Land O' Lakes' Kent Taylor Commits to Florida

After what ’s Kent Taylor described as a “long” and “stressful” process, the nation's No. 1 tight end recruit verbally committed to the University of Florida to play football on Thursday afternoon.

Taylor went into great detail about the process he went through to decide between Florida State, Alabama, Penn State, Georgia and LSU.

He described going to LSU and sitting in Coach Les Miles’ office, talking about stories of the program and walking through Tiger Stadium, the famed "Death Valley." He discussed talking to Alabama Coach Nick Saban and playing for the Crimson Tide in front of 100,000 people every game. Taylor even talked about sitting in Penn State coach Joe Paterno’s house before revealing his selection Thursday in front of a large student body and media frenzy: “Once a Gator … always a Gator.”

His selection and wording was followed by a warm round of applause, as the nervous Land O’ Lakes Gator then proceeded to put on his Florida Gator, orange-and-blue hat symbolizing his verbal commitment.

Taylor mentioned that playing for a standout coaching staff like the Gators' would help put him in the best position to make it to the NFL, because the coaching staff “knows what it takes to get there.”

He said his biggest determining factor in deciding Florida is how he was going to be used on the field.

“Past history has shown that offensive coordinator Charlie Weis is going to throw it to the tight end," Taylor said, "so I thought that that was the biggest thing for me.”