{"id":145807,"date":"2026-02-06T07:26:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145807\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T07:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:26:18","slug":"florida-lands-2026-commitment-from-tampa-defensive-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145807\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida lands 2026 commitment from Tampa defensive back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"presented\"presented<\/p>\n

Florida has landed a Class of 2026 commitment from an in-state defensive back. <\/p>\n

Three-star Tampa safety Eric Parks announced his commitment to Florida<\/a> via social media on Thursday. The 6-foot, 190-pound Parks was previously committed to Florida Atlantic before flipping to Florida. Parks is reportedly joining the Gators as a preferred walk-on, according to On3.<\/p>\n

Parks is regarded by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 147 recruit from Florida and the nation\u2019s No. 123 safety. <\/p>\n

Parks is an ex-teammate of current Florida wide receiver Dallas Wilson. <\/p>\n

In 2024 as a junior, Parks recorded 39 tackles, 8 tackles for loss, 3 pass breakups and an interception en route to helping Tampa Bay Tech qualify for the regional finals. In 2023, Parks notched 32 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, an interception, and fumble recovery as a sophomore. <\/p>\n

Florida is coming off a 4-8 record during the 2025 season. Florida fired head coach Billy Napier<\/a> on Oct. 19, who served in that role from 2022-2025. Billy Gonzales was the interim head coach the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

Florida hired former Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall<\/a> to fill the vacancy on Nov. 30. Florida will begin the Sumrall era with a home contest against Florida Atlantic on Sept. 5.<\/p>\n

\"Rolando\"Rolando<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida has landed a Class of 2026 commitment from an in-state defensive back. Three-star Tampa safety Eric Parks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-145807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}