Gator Country

With Friday Night Lights behind us, it's time to stop and take a look at how Florida football recruiting compares to its biggest rivals.

Football recruiting can change on a dime, but, as expected, Florida picked up some momentum with its biggest annual recruiting event.

The Gators didn’t land any commitments just before or after the event, but they placed themselves in great position moving forward and landed commitments from a pair of prospects ranked in the GatorCountry.com Composite Recruiting Rankings in the days leading up to the event.

The No. 110 player in the composite ranking, safety Marcus Maye committed to Florida first. The No. 371 player in the composite ranking, safety Rhaheim Ledbetter committed to the Gators shortly after.

Those two commitments pushed Florida to the top of the pack against its rivals.

The Gators now have 12 players ranked on the composite ranking committed, one more than in-state rival Florida State (11) and two more than Auburn (10). LSU trails with nine commits, while Alabama and in-state rival Miami each have eight.

The schools making the most movement in the composite ranking in the past two weeks are Florida and South Carolina, which each added two more commitments from players on the composite ranking.

The Gamecocks received verbal commitments from No. 328 OL Joe Harris and No. 356 LB Kaiwan Lewis.

Florida State (No. 102 DL Justin Shanks), LSU (No. 336 DL Danielle Hunter) and Miami (No. 280 LB Keith Brown) each added one commit from a player ranked in the composite ranking.

Tennessee also added a commitment from No. 178 WR Drae Bowles, but lost a commitment from No. 320 WR Corey Smith.

While the Florida football recruiting class has the most commits ranked in the composite ranking of the 12 SEC schools and in-state rivals Florida State and Miami, the Gators may not have the strongest class just yet.

The Gators boast two players ranked inside the Top 100 of the composite ranking, but Florida State has four and Auburn has three.

The Seminoles also have commitments from two players ranked just outside the Top 100, as well, in Shanks and No. 104 DB P.J. Williams.

It’s hard to argue the quality of the Florida football recruiting class right now, but the Gators could still use commitments from a handful of upper-tier prospects to round out the class.

Offensive lineman D.J. Humphries could be a big step in that direction if he pulls the trigger for Florida when he announces his commitment on Aug. 5.

Below is a complete listing of all the players in the composite ranking committed to SEC teams, Florida State and Miami.

About the author

Thomas Goldkamp

Thomas Goldkamp is the Gator Country beat reporter for football and basketball. He graduated from the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications and has been covering the Florida Gators since late 2009. He previously worked as a freelancer on the Rivals network, as well as at the Palm Beach Post. You can find his latest stories here.

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