Last week, I wrote a detailed breakdown of how pass catching worked from game-to-game in 2019 and included a look ahead to 2020. Obviously, I recommend you read it if any of that sounds interesting to you at all.
Towards the end when I was doing that preview part, I ended up basically listing off players after a certain point. Beyond the proven veterans who are coming back, there is absolutely nothing known for sure at the wide receiver position.
All of the 2019 signees redshirted. They played so few snaps in the few games in which they appeared that it basically added nothing on top of their high school film for determining how good they might be on the college level. And because we can’t say anything for sure about their college potential, we also can’t rule out the 2020 true freshman from getting real playing time. Based on some of their high school film, they very well could be good enough to give those proven veterans a break at times.
I could see this one position functioning as a microcosm of the recruiting debate that has existed at Florida since Dan Mullen arrived. Some impatient fans are frustrated that he hasn’t gotten things back to a level of recruiting that Urban Meyer did when he was in Gainesville. They want to see large numbers of 5-stars and high 4-stars signed every year, and that just hasn’t happened yet. Gervon Dexter finally got his fifth star in the 247 Composite, so as long as that holds, Mullen will have his first 5-star signee and the program’s first since 2015.
At the same time, Mullen and his staff would like you to trust them in their ability to evaluate players. They haven’t gone around lecturing fans on that point, which is much to their benefit, but they value their own opinions above those of people who work for recruiting services. Perhaps there is no better example of this than Ethan White, who was the lowest-rated of the 2019 signees. After Chris Bleich left the team, he got his chance to see the field and looked great for a true freshman.
All the 2019 signees at receiver were 3-stars in the Composite and something of diamonds in the rough.
Ja’Markis Weston was originally a find by the McElwain staff. Hailing from tiny Clewiston, a sugar town on Lake Okeechobee with a population under 8,000, Weston didn’t do the standard camp circuit and therefore didn’t show up in front of scouts often. Mullen’s staff kept an open mind on him, liked what they saw, and reconfirmed his offer. He ended up with a Composite rating of .8763. That’s similar to the .8790 for Kadarius Toney, a talented high school quarterback who would need intensive training to become a full-fledged receiver on the college level. Through three years, albeit after one shortened by injury, it’s hard to say that Toney actually has become a full-fledged receiver yet.
Dionte Marks from Deland was the highest-rated of them at .8817. He is fast, but listed at 6’2″ and 178 lbs on UF’s official 2019 roster, he quite obviously would need to put on some bulk to withstand the heavier hitting of the college level. A projection of being able to play early is one of the ways players climb up the rankings, but Marks did not get such a projection without having an SEC-ready physique.
Hometown boy Trent Whittemore from Buchholz was the third of them at .8643 and another McElwain-era commit who stayed through the coaching change. He also needed time to develop his body, but he needed to polish his receiver skills after playing multiple positions in high school. Upon his signing, Mullen talked about him having potential through specialization, as he played multiple sports on top of multiple football roles.
The new wide receiver crop is a much different story.
Commit Leonard Manuel spent much of the 2020 cycle as a 4-star, though he recently dropped down to a high 3-star at .8858. I can’t account for all the reasons for the drop, though his recent announcement of his intentions to sign on April 1 do suggest academic risk (standardized test scores, specifically). Given UF’s higher admission standards for public schools, it’s not clear to me if he’ll be able to sign. Regardless, he still outranks any of the 2019 signees despite his diminished score.
Signee Jaquavion Fraziars clocks in solidly as a mid 4-star at .9301. Commit Xzavier Henderson, for whom Florida beat Clemson, rates as a high 4-star at .9710. The Gators are also in the hunt for Penn State transfer Justin Shorter, who was a 5-star in the 2018 class. Only Texas transfer Jordan Pouncey and his original .8540 rating is below the ’19 guys, and his relative absence from the field in three seasons in Austin calls into question how much he’ll do. He comes in with his high 4-star cornerback brother Ethan, though, and he’s renowned as a good locker room glue guy.
As a third-year player, Shorter wouldn’t be a direct and fair comparison to the 2019 signees should he come to UF and get a waiver to play right away. Still, he, Henderson, and Fraziars are of the ratings that Florida once signed with regularity in the past. All six of the Gators’ top wide receivers last year — the four seniors plus Trevon Grimes and Jacob Copeland — were 4-star recruits. Grimes, Tyrie Cleveland, Copeland, and Van Jefferson were all high 4-stars; Freddie Swain and Josh Hammond were mid 4-stars.
Meanwhile, the 2019 guys have ratings in the range of the project Toney and career backup Rick Wells. If just one of the three can become a major contributor, it will help validate trust in Mullen’s evaluations over the recruiting scores. If two or all three get there, it does so all the more.
But if all of them end up with careers that pale in comparison to those of the higher-rated 2020 guys, it will be a mark in favor of the recruiting sites. In perception, anyway. I will stress that we’re talking about probably a half dozen players here, which is an extremely small sample size. You can always find blue chips who bust and low rated guys who excel. It’s in the aggregate numbers that the star ratings prove themselves.
People who fight about these things on the Internet tend not to look at sample sizes, though. I expect the relative success of the 2019 receivers versus the 2020 receivers over time to be a fault line in the debate over Mullen’s recruiting. Ideally all of them will pan out, and then people can just chill about it all.