More Than Florida Legacy: Myles Graham Finds His Voice in Swamp
From a young age, the mission was simple for linebacker Myles Graham — play football at the University of Florida. Not only has that dream become a reality, but the emerging star is leading the Gators’ defense in his first year as a starter.
The Florida sophomore grew up watching his father and former Florida and Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back and now Santa Fe High School football coach Earnest Graham run all over people in the NFL. Graham was in awe of the sport and knew he wanted to play, but it took some convincing at first.
Originally, Graham was told no by his parents, who sought to steer him in another sport, knowing the kind of wear-and-tear football can do to a player. Graham could not help himself, so after some more convincing, he got his parents’ approval and was off.
“Growing up, man, my dad honestly didn’t even want me to play football,” Graham told WRUF’s Kevin Winter on the Gator Sports Network from Learfield. “I kind of forced his hand and I wanted to play I didn’t really like any other sports.”
At the age of 10, Graham got his start in youth football and took off like a runaway train. Graham started at quarterback, learning to lead and facilitate his team. While he found success doing so, his real passion for the game showed when he stepped on the field to play defense. Even playing other sports like basketball, Graham was never known for flashy offensive plays. Instead, he was battling for rebounds, loose balls and playing physical defense.
“He always took to defense, even in youth football, he grew up kind of a quarterback. He was a quarterback initially, and then he played defense, but he was, even in basketball, he was a very defensive minded person,” Earnest Graham said. “He loved that aspect, I used to try to in basketball, we used to try to get his mind open to really being a facilitator and scoring but man, he was just all about the rebounds and ding people up. It was kind of the same thing in football, he kind of likes quarterbacking the defense, he likes stopping people.”
Graham bounced around from Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale, before moving to Fort Myers, where he spent most of his childhood, all the way up till his sophomore year of high school. Graham attended Evangelical Christian School in Naples, where he was coached by his father.
His sophomore year in 2021 is when Graham really broke out onto the scene as one of the best football players in the area. Playing both sides of the ball at linebacker and running back, Graham totaled 130 tackles, averaging 13 per game, three tackles for loss, eight pass breakups, two forced fumbles and an interception on defense. Offensively, he rushed for 595 yards on 68 carries, averaging 8.8 yards a carry, two 100-plus yard games and five touchdowns.
That breakout year led to a barrage of college offers, totaling 29 offers that year. Among those offers was the one he had been waiting on since he was a kid, the University of Florida. Graham got the offer from UF on March 19, 2022, five months later, he made his commitment to be a Gator. While he did not shut down his recruiting process, Graham had already made up his mind, which he made clear with schools trying to pry him away.
“Most teams just got the memo already,” Graham said. “They didn’t even try most of them. But some fought until the end, man. And I had shut my recruitment real early, so it was from then on. Man, it was really no point. I told someone. It was really no point.”
Following his commitment to Florida that summer, Graham and his family moved to Atlanta, where he played his junior year at Woodward Academy. In his one season there, Graham rushed for 465 yards on 86 carries and scored six touchdowns. On defense, Graham had 63 total tackles, six tackles for loss and five sacks.
Even though Graham’s time with the War Eagles was short, Earnest believes the school laid the foundation for his son to become not just a better athlete, but an overall individual.
“The school he went to was phenomenal,” Earnest said. “If you ask him more about Woodward Academy, that school really changed who he was as a person. I mean, it was just a great environment and he learned a lot by playing for a phenomenal program and a great school.”
Wanting to be closer to his future school, the Grahams packed their bags once more and headed to Gainesville. Graham attended Buchholz High School his senior year in 2023, where former Buchholz coach, now defensive coordinator Chuck Bell, welcomed who he calls “the best high school football player that I’ve ever seen in person.”
Bell, a UF graduate, worked under former UF coach Urban Meyer in 2010 and the biggest thing he took from Meyer was his saying, “our best players are your best people, that’s when you have your best teams,” when referring to Graham.
“In Myles’ case, he’s one of the best people off the field that I’ve ever been around as a young athlete. So when you combine his on-field talents with his personality off the field, his leadership off the field, his integrity off the field, it’s a perfect storm for a guy that you know I have no doubt is going to continue to flourish at Florida, just as he did at Buchholz,” Bell said. “And you know, here in the next year or two, I’ll be looking forward to hearing Myles’ name called in New York City, and one of these early, if not the first round, one of the one of the early rounds of the (NFL) draft.”
Despite Graham not joining the team until a week before fall camp started in August 2023, he was still able to integrate himself enough with the program and learn the defense. Bell was impressed with Graham’s leadership qualities that played a part in winning over his teammates so quickly. Those intangibles helped Graham win the starting MIKE linebacker spot over a returning senior that year.
With Graham being a four-star recruit, it was not a surprise that he won the starting job so fast. But Graham never used his on-the-field talents as a way to one-up his teammates, especially as the new guy wanting to find his niche.
“Within the first week that he was here, he was out on the boat with the entire linebacker core out on the lake, with our linebacker coach and I mean, he just fit right in,” Bell said. “It wasn’t, hey, I’m Myles, you know, it wasn’t on the five-star rivals, number one linebacker in the country. It was just hey I’m Myles. He just wanted to be one of the guys.”
That year, Buchholz went 13-1, making it to the state semifinals before losing 21-20 to Lakeland. Graham had 82 total tackles, nine tackles for loss and three sacks. Like all of his previous stops, Graham played both sides of the ball. On offense, he carried the ball 62 times for 600 yards, averaging 9.7 yards a carry and scored 17 times.
To avoid burnout, Bell and the staff were strategic on how much they used Graham on offense, despite public cries to get him the ball more.
Bell could not appreciate Graham’s time at Buchholz enough and thinks his impact at the school stretches beyond the football field.
“He left a lasting impact here on people. It’s not just in football, but on the campus. He was, he was loved by all teachers, students, administration,” Bell said. “He just can’t say enough about the way that Miles came in and did everything the right way.”
The UF legacy enrolled in January 2024, where he did not have to wait long to find playing time. In his freshman year, Graham appeared in 13 games where he recorded 30 total tackles, one sack against Georgia, forced a fumble the next week at Texas and one interception coming in the Gasparilla Bowl win against Tulane.
Now in his second year, Graham wears the green dot, which means he is the unofficial quarterback of the defense, receiving the play calls from defensive coordinator Ron Roberts and relaying that to his teammates. It is quite the feat for a player in his first year as a full-time starter.
“He’s doing very well,” Earnest said. “For someone to still be 19 years old and to be in that position at the University of Florida, I think he’s doing a great job.”
Coming into the season, Graham wanted to improve on being a better leader. Through four games, he leads the team in tackles (24) and has been complimented by Gators coach Billy Napier for his growth as a vocal leader off the field.
“Myles is outstanding. Myles is smart. He is a big-picture thinker. I think he has leadership traits. We want him to be more vocal,” Napier said. “I think we’re continually working on him finding his voice as a leader, being that alpha. And I think he gets a little bit better each opportunity as he gets more experience in the games.”
Florida finds itself staring at a 1-3 start to the season, but fresh off a bye, the Gators have a chance to change the narrative when it welcomes No. 9 Texas to The Swamp on Saturday. Graham understands the stakes of this game and acknowledges that most of the country has counted out the Gators.
“We have a chip on our shoulder, our backs are against the wall right now,” Graham said. “So we got to go out there and play our best ball. We have no choice at this point.”
Florida may be off to a slow start this season, but the defense has been playing that championship-caliber style that Napier wanted to see this offseason. As the heart and soul of this defense, Graham says that even with the odds stacked against them, this group has worked too hard to just abandon ship.
“We sit together because, man, we work so hard in the offseason together, we work so hard this summer together. We bled together every single day, we came in here, we bled together. We fought together. We did everything together. We went to eat together, we played paintball together,” Graham said. “So that’s what’s keeping us together. Man, we’re not just going to splinter and turn on each other after one week or a few weeks of football.”
Category: College Football, Feature Sports News, Gators Football, SEC
