Daquan Newkirk has been around the game a long time and he's seen his share of incredible athletes, including Derrick Brown, who was a consensus First Team All-American and the seventh overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.
But when Newkirk was asked about a new teammate, his eyes became cartoonishly big with excitement.
"I don’t want to boost him up too much, but Gervon is an actual beast," he said. "This guy is a massive, massive man. Like, I know he’s a boy, but he’s a massive man. He can do a lot of things. I try to coach him up a lot. He can be consistent in what he does. He can be like … it’s crazy.”
Dexter has always been bigger than most people. He played basketball for most of his high school career, only taking to football a few years ago. His size and strength allowed him to not only get by but to dominate. Dexter was a five-star recruit and the No. 23 player in the country despite not really knowing what he was doing.
He arrived at Florida and all of a sudden, he wasn't the biggest guy on the field anymore.
"I was used to just like being the little guy in front of me and then I came into my freshman year playing all SEC games to where the man in front of me is just as big as me or bigger," Dexter said. "I was like ‘dang, you gotta work some technique’. You gotta learn some moves, you gotta do something to get this man from in front of me."
One of the reasons Dexter chose Florida was the Gators' defensive line coach David Turner, who has a long history coaching and mentoring some great defensive linemen. When Dexter arrived on campus Turner recognized the ability but it was like panning for gold. He had something valuable and shiny but in its rawest form. There is a plus to that, though.
"I really don’t have any real bad techniques," Dexter said. "I would say that’s a blessing also, just having no bad techniques and everything is new."
His coach knows the potential but also knows the work that has to be put in to reach it. Dexter has so many expectations surrounding him, given his recruitment status and physical gifts, that he's quick to caution or temper the expectations some.
"I keep making the point: Gervon has only played —he played two years of high school and he played some last year. Three years and truly not three years because he didn’t play a whole lot last year. But he’s still relatively new to the game," Turner said. "Things are happening that have never happened before to him on the field. The good thing about him is, he’s going to always ask questions. He wants to be good, and that’s how he’s had to learn, kind of on-the-job training. The more he plays, the better he gets."
Still, the potential is there and with each passing day Dexter picks up something new and continues to grow and develop.
"Gervon Dexter is going to be a problem. I’m not saying this just because he’s my teammate. Gervon Dexter is going to be a problem. Once he figures everything out and he like really knows how to play football," Antonio Valentino said of Dexter. "But once actually figures out how to be like an actual real for-real for-real football player and understands how the game flows and works and all that type of stuff, it’s over with. Somebody is going to pay Gervon Dexter millions of dollars to go play football some day.”
