{"id":247407,"date":"2026-04-26T16:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T16:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/247407\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T16:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T16:30:10","slug":"florida-gators-make-program-history-in-2026-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/247407\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Gators Make Program History in 2026 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 NFL Draft came and went, concluding with Rounds 4-7 on Saturday. While the Florida Gators’<\/a> seven selections continued a streak of having at least one player selected in every NFL Draft since 1967, they are not a program record. Nonetheless, where each was selected made program history.<\/p>\n

For the first time in program history<\/a>, Florida had a player selected in each round in a single draft with Caleb Banks (Minnesota) going in the first round, Jake Slaughter (Los Angeles Chargers) going in the second round, Austin Barber (Cleveland) going in the third round, Devin Moore (Dallas)<\/a> going in the fourth round, George Gumbs Jr. (Indianapolis)<\/a> going in the fifth round, Trey Smack (Green Bay) going in the sixth round and Tommy Doman (Buffalo) going in the seventh round.<\/p>\n

Florida’s seven draft selections are the most since its eight selections in 2021 and tied for third-most since the NFL Draft moved to seven rounds in 1994. The Gators had nine selections twice (2007, 2010), eight selections seven times (1999, 2002, 2003, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2021) and seven selections times (2016, 2020, 2025).<\/p>\n

\"George<\/p>\n

George Gumbs Jr. and Caleb Banks were two of Florida’s seven selections in the 2026 NFL Draft. | Doug Engle\/Gainesville Sun \/ USA TODAY NETWORK<\/p>\n

The Gators also had multiple close calls to accomplishing the feat of having at least one player selected in every round since the seven-round draft came into existence, coming a third-round pick short in 2003, a seventh-round pick short in 2013 and a fifth-round pick short in 2017.<\/p>\n

While Florida, as a program, made history with its selections, some of the Gators’ specific drafted players made history.<\/p>\n

Banks, Florida’s first defensive lineman taken in the first round<\/a> since Taven Bryan in 2018, is also the program’s highest-drafted defensive lineman since Gerald Warren went third overall in 2001 to Cleveland. His specific selection continued Florida’s streak of having a player drafted in every draft since 1967 and marks the fourth time in five drafts that the Gators have a first-round pick.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Slaughter and Barber each had their own accolades after being selected on Day Two, with Slaughter becoming Florida’s first center drafted<\/a> since Max Garcia in 2014 and Barber being Florida’s highest-drafted non-center offensive lineman<\/a> since Jawaan Taylor in 2019.<\/p>\n

Also note, Smack <\/a>and Doman became Florida’s first kicker\/punter duo ever to be selected in the same draft. Doman’s selection<\/a> also marked the first time Florida had a punter selected in back-to-back drafts, coming after Jeremy Crawshaw was selected by Denver in the sixth round a year ago.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our free\u00a0Florida Gators newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and follow us on\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0X\u00a0<\/a>for the latest news!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 NFL Draft came and went, concluding with Rounds 4-7 on Saturday. While the Florida Gators’ seven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-247407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247407","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=247407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}