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Picking Florida means family reunion for PT’s McMillon

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Donovan McMillon had good news and bad news Saturday night for his relatives in Florida.

First, the good news. The Peters Township High School defensive back announced that he is heading to the Sunshine State for college.

The bad news? Those relatives will have to put their Florida State fan gear deep into storage for a few years.

McMillon announced on Twitter that he had committed to play football for the University of Florida.

“I have grandparents in Orlando, aunts, cousins in the area. My dad grew up there. I have probably 20 or 30 relatives there,” McMillon explained.

Starting in 2021, those relatives can root for McMillon and the Gators instead of their arch-rival Seminoles.

McMillon, a hard-hitting 6-2, 195-pound strong safety who is entering his senior year at Peters Township, said having relatives in Orlando, which is about 115 miles south of Florida’s campus in Gainesville, helped make the difficult decision of choosing a college a little easier. McMillon is the most heavily recruited player from Washington County in a decade and had trimmed his list of college choices to five about two months ago.

He chose Florida over Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech.

“I was looking for a place that was like home away from home,” McMillon explained. “There were multiple factors that went into the decision. Florida has one of the best communications programs and that’s what I plan to major in. Florida’s roster also was a factor. They have four safeties who possibly could be playing their final season this year, so getting on the field could come quicker.”

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, McMillon was able to make an official visit to Florida in June.

“It was a very difficult decision, this whole process, but as soon as I got to the Florida campus it blew me away. It was like a home away from home.”

McMillon said he doesn’t mind making the big leap from high school football to the Southeastern Conference, which is widely regarded as the best in college football.

“I see it as I wrestled in the best classification in the state in Triple-A, and played in one of, if not the best, classification in football in 5A, so why not compete in the best in college football, which is the SEC,” McMillon said.

Florida is coached by Dan Mullen and the Gators’ defensive coordinator is Todd Grantham, who once held the same job with the Cleveland Browns. The safeties coach is Ron English, a longtime assistant at Michigan and former head coach at Eastern Michigan.

“Florida runs the exact same defense that we run at Peters Township,” McMillon pointed out.

Being recruited by major college football programs during a global pandemic created some unique situations for McMillon. He was able to visit only three of his top five schools and had many Zoom meetings with recruiters.

“Really, the only thing that I missed out on was coaches coming to (Peters Township) to visit with me,” said McMillon, who added that he was a big fan of the Florida teams that were quarterbacked by former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow (2007).

“I loved the swagger that team had,” McMillon said.

Peters Township will have two Division I recruits on its defense this season. Linebacker Corban Hondru has committed to Miami (Ohio).

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