South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Meeks coming back to where it all began
Dylan Meeks is returning to where it all started.
Meeks, a former Dr. Phillips standout linebacker who was born in Gainesville, is headed back to UF as a graduate transfer after playing three seasons at Akron. Meeks will have one more year of football eligibility.
Meeks’ father, Sanford Meeks, said the family is excited for Dylan to get this opportunity at Florida, where Sanford and his wife, Allyson, went to college.
“His ultimate goal is to go to medical school, but he has a year of eligibility, so he kind of wanted to compete somewhere. He’s going to take a year and do some grad school,” Sanford Meeks said of his son, who will be a walk-on. “He had a few scholarship offers and I thought he would end up at Colorado State, but he just couldn’t get the graduate program to work out with football and its conflicts.
“He did get the UF program to work out so, he’ll give it a shot. What the heck.”
Meeks, who was the No. 8-ranked prospect in the Sentinel’s 2017 Central Florida Super60, could not get any recruiting traction coming out of Dr. Phillips. He ended up at Akron, where he was listed on the team’s roster as a defensive end and played a number of positions for the Zips.
The 6-foot-2, 240-pound Meeks had his best season at Akron in 2019, totaling 47 tackles. He opted out of the 2020 season and entered the NCAA transfer portal.
At UF, Meeks’ father said the Gators are expecting him to battle for playing time at the linebacker position, the spot where he set the all-time tackles record at Dr. Phillips. Meeks was also a gifted wrestler in high school, winning three state championships.
He’s also always been focused in the classroom and at Akron was a COSIDA Academic All-American nominee in 2019 and made the All-MAC academic team two consecutive years. He made the Akron dean’s list as a freshman.
Meeks is the youngest of three football-playing and wrestling brothers. Oldest brother Alton Meeks played three seasons at Iowa State (2014), Iowa Western (2015) and Northern Illinois (2016) while middle brother Colby Meeks played on the offensive line at Colorado State (2015-18). Colby graduated and Alton is working on his MBA at Southeastern College in Lakeland and is a member of the wrestling team.
Sanford Meeks said Dylan just wants to compete at UF, and he said there is no pressure on him to perform.
“I don’t want to set any expectations for him to have to live up to for me,” Sanford said. “We’re just hoping he gets an opportunity to at least play some special teams and maybe play in certain situations.
“The timing actually might be good. They’ve had some linebackers leave and so we’re excited for him to get a chance to play linebacker again. He can have some fun with it and get a degree that will help him along the way, so hopefully something good comes from it.”