course, Florida.

“It was the craziest month of my life, by far,” Slackman said.

Slackman ended his final year at Penn as the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. He finished the season with 12 tackles for loss, four sacks, 50 total tackles, 23 solo, four QB hurries, a pass breakup and a blocked field goal.

As a member of the Class of 2020, Slackman was not ranked, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He played his high school football at Commack (N.Y.) High.

Going into college, Slackman was a New York State wrestling champion in 2019 and ranked Top 12 in the country at 285 pounds by InterMat. When he first attended Penn, he committed to wrestling after being a Fargo Junior All-American as well in 2018.

But Slackman’s wrestling journey went through trials and tribulations before he returned to football. He tore his ACL and meniscus halfway through his freshman year and then the next season, he didn’t wrestle due to the Ivy League canceling sports in 2020-21 amid the pandemic.

But, he got the itch to play football again, as he told Feldman, and joined the team in 2021. Despite having to underdog another surgery at the end of the season, he kept at it over the next two years.

Sounds like Slackman is exactly the type of player Napier needed at Florida going into 2024.