Gators not backing down in recruiting

It’s still recruiting season for the Florida Gators.

“The Gators aren’t going anywhere”, Billy Napier said.

Eight weeks ago, you could say Florida recruiting wasn’t where it needed to be. After missing out on multiple prospects in the months of May and June, the expectations of Florida fans were quite low. That all quickly started to change in the first couple weeks of July as the Gators found a massive amount of momentum on the trail. Fortunately for Florida, things don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. 

During this impressive stretch from Billy and his staff, the Gators have landed 15 commits since the last week of June. The Gators also landed two or more commits in a week’s span, four times now. With defensive linemen Will Norman, Kelby Collins, and Kamran James all committing to Florida this past Saturday and Sunday. The best is clearly yet to come for this 2023 recruiting class. 

Not only has this staff been putting in the work for the 2023 class, but they’ve also been making 2024 prospects a huge priority. 2024 four-star Legacy recruit Myles Graham ended up committing to Florida just one day after four-stars Kelby Collins and Will Norman decided to commit along with four-star Kamran James just that next day.

Graham showed huge promise for the 2024 class as he has already shown signs of being a class leader and recruiting local players to be Gators. Not only did the Gators get their linebacker for the 2024 class, but also for the 2023 class. Just days prior to the big three and Graham committing to Florida, four-star LB Jaden Robinson flipped from South Carolina to Florida. 

There has been a huge awakening the last couple weeks in the college football world. The Florida Gators can recruit again, and teams have been put on notice. These much-needed past couple of weeks have skyrocketed the Florida Gators to 10th in the latest 247/On3 recruiting rankings for the 2023 class. A couple of months ago the Gators were struggling to get out of the 40’s, sitting at 47th for quite a while. 

“Well, I can’t compliment our staff enough, right? I think we’ve hired really good people; we are thankful for the administration giving us the resources to create the infrastructure that we do have”, said Napier. “From a personnel department standpoint, on campus recruiting, gator made, to the on-field assistants, etc. We’re going to plan our work, we’re going to work our plan, and we’re going to be consistent.”

Ever since the commitment of WR Tyree Patterson 4 months ago, the Gators have landed 18 other commitments with a blue-chip ratio of 75%. Alabama and Miami are two teams that sit behind Florida when it comes to ratio percentage. The Florida Gators currently sit right behind Notre Dame with the second most four stars in the country. Florida sits at 18; and Notre Dame at 19. 

“There’s history here, and there’s tradition here”, said Coach Napier. “There’s an elite education experience here, along with an alumni network that can help position our players for success after football. We have one of the best game days, if not the best game-day venues in all of sports. We’ve got prime location”, said Napier. “The Gators aren’t going away on the recruiting trail”. 

Something Florida has highly lacked since about 2015-2016 has been recruiting.  Napier was brought here to fix this problem. So far, he’s proven that he can, and has a plan to execute. Almost 80% of the 2023 class is from the state of Florida, that should say enough about Billy Napier and his priorities. 

Gentry Hawk
Gentry Hawk is a student at the University of Florida studying sports journalism. He is a writer and reporter for GatorCountry. You can find most of his work on Twitter @gentryhawkgc, or right here on Gator country.