By Will Miles
Jack Miller transfer
Former 4-star Ohio State QB commit (class of 2020) Jack Miller announced that he’s going to transfer to Florida to play for Billy Napier.
This is Napier’s first foray into the transfer portal, and the fact that he used it to go and get a quarterback says something. I mentioned in last week’s Musings that QB was a spot where Napier needed to shore things up, and certainly bringing in Miller is the start of that.
While Miller was a 4-star commit, he was on the low end of the rankings at 334th nationally. He’s also the polar opposite of Richardson, as he is listed as having a 40-yard dash time of 5.05 seconds on his 247Sports recruiting profile (Richardson is listed at 4.64).
At Chaparral High School, Miller completed 59% of his passes his senior season and only averaged 8.4 yards per attempt. Usually you want those numbers to be around 65% and up over 10 yards per attempt.
Regardless, Napier likely sees something in the Arizona native. Whether what he sees is depth or someone who will be a contributor to the Gators right away is yet to be determined.
What does this say about Anthony Richardson?
Dan Mullen was fired because of the loss to South Carolina, but I think given the exact same circumstances, he would have survived had Florida lost that game with Anthony Richardson at QB.
The frustration with Mullen wasn’t just that he was losing. It was that the perception was that he was losing with players on the field who were not as good as the ones sitting on the bench. Nobody exemplified that more than Richardson, who was an explosive play waiting to happen whenever he touched the field, but who just couldn’t gain a foothold (whether through Mullen or injury) to wrest the starting job away from Emory Jones.
Napier’s playing with house money right now. The new guy always has a honeymoon period because he hasn’t had a chance to lose to an inferior opponent yet. But this is playing with fire.
Richardson is a large portion of the hope that this program has. The addition of Miller may upset that apple cart. Now maybe Napier knows exactly what he’s doing and bringing in Miller is going to bring out the best in all of his players, Richardson included.
But bringing in a guy who is from the same recruiting class is a significant risk if Richardson were to transfer and become a star somewhere else. I hope that doesn’t happen because I think Richardson has what it takes to be a star.
The question though, is does Napier think so too.
Where else in the portal?
Miller may have been the first player that Napier pulled from the transfer portal, but he isn’t going to be the last. Just a cursory glance at the roster for next year shows some glaring holes that he is going to have to fill.
The largest hole seems to be at defensive line, where Florida is going to lose Antonio Shelton, Daquan Newkirk, Tyrone Truesdell, Zachary Carter, Jeremiah Moon, Andrew Chatfield, Dante Zanders, Khris Bogle and Lloyd Summerall to graduation and/or transfer. That leaves only Gervon Dexter and Brnton Cox as players who’ve received starter-level snaps with Princely Umanmielen, Desmond Watson and Antwuan Powell as the only players who’ve received many snaps at all.
Then you look at offensive line where the Gators are going to lose starters Stewart Reese and Jean Delance, along with T.J. Moore and Gerald Mincey. That at least leaves a unit that has received significant snaps in Richard Gouraige, Ethan White, Kingsley Eguakun, Joshua Braun and Michael Tarquin, but unless there are some gems on the roster who couldn’t break the top-7 last season, help will need to be added from the outside.
But in a line of scrimmage league, these two spots are a huge issue going into 2022. And while Mullen and Co. tried to paper over the depth issues at DT this past year with transfers, Florida is in the exact same position for 2022 given the departure of those players.
Where else on signing day?
How you manage your roster through the portal is different than how you manage your roster for signing day (or at least, it should be).
High school recruits are a long play, where you’re trying to build up the depth and quality of your program overall. There might be a few players in the 2022 class who will help on the field this year, but most of them won’t make a difference until 2023 or beyond.
That’s important when considering what you need to do to build your program as the expectation is you’re going to hit on transfers quickly to fill holes whereas the goal with high school players is to hit long-term.
That means running back – which seems secure with Lorenzo Lingard, Nay’Quan Wright and Demarckus Bowman – needs to be an area of emphasis considering that each of those players will be three years removed from high school (and thus, NFL eligible) by the end of 2022. There isn’t anybody behind those guys on the depth chart.
Wide receiver also needs to be an area of emphasis. Ja’Markis Weston, Trent Whittemore, Ja’Quavion Fraziers, Xzavier Henderson and Justin Shorter could all leave the program after 2022. That would leave Marcus Burke and Daejon Reynolds as the only men standing.
The point is that bringing in transfers might make the team better in 2022. But developing the players that you have and bringing in young players to take some lumps might be a better long-term approach.
Roster management
All of this also ties into roster management.
The NCAA passed a rule this season allowing teams to replace a transfer like-for-like up to 7 players without having to worry about initial counters. Normally teams are only allowed to sign 100 players over a 4-year period. There is some bean counting that allows them to sign 22 one year and 28 the next, but the 100 over 4 is a good rule of thumb.
In the past, bringing someone in from the transfer portal cost a team one of those counters. This year, the first 7 won’t (Florida has 8 players who have thus far entered the transfer portal). That means up to 7 transfers are essentially “free”. Normally, they would cost a team the ability to sign a high school recruit, but that won’t be the case this season.
That means that the only restrictions that Florida would be under is the 85 scholarships that they have available every year. With all of the graduations and transfers, I don’t suspect the Gators will have any trouble getting under that mark.
That means that Napier may get to play both sides of the equation. So long as he’s confident in his ability to develop players even if he has more experienced players in front of them, he can bring in transfers without harming the long-term health of the program.
So that’s the key number. If Napier brings in more than 7 transfers, he’s making a sacrifice. Maybe that’s a good thing or maybe it’s a bad, but there is a trade-off involved.
Toney Terrific
There was some consternation about Napier deciding to bring Patrick Toney with him from Louisiana as a co-defensive coordinator. After years of Todd Grantham terrorizing the villagers, fans were understandably looking for a different approach from Napier than from Dan Mullen, who brought Grantham over from Mississippi State.
But if you read any articles detailing the recruiting experiences of the defensive players who committed to the Gators on early signing day – especially top-100 players Kamari Wilson, Shemar James or Chris McClellan – you’ve definitely heard them bring up Toney.
Nowhere is that more apparent than with James, who apparently was playing video games with Toney well into the night before early signing day, according to 247Sports Blake Alderman.
All of this to say that the problem with Todd Grantham wasn’t that he was familiar to Mullen. The problem with Grantham is that there was no upside. His track record suggested that he was an average defensive coordinator at best who got exploited by QBs and coordinators who were top tier. That might work at a place like Mississippi State, but at a place like Florida where the goal is to beat those top tier teams, it just isn’t good enough.
I have no idea whether Toney is going to be an outstanding defensive coordinator or if he’s got a ceiling. Early returns are that he’s a good recruiter, which is a huge deal, but it isn’t the only thing he’ll be tasked with.
But the fact that he’s familiar to Napier and coming from Louisiana shouldn’t impact how we view the job that he does.
“Army” of support staff
During his introductory press conference, Napier referenced building an “army” of support staff. It doesn’t appear that he was lying.
While we’ve been waiting to hear who the other co-defensive coordinator, tight ends, and other on-field coaches will be, Napier has been building out his recruiting staff, where everyone seems to have a title of Associate AD of some sort. The fact that most of those titles are tied to research, analytics and/or recruiting is an important thing to note.
Perhaps nobody added to the support staff has been more important than Katie Turner, who worked with Napier at Louisiana before going on to become an important cog in the recruiting wheel at Georgia.
Reviews of Turner by Georgia recruits have been overwhelmingly positive and she surely will be missed. And anytime you can pull someone away from a rival it’s a win.
But let’s not think that the Kirby Smart recruiting apparatus will fall apart just because Florida hired a staffer away from the Bulldogs. Turner only came to Georgia two years ago. That means that Smart was pulling in high-level classes before she came and will continue to do so now that she’s departed.
But having someone who knows exactly how Georgia was making those recruiting classes happen is an important first step. It also means that if Napier can’t match the recruiting prowess in Athens, he has nobody to blame but the man in the mirror.
135 Floridians
When you hear people talking about the Gasparilla Bowl, the theme you hear over and over is questions about whether the Gators will show up motivated.
That’s understandable after the Oklahoma debacle last year, but I think it misses a few key points. First, that Oklahoma team was pretty good and Kyle Trask lost all of his main targets with little time to adjust. Florida has practiced less than its full allotment of 15 bowl practices in prep for UCF, but the two situations are hardly similar.
Second, these guys have to go home. There are 135 Floridians on both rosters, meaning almost 80% of the players on the field hail from the state. They’ve all played against each other in high school. Many of them have siblings who came before or are coming after them.
So the idea that the players wouldn’t be motivated flummoxes me. Sure, there may be one or two players who have decided to pack things in. But you don’t get to a major blue-blood program like Florida by not being able to motivate yourself even when conditions aren’t ideal.
I get that may sound hollow after seeing the way the team played against South Carolina, but those were special circumstances. At this point, anybody coming back to the program needs to put their skills on tape for the next staff. Anybody leaving the program has to impress NFL scouts or the next program they’re going to.
The reality is that people are always watching. And that includes the 135 families at home who are watching for bragging rights come Thursday.
Kaiir Elam and Dameon Pierce playing
I’ve seen a bunch of articles about Dameon Pierce – and particularly Kaiir Elam – playing in the Gasparilla Bowl. That has me confused.
Did anybody watch the Gators this year and think those guys were surefire NFL draft picks? I mean, Elam has the skills to play in the NFL, no doubt. But he had a couple of killer pass interference penalties early against Alabama, was injured, and played solidly, but not great when he was in there the rest of the year.
Pierce was a weirder situation, as he played great when he was in there, but couldn’t break through to get the lion’s share of the carries. Again though, if I’m an NFL team, I’m not spending a second round pick on him unless he impresses me at some point along the way.
This bowl is an opportunity for both of them to do that. On National TV as everything winds down for the holidays, Elam is going to get to show what he can do when fully healthy. Pierce is going to get to show the downhill runner that he is (assuming the staff gives him enough carries).
The 4-year total for the 15th pick in the draft is more than $15 million. That drops to $9 million for the first pick of the second round and $5 million for the first pick of the third. If playing in this bowl helps convince a team that they should take you a round early, it’s certainly worth being motivated for the bowl game.
Key to the Gasparilla Bowl
The key to this bowl game is going to be the key to every Gators game thus far this year: Emory Jones’ running efficiency.
Every time Jones has helped the Gators move the ball consistently, he has run the ball efficiently (> 6.0 yards per rush). Every time the Gators have gotten stagnant at times, he has run the ball inefficiently (< 5.0 yards per rush).
Yes, it would be great if he didn’t have any turnovers. Yes, it would be great if Dameon Pierce got the ball more and was able to run all over UCF. But the reality is that Florida’s offense as currently constituted requires flash from the QB in the running game.
Undoubtedly, Jones started to get dinged up as the season went along. He carried the ball 19 times against Alabama, 15 against Tennessee and 13 against Kentucky. With the break between the game against FSU and the bowl game, I expect him to be fully healthy.
He may still throw a turnover or two. The offense may still be somewhat inconsistent. But if Jones is able to average 6 or 7 yards per carry, Florida is going to score 30-35 points. I don’t think UCF has enough firepower to get that many.