Stephen Alli to provide WR help immediately for Florida Gators

The Florida Gators football team got great news on Wednesday when 2010 football commitment Stephen Alli decided to skip his senior year in high school to enroll immediately with the Gators.

Alli will be able to play immediately during the 2009 season and should help to provide more depth and skill at one of the weakest positions and biggest question marks for the Florida Gators heading into the season. Even if he redshirts, he will provide some good competition at the position during fall practice.

Alli is a brilliant student and had enough academic credits to graduate high school immediately. In fact, Alli had a scholarship offer to play football at Harvard, a truly impressive achievement.

Above and beyond his intellectual acumen, Stephen Alli offers enormous upside for the Gators football team. Alli checks in at 6-foot-6, 210-pounds and runs a 4.38 second 40 yard dash.

That type of size and speed could make him an immediate candidate to see some early playing time as a freshman at Florida.

I couldn't be happier to get this kid in this year and get a look at him right away. The fact that he has his head screwed on straight in the classroom and has such enormous potential is fantastic.

Also, Alli is a bit of an underdog story as he was an unranked prospect according to the major recruiting services when Urban Meyer offered him a scholarship. The recruiting services have since jumped on board and now rank Alli as a three star prospect.

Regardless, the fact that Florida extended an offer really proves two things. First, Urban Meyer and staff do a terrific job of evaluating talent on their own and do not rely at all on recruiting rankings, etc. Second, it proves that Meyer really does value athletes that are also exceptional students.

There's also speculation that Alli will be attending Florida on a full academic scholarship, meaning he wouldn't count towards the scholarship limit of 85. As soon as I get confirmation of this one way or the other, I'll be sure to pass it along.

I can't wait to see Alli hit the field, and I wish him the best of luck here at Florida as he gets ready to start fall practice with the Florida Gators football team.