Florida Gators EDGE Tyreak Sapp makes decision on 2025 season
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Another Florida Gators starter is returning for his redshirt senior season. The latest is EDGE Tyreak Sapp, who was UF’s highest-graded player on defense this season at 90.0 overall (PFF).
Sapp will back at Florida in 2025, Gators Online has confirmed with multiple sources. Monday was the deadline for UF players to declare for the NFL Draft and Sapp did not submit paperwork.
His decision comes after defensive lineman Caleb Banks and offensive linemen Jake Slaughter and Austin Barber returned to next season. Linebacker Shemar James is the only UF junior turning pro.
In the regular season finale at Florida State, where the Gators recorded season highs in sacks (8) and tackles-for-loss (14), Sapp led the effort with his third-consecutive game of five tackles, 2.0 tackles-for-loss and 1.0 sack.
Sapp forced a fumble on FSU’s opening drive for his team-leading seventh sack. He graded out in the top five among UF defenders in nine games this season and finished the year with 47 tackles.
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“I feel like I’ve always been a man on a mission, it’s just progression and getting better throughout the year,” Tyreak Sapp said of his breakout season. “Understanding things I need to work on, watching more film, just getting together with the guys because this game is all about chemistry.”
In addition to sacks, Sapp led the team in tackles-for-loss (13.0), already tripling his career totals across two seasons of just 5.0 tackles-for-loss and 2.0 sacks.
His 90.0 PFF grade marks the highest by a Florida defender since Jonathan Greenard in 2019 (90.5) and ranks as the third highest among SEC edge defenders and 9th in FBS. He graded out 87.1 in run defense and 81.5 in pass rush this year.
“It’s gratifying,” Sapp said of UF’s winning streak to close out the 2024 season. “It’s always great to know that we earned it, we earned the right for those games. I tell my guys, we don’t deserve anything, we earned everything we have and everything we get and nobody gives us anything. Because when people play the Florida Gators, they are going to put their best foot forward and they are going to try to destroy us just because of who we are. And we accept the challenge, week in and week out, day in and day out, and we take that personally and we go ahead and we go to work. And no matter what happens out there on that field, we always come back together as brothers.”
