Jim McElwain gets last laugh with strong finish on signing day

Coaches may not frequent recruiting sites to see how many stars they’ve accumulated during the recruiting cycle but their fanbases sure do. Those stars create rankings and the Florida Gators were ranked outside of the top-30 schools — 31st to be precise — in terms of the 2017 recruiting class with less than two weeks until national signing day.

Jim McElwain and his entire coaching staff, which still has two vacancies, were getting drug over coals for a perceived lack of recruiting prowess.

“I have people in the office that say, Mac, you’re taking shots from all over the place,” McElwain said on Wednesday. “We get a kick out of it, too. Here is the one thing. We live in America. We have freedom of speech. I get it. I know where we’re headed. I know the direction. The administration knows the direction.”

That direction, apparently, was a dead sprint directly towards the top with a frenetic finish.

It started the weekend before national signing day. Florida landed three commitments in the four days leading up to signing day. Linebacker Nick Smith made it official on Saturday and defensive back Brad Stewart followed shortly after. Then Monday Elijah Conliffe announced on Bleacher Report that he would be joining as well.

Suddenly, McElwain’s class that had been stagnant, if not losing steam, had some momentum.

It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish and nobody in the country finished as strong as Florida did.

“We took care of areas that we felt were always big to the Gators. We started those inroads in that Tampa area. We spread throughout the state,” McElwain said. “We focused on the fact that we got a number of guys that were highly rated in the state of Florida, and those numbers will continue to rise as we move forward. That’s something that’s exciting.”

Starting in Tampa the Gators had three solid commitments in running back Malik Davis, defensive end Zach Carter and receiver Daquon Green. They took I75 south into Broward County for another longtime commitment in defensive back Marco Wilson but they weren’t satisfied with stopping there.

McElwain and his staff were able to go into the Miami Hurricanes backyard and take Wilson’s teammate, offensive lineman T.J. Slaton. Then they secured commitments from Miami leans in cornerbacks C.J. Henderson and Brian Edwards.

“The one thing we wanted to do is make sure we get the absolute right fit. The plan was there. We had the plan. That will happen here shortly. Yet the guys did an outstanding job that had the relationships with the guys already,” McElwain said Wednesday. “It wasn’t one of those things where that one was going to turn one or another, and we felt making sure that it’s the right fit, number one, and guys that absolutely want to be Gators, number two.”

When the dust settled the Gators had done something nobody other than the coaching and support staff thought possible. They filled out a class with talented players that is now ranked inside the top-10 by every recruiting service other than ESPN. They didn’t just add numbers, they addressed needs.

Florida’s numbers at defensive tackle are low. They added three. The secondary, touted as DBU was critically low on numbers and the staff added five members, several that could start or play immediately, into the fold. Florida finished with 14 players ranked inside Rivals top-100 recruits.

“Did we get every single guy? No,” McElwain said. “Did we get a lot of them that maybe some other people weren’t recruiting as highly or whatever but we actually had ranked where we had them ranked in our evaluation? Yeah, absolutely right. We’re excited about those guys.”

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC