Report: Florida graduate assistant Kali James expected to become Jackson State DL coach

Florida graduate assistant Kali James is expected to take the defensive line position at Jackson State, according to Matt Zenitz. James spent the past two seasons with the Gators.

After graduating from Tuskegee University in 2019, James was immediately hired as a defensive intern at South Carolina. He moved on to coach the defensive line coach for Land Christian Academy.

As a player, James was a four-year player and a two-time captain for Tuskegee where he totaled 62 career tackles, 19 tackles for loss, 7.5 sacks and a fumble recovery for a touchdown during his career.

During James’ time in Gainesville, the Gators combined to go 11-14 and helped lead Florida to the Las Vegas Bowl in 2022. He now joins a Jackson State squad that finished 7-4 during the initial season following Deion Sanders’ departure.

Aside from letting up 77 points in their lone Division I matchup this past season against Texas State, Jackson State’s defense allowed 18.1 points per game this past year. The defensive unit held seven teams to under 20 points in 2023 as well.

Greg Sankey explains why having Early Signing Period in mid-December ‘no longer works’

Changes to the college football recruiting calendar could be coming with the early signing period expected to move to early December. It would change an already busy month marked by bowl game preparation, the College Football Playoff and finalizing early signees.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has made his thoughts clear on the early signing period, and he told Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger he doesn’t think the current calendar works with so many changes coming to college football.

In fact, the SEC is “socializing” the idea of making December a dead period for recruiting entirely, according to Dellenger. There have also been “suggestions” to do away with the fall transfer portal window and only have one in the spring.

“Putting signing day in the middle of December with playoff games no longer works,” Sankey said. “Move it to early December, the Wednesday before championship games. That is the concept. It’s, in part, out of respect to high school football. You’ve heard some want the signing day in June. No one has done any work on what that means for high school football. We have a responsibility to listen to the high school coaches. What we’ve heard out of the Texas group is that they do not at all support that. Everybody has to be attentive to that.”