FIU football flipping out over 2026 quarterback recruit DJ Alexander

The last time a true freshman quarterback became an FIU starter was in 2023 when Keyone Jenkins replaced Grayson James in the season opener.

DJ Alexander, who signed with FIU last week, would seem to be a long-shot to start in 2026. But FIU coach Willie Simmons indicated that Alexander won’t back down without a fight.

Case in point: Alexander, a 6-3 and 195-pounder from the Atlanta area, committed to FIU this past March. After that, in the summer of 2025, Alexander attended an FIU camp and did something quite rare.

“He competed,” Simmons said. “Usually when guys are committed to a school, and they attend a camp, they don’t run the 40. They don’t throw. They don’t test.

“But DJ competed like he was trying to earn a scholarship that he already had.”

Alexander, who led New Manchester to an 8-2 record this past season, put up solid – bot not huge – numbers in 2025. He completed 63.4 percent of his passes for an average of 155.2 yards per game and 12 touchdowns. He also ran for 399 yards, four TDs and a 6.1 average.

Perhaps his most impressive statistic was that he suffered just one interception in all of 2025.

Alexander was “discovered” – at least in terms of the FIU staff – by offensive coordinator Nick Coleman.

“DJ was under-recruited for a long time,” Simmons said. “Nick liked the way he threw the ball, and once we started talking to DJ, we liked his temperament. He’s a mature guy.”

Alexander is all-in on FIU, and he proved it by making it down from Atlanta to Miami for several Panthers games.

“I don’t know how many times I got off the bus for ‘Panther Walk’, and one of the first faces I would see would be DJ and his family,” Simmons said. “They were down here as often as they could.

“DJ checks all the boxes – amazing young man from an amazing family.”

Coleman said it was his son, Eli, who helped him meet Alexander. Eli, a seventh-grade quarterback who attends Parkway in Broward County, is trained by Galu Tagovailoa, the father of Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa.

As it turns out, Alexander also trains with Galu.

Beyond that coincidence, Coleman grew to appreciate Alexander as a multi-sport star – a standout hurdler in track and a tough defender/vicious dunker in basketball.

Alexander, who is graduating high school early so that he can enroll at FIU in January, showed his hops during that Panthers camp this past summer.

“Every time he completed a pass he did a back flip,” Simmons said. “After the third time he did it, I had to tell him, ‘DJ, stop flipping. The last thing we want is for you to get hurt.’”

THIS AND THAT

• Simmons said that when he coached Prairie View A&M (2015-2017) and Florida A&M (2018-2023), his staffs did no recruiting in the summer.

“We knew there were 135 bigger schools that could just take those recruits away from us,” Simmons said. “But at FIU this year, we had 18 or 19 recruits committed this past summer, and our job was to hold onto them, and we did.”

• Coleman’s son may be a QB to watch in future years. At the recently-held Pop Warner “Sean Taylor Classic,”, Eli threw five TD passes.

• In this class, FIU signed two players – cornerback Za’marion West and linebacker De’andre Arnold -- from Madison County, which is just 78 miles from Simmons’ hometown of Quincy.

“You get tough, hard-nosed football players from the panhandle,” Simmons said. “There are no distractions. There’s football, and that’s it.”

Simmons compared the toughness of players from that area to recruits from East Texas. Simmons, though, said he was “worried” about West and Arnold and how they may be “shocked by the fast life in Miami.”