Asa Turner amassed 148 tackles and seven interceptions in five seasons at Washington. (Photo: Jordan Herald/UAA Communications)
CFP Pedigree: Transfer Turner Big Hit in Secondary
Wednesday, August 14, 2024 | Football, Chris Harry
Share:
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The ritual started five years ago at the University of Washington, took a two-year hiatus, and was restarted again last spring at the Heavener Football Training Center. Asa Turner
Safety Asa Turner, without fail, would arrive at the office of Huskies secondary coach Will Harris every morning at 6:30 for one-on-one study time. As if that form of dedication didn't impress Harris enough, Turner began showing up with a teammate, Alex Cook, who was invited to the meetings by Turner even though the two were competing for the same starting spot.
So how'd that dynamic ultimately work out?
Harris moved Cook to free safety and paired the two together in his starting defensive backfield.
"And we had the No. 1 pass defense in the country," said Harris, now secondary coach of the Florida Gators. "That should tell you something about the kind of man, the kind of teammate, the kind of person Asa Turner is."
And this should tell you what kind of football player he is.
"Every time I see him lined up across me, I got to put my mouthpiece in," UF junior wideout Kahleil Jackson said.
Billy Napier's third UF football team includes 12 scholarship players acquired via the transfer portal. Which of them will have the greatest impact during 2024 remains to be seen, but Turner, the 6-foot-3, 210-pounder with College Football Playoff pedigree, is high on the list. Turner, who started for the Huskies in their national-championship game loss to Michigan last January, is running with the first defense at strong safety and showing the kinds of intangibles expected from a sixth-year player who's been where the Gators want to go.
"The guy is in the building as much as I am," Napier said.
The hope is that Turner shows up just as much on the field on Saturdays. From 2019-23, he played 43 games at Washington and despite dealing with a laundry list of injuries totaled 148 tackles, including 96 solo and 7.5 for loss, and intercepted six passes.
His path to UW was somewhat circuitous. Turner was born to a military family in North Carolina, then moved to Hawaii for most of his childhood, then to Southern California, where he was a standout receiver and defensive back ranked among the top 200 players in the nation. Turner signed with Washington, coached at the time by Chris Peterson, then soldiered through Covid (and that state's brutal pandemic restrictions) and three head-coaching changes before the Huskies hit paydirt with Kalen DeBoer.
When DeBoer bolted for Alabama mere days after the CFP, Turner hit the portal.
"I wanted to see what kind of options I had, but I also was in a time crunch," Turner said. "I needed a change. I had been at Washington for five years, doing the same routine, living in the same apartment, seeing the same people, driving the same car, [so] I probably felt it was time for a change and wanted to go out with a bang in this sixth year."
Asa Turner(20), as a Husky, zeros in on a USC ballcarrier during one of his five seasons in Seattle.
(Photo: Joshua Bessex/Gateline)
That Turner got a sixth year was fortuitous; for both he and the Gators. Turner played in seven games during the 2023 season, but because three of them were postseason games – the Pac-12 championship against Oregon, plus CFPs against Texas and Michigan – he still qualified for a medical redshirt (broken hand last year that required two surgeries) because he only participated in the regular-season cap of four games.
The portal was soon closing and Turner, despite a slew of interest for his services, had about 48 hours to make a decision. Time, barely, for one official visit.
Enter Harris, who left UW following a coaching change after the 2021 season. He spent 2022 as Georgia Southern's defensive coordinator and secondary coach, then 2023 with the Los Angeles Chargers, but left the NFL for the Gators. When Harris saw Turner's name pop into the portal things came together quickly.
"We'd kept in touch and even talked about if I ever got back into college football to let him know," Harris said of Turner, who graduated from UW with a real estate degree and is taking master's business classes at UF. "I would say Asa loves football, but it's more so that he is in love with football. He's obsessed with it. I learned that from watching him grow at Washington and have been reminded of it in our time together here. He's basically a coach out there. He knows all the positions on defense, always doing the right things and putting himself and his teammates in the right places."
A chance to reunite with Harris made Florida the right place for Turner, even if his knowledge of Florida – not just the university, but the Sunshine State in general – was limited, at best.
Examples:
* Billy Donovan gave a fiery motivational talk to the team last week, but Turner had never heard of the iconic basketball coach and two-time national champion. He did, however, have some rudimentary knowledge of Steve Spurrier, but learned a little more about the HBC the last few months. "He's got a really nice restaurant," Turner said. * His most expansive background of Florida football came from watching "Swamp Kings" on Netflix. When asked, still can't say for certain who UF's biggest rivals are. He'll find out soon enough. * Turner, who grew up in Carlsbad, Calif. (about 30 minutes from San Diego), has gotten a crash course as far as living in sweltering Gainesville during the summer. "It rains a lot here," said the guy who spent the last five years in Seattle.
But mostly his time here has been preoccupied with football and bonding with his new teammates. Turner was brought here not only for his skill set, but to help further Napier's overall reset of the program.
As a sixth-year player, Asa Turner's experience and knowledge makes him a natural leader in the secondary. (Photo: Mallory Peak/UAA Communications)
"Just growth in all areas, and mostly the culture," Turner said of his time on campus. "I've heard [from] dudes who have been here five years that it's come such a long way and even for me, being here the last [eight] months, I've seen it come so far, so I feel like the culture and everything Coach Napier brings, all the new staff, all the transfer portal players, we're bringing the right culture and hopefully making some changes here."
Most things about Turner, though, have remained the same. The dedication to football, of course. His faith (the name "Asa" comes from the Bible) that sends him to church twice a week. He has no plans to cut his hair, which when unfurled falls halfway down his back. And he's not going to compromise his chill West Coast style that, for example, might find him walking into Heavener looking like a surfer dude in a lululemon ad.
Said sophomore free safety Jordan Castell: "I tell him, 'Only you can pull that off.' "
His apparel choice for Gator Walk should be interesting. Not as interesting, Gator fans hope, as what transpires while wearing the UF uniform on game day. His teammates have noticed how quickly Turner can flip the switch from "California Cool" to "Florida Football Phanatic."
Defensively, the Gators need to be worlds better in 2024 than the unit that ranked 69th overall, 70th against the pass, 75thin scoring, 79th against the run and forced just seven turnovers in '23. If UF is to halt its run of three consecutive losing seasons – a first for the program since 1945-47 – and work its way back into Southeastern Conference relevancy those numbers probably have to be cut in half.
Preseason prognostications haven't been kind to the Gators, but the team has internal prognostications of its own. They matter more.
"We know what we have in here. We got a lot of talent," Turner said. "It might not be in newspapers or articles or anything like that, but we know what we have is great this year."
Sometimes it's the work put in when no one is watching — likeAsa Turner, last man on the practice field, doing cycle intervals in the mid-day sun Monday — that makes a difference.
Turner, obviously, won't make a difference by himself, but he's doing his part contributing to the cause. Doing it during meetings and practice with his teammates, as well as after practice when he rolls a stationary bike onto the field and cranks out 10 sets of 30-second intervals, followed by five more sets at 10 seconds.
Then he rinses and repeats, starting at 6:30 every morning at Harris's office. He no longer has Cook at his side, of course. Cook, undrafted out of Washington, is in his second season with the NFL Carolina Panthers. Cook has a son named Asa.
That, too, should tell you something about the man, the teammate, the person.
Up Next presented by UF Health (November 21, 2025)Up Next presented by UF Health (November 21, 2025)
Friday, November 21
Up Next presented by UF Health 11-21-25Up Next presented by UF Health 11-21-25
Friday, November 21
Florida Football | Urban and Shelley Meyer Reflect On Their Time at UF: "Thank You, Gator Nation!"Florida Football | Urban and Shelley Meyer Reflect On Their Time at UF: "Thank You, Gator Nation!"
Thursday, November 20
Florida Football | Interim Head Coach Billy Gonzales Press Conference | TennesseeFlorida Football | Interim Head Coach Billy Gonzales Press Conference | Tennessee
