By Will Miles
Decommitments
Gator Nation got a little bit pensive this week as all-purpose back Brashard Smith decommitted from Florida and opened up his recruitment.
Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, except Smith attends Miami Palmetto High School. Again, not a big deal until you realize that 5-star recruits Jason Marshall and Leonard Taylor, as well as 4-star recruits Savion Collins and Corey Collier also attend Miami Palmetto.
Now, it’s certainly possible that Smith decommitted so that he can recommit with his friends. But for a fan base that thought for sure that it had safety Avante Williams locked up this February only to see him go to the Hurricanes, some apprehension is reasonable.
More than anything, the hope was that Mullen would be getting those others to commit with Smith. Instead, it appears that Marshall and Taylor won’t be committing until signing day in February. That means that judgments of this class may have to wait until February, meaning that those who follow this stuff closely are going to have to argue with each other for the full cycle.
Attrition
Far more worrisome to me than any decommitments from the 2021 class is the attrition that Dan Mullen has experienced thus far in his tenure in Gainesville.
With 4-star offensive tackle Issiah Walker reportedly entering the transfer portal, Florida is at a real risk of losing yet another high-level recruit before he gets to his first fall camp. I say another because we had that experience last season with Chris Steele and Jalon Jones. And the year before that we experienced it with Justin Watkins.
You expect some attrition from a coach’s transition class, and Mullen has certainly seen that. Randy Russell was ruled out because of a medical condition while David Reese has been unable to contribute because of injury. Noah Banks stopped playing because of injury while Chris Bleich lost his job and decided to transfer. John Huggins and Watkins were dismissed from the team.
But the trend has continued with the 2019 class as well. Jalon Jones was dismissed. Chris Steele left, in part because of Jones. Wardrick Wilson was unable to get his Visa. Diwun Black, Deyavie Hammond and Arjei Henderson did not qualify academically, although Black and Hammond are currently being counted by 247Sports in the 2021 class.
And now, we have Walker along with Leonard Manuel who may not end up ever setting foot in the Swamp in the fall.
All programs face some amount of attrition, but this is significant and it is worrisome. Florida doesn’t play in the ACC. The Gators have been really healthy the past two seasons, but we’ve seen what happens when they are not in 2017 and 2013.
That doesn’t mean that I think Mullen is going to have a 4-8 campaign, but depth may be an issue sooner than we think.
What about the transfers?
Without knowing what Florida will get from Black, Hammond and Wilson, that puts Florida at potentially getting zero from 24% of its class (16 players of 68 commits). That’s…..suboptimal.
Yes, Florida has brought in transfers with a high hit rate, namely Van Jefferson, Trevon Grimes and Jonathan Greenard. The trend continues this year as Florida will rely on Brenton Cox and (hopefully) Justin Shorter and Lorenzo Lingard.
But when fans ask me why I don’t factor in transfers into recruiting, the attrition I detailed above is exactly why. Yes, Florida has brought in these transfers, but they did it to plug holes left by players they were hoping to be able to rely on and an inability to completely fill out the roster on the recruiting trail.
The other thing is that relying on these transfers further hurts depth because not only do you have to use an initial counter for the commit who bails, but then you have to use an initial counter on the transfer you bring in to replace him.
Florida has reaped the benefits of the transfer portal thus far under Dan Mullen. But there’s a significant risk with using it as a way to replenish talent as well. I just hope we don’t find that out in the 2020 season.
2021 class expectations
Often, fans are disappointed when their expectations don’t match reality.
Back in 2018, Dan Mullen signed a class that had a 247Sports average ranking of 90.75. He followed that up with average rankings of 91.06 and 90.70 in 2019 and 2020. Right now, his 2021 class has an average ranking of 90.72.
This is who he is as a recruiter. Florida is going to end up somewhere between finishing 7th and 11th and Mullen is going to have to make that work.
These players are not chopped liver. They are highly skilled players who have the opportunity to develop into high quality NFL prospects. But, based on their recruiting profiles, it likely will take some of them 2-3 years to show that development.
That means that we need to look to the experienced players on Florida’s roster to lead the way, and fortunately for the Gators, there are a bunch of them. Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts and Trevon Grimes can ride with anybody in the country. And Kaiir Elam and Marco Wilson are going to be a great tandem outside.
But the success or failure of Florida’s season may fall on the development of some of these younger players. That’s a good thing as Mullen has proven he does that quite well.
Georgia
All focus for the 2020 season is rightfully on Georgia. The Bulldogs have won the last three against Florida, and Georgia isn’t letting up on the recruiting trail.
Contrast the numbers. Georgia has signed 19 5-stars and 62 4-stars (compared to 1 and 57 for Florida) over the past four cycles. Just look at the list of the top commits from 2017. Isaiah Walker just went 29th in the NFL Draft to the Titans. Richard LeCounte is projected to be a first round pick next year. D’Andre Swift went 35th. Jake Fromm struggled in 2019 but still went in the 5th round to the Bills. Andrew Thomas went 4th overall to the Giants.
If you have your top five recruits drafted after their third year – three of them in the top 35 picks – you’re going to have a good team. Florida only had one (C.J. Henderson).
This isn’t to say that Georgia is unbeatable. They clearly aren’t. But what it does indicate is that the hit rate for recruits is tied to their rankings coming in. Once you get past the top five recruits in the 2017 class, Georgia’s class looks remarkably like Florida’s.
But those five guys get to play.
Volunteer mirage
If I’m going to laud Georgia’s recruiting I need to point out the flaws in the narrative that Tennessee “is back”. The Volunteers have landed a bunch of commits recently, facilitating a rise to the second in the 247Sports rankings.
The problem is that Tennessee has 18 commits and an average player ranking of 89.21. Last year, Tennessee had an average recruit ranking of 89.92 and the year before had a ranking of 90.46.
The point is that Tennessee is riding a recruiting narrative that isn’t true. They have gotten commits from a bunch of players – two of them 5-star recruits – but this class is going to end up where Tennessee has ended up pretty much every year: just outside the top-10 and behind seven or eight SEC teams.
Those 5-star guys are important, but Jeremy Pruitt got the commitment of two 5-star recruits in Darnell Wright and Wanya Morris in the 2019 class. He has shown he can bring in elite-level players in a class. What he hasn’t shown is that he can fill out a class with the high-level players necessary to really drive the recruiting rankings.
It’s interesting because it is the exact opposite of what Florida fans are experiencing with Mullen. Florida keeps bringing in classes filled with high-level recruits but missing the elite, can’t miss 5-star guys. Pruitt is bringing in those can’t miss guys but is bringing in lower-level recruits from the third player down.
Time will tell on which strategy is going to work, but here’s what I know. Tennessee hasn’t had that much less talent than its brethren in the SEC over the past few years. The issue has been getting that talent to translate onto the field.
Pruitt still has a long way to go to convince me that he can get his recruits to perform before I pretend Tennessee is a rival to pay attention to again.
Danger, Danger
The 2020 season obviously is going to hinge on the games against LSU and Georgia, but there’s one team that I think Florida fans should look out for on the schedule.
No, it’s not the road games against Tennessee, Ole Miss or Florida State. The game I’m worried about is against Kentucky.
The Wildcats ranked 17th in points per game allowed last season, a big reason that they were able to manage the injury to Terry Wilson and having to plug in Lynn Bowden in at QB and still win 8 games.
Wilson is back in 2020, and lost in his injury plagued 2019 season is that he had a pretty good season in 2018. He only average 7.0 yards per attempt but he completed 67 percent of his throws. He also added 4.1 yards per rush on 135 carries.
Florida fans saw first-hand what Wilson is capable of two years ago in the Swamp. He’s not going to be intimidated coming into that environment. Florida is going to be breaking in quite a bit of youth at receiver and the defensive line. Just like in 2018, this is an opportunity for Kentucky to “get” Florida before the Gators have truly figured out what they have.
Now, I suspect that Kyle Trask is going to be the difference in this one. Two years ago the staff tried to put the game on Feleipe Franks’ shoulders against the Wildcats and he wasn’t able to come through. Trask showed he can be counted on in the same situation in 2019.
The New York Gators
For some eclectic reasons, I’m a Buffalo Bills fan. So imagine my consternation when the Bills took the Georgia Bulldog I’ve despised the most over the past three seasons: Jake Fromm.
Here’s the deal. My college football allegiances are much stronger than my NFL allegiances, so I’m going to have to find another NFL team to root for because I’m just not going to be able to root for a team that is one injury away from having Fromm at QB.
Enter the New York Jets.
Not only did the Jets take Jabari Zuniga and Lamical Perine in the 2020 draft, but they also are the home to Brian Poole, Quincy Wilson, Jon Harrison and (for now) Marcus Maye.
As a Bills fan, this makes perfect sense. The Jets are like a worse version of the Bills so I’ll be used to the suffering. I can continue to root against New England since they’re in the same division. And I can watch in horror as wide-eyed Adam Gase makes terrible in-game coaching decisions that hands another division title to Bill Belichick, even though he no longer has Tom Brady.
It’s an interesting question about what would make you switch allegiances. I remember not missing a single Broncos game when Tim Tebow was playing terribly for three-and-a-half quarters and then somehow pulled out the games in the end.
But I wouldn’t say I was a Broncos fan. I’d say I was more a fan of seeing Merrill Hodge’s head explode when Timmy pulled it out again.
I have to admit, I’m probably going to still root for Buffalo. Those kinds of allegiances are hard to break. But I do know that if Fromm comes into the game, I’m switching over to watch the Jets.
Attending a game in the Swamp in 2020
I don’t feel like I’m hysterical either way when it comes to the coronavirus. There is obviously risk to going out of the house and catching and then transmitting the disease. There’s also risk to staying inside the house. We’ve noticed our spending is down over the past two months as gas and food expenses have gone way down.
One thing I’ve been wrestling with, however, is whether I’ll attend a game this year. On one hand, I don’t want to live my life in fear and Florida is likely going to be fully open by September. On the other hand, there is a risk and everyone is going to have to make a personal decision about whether the risk is worth the reward.
That stadium is a siren call for anyone who has attended Florida. There’s something so incredibly special about getting to the stadium early and catching warm-ups while slowly watching the stadium fill. And there’s something even more special about the tailgates, and the friendships forged from all the time spent together celebrating the football team.
To be honest, I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether I’m going to come down for a game. The good news is that we still have a few months to get more information to understand the risks.
Anybody who wants to stay home, I completely understand. But anybody who wants to go, I completely understand too.
Player safety
One thing I hope doesn’t get overlooked in the return to playing is player safety.
Concussions have been in the news the last few years and those are certainly a concern. But anyone who has known a football player has also heard their joints crack when they walk or seen them wince when they get up from a couch or chair.
The game takes a toll on its players’ bodies. The players willingly make that sacrifice, and while they may be too young to truly understand what they’re signing up for, the risks at this point are pretty apparent for everyone to see.
The potential exposure to the virus is obviously one risk associated with returning to play. But I’m also concerned about players who haven’t been able to strength train in the way that they normally would if they were on-campus and being abused by Nick Savage. Anyone who’s played sports knows that you may think you’re pushing yourself hard, but you realize your workouts were child’s play once the strength coach starts pushing you.
I really worry that musculoskeletal injuries are going to be a huge problem is players aren’t given enough time to prepare for the season. Just like everyone else, I hope that the season gets started on-time and that we get to enjoy a full slate of college football this fall.
But if they have to push the season back to give the players time to get ready, I think they need to do so.