Florida did not have a blowout February National Signing Day. The Gators had three fish on the hook, and they reeled in two of them. WR Xzavier Henderson followed through on his commitment, and DE Princely Umanmielen spurned home-state Baylor to come to Gainesville. Safety Avantae Williams, by several accounts, made an extremely last-minute decision to give up on plans to sign with UF and pick Miami instead.
And that, basically, was it. We knew going in that verbal commits Marc Britt (2/20) and Leonard Manuel (4/1) are going to sign on later dates. Had Williams sent his NLI to UF, the Gators would’ve been out of initial counters for the cycle without guaranteeing publicly that at least one of Britt or Manuel wouldn’t join the class.
With the way things work, see here for details, Florida had 29 spots to add players of any kind for the upcoming season. They signed 21 players on the December signing day, and they brought in two transfers in Jordan Pouncey and Lorenzo Lingard (Brenton Cox counts towards 2019 as best as I can tell; the math works the same regardless). That’s 23. Britt and Manuel make 25, and Henderson and Umanmielen push it to 27. UF officially confirmed Justin Shorter’s transfer last week to push it to 28, leaving a single spot for Williams to wrap up at 29. It’s just that Williams didn’t take that spot.
So, that’s why there were only three guys worth watching on Florida’s account. One, Henderson, really wasn’t even a source of drama since he had been fully solid in his commitment since he made it. The Gators basically went 1-for-2.
I know some fans were underwhelmed by the result, but this is how it’s going to be now with the February signing day. We’ve seen it enough times now to know. The December signing day isn’t the early signing day; it is signing day. An increasing proportion of recruits have been signing before Christmas. The February date is largely for relative stragglers and guys with academic risks.
The fact that initial counters math is possible, if difficult and a little confusing (believe me), means that there shouldn’t be any surprises in February. We knew Florida was never going to add five more difference makers because we knew it couldn’t and stay within NCAA regulations. At least, it couldn’t without some of those difference makers deciding to forgo a scholarship for a year — and if they truly are difference makers, why would they do that?
I know from recruiting coverage here and elsewhere that it’s far from guaranteed that Britt and Manuel will actually end up in Gainesville. It’s why when I did my breakdown of the 2020 recruiting class, I made sure to always run the numbers with and without them. Delayed signings such as theirs can be (though not always) a sign of academic problems, particularly with standardized tests. I speak to Britt’s situation, but a delay from February 5th to 20th isn’t a long enough time for grades to change. It might be enough of a delay to let the results of an SAT or ACT attempt come in, however.
So while Florida has one more spot to use, or not, for 2020, it might have as many as three. I’ve seen plenty of people suggest that Mississippi State offensive lineman Stewart Reese wants to grad transfer to UF. It would make sense if true; he’d follow his old coaches Dan Mullen and John Hevesy, get to play a year with his brother (the younger David Reese, who missed 2019 to injury), and, given how last year looked, waltz into the starting lineup. I’ve yet to see any reporters put their names to the idea, so I’m considering it all unconfirmed for now.
There are reasons why Mullen might choose not to add any more players, even if Britt and Manuel go elsewhere. If my accounting is correct, Florida currently sits at 85 scholarships allocated to 2020 after transfers and signees. Any more additions will put UF temporarily over the team limit as is possible in the offseason. With only CJ Henderson declaring for the draft early, the Gators had fewer spots for newcomers than expected for next year.
Going over 85 allocated scholarships wouldn’t be new, as UF got to 88 in February of 2019. Attrition of various kinds whittled things down to comfortably under 85 by the time the fall camp deadline hit. Some amount of attrition is normal; a career reserve may choose to grad transfer to a Group of 5 or FCS school to get more playing time in his final season. I don’t think the 85 limit is a primary concern, though, since Mullen was willing to go right up to the initial counters limit by taking Williams on top of the commitments (however tenuous) of Britt and Manuel.
More to the point, UF needs to make sure anyone who’s out there would be a good fit. Presumably the prior relationships of Mullen and Hevesy with Reese would make him one. Beyond him, it’s unclear who Florida would actually want to take. For instance it’s been reported that UF intends to host 5-star RB Zach Evans in March. He signed with Georgia in December, but the school has since released him from his NLI.
Evans has some off-field red flags, including an incident where he was suspended for the state championship game because he wouldn’t surrender his phone the night before the game per team policy. Would Mullen want to bring in a player who’s had trouble with authority in the past? Or would he trust his team’s chemistry to win out and exert a positive influence? That’s one of the hard calls that he gets paid the big bucks to make.
Plus, any initial counters for the 2020 cycle that Florida doesn’t use now are ones it can spend on 2021 early enrollees or January transfers. There is an annual cap of 25 initial counters, but UF can get to 29 this cycle by allocating four early enrollees to 2019’s cap. If the Gators leave one or two open now, that’s one or two extra players it can sign or accept as transfers for next year.
I wouldn’t worry too much about a muted finish to the 2020 recruiting cycle. Unless the Gators are in on a late-deciding 5-star, and that’s something we’d know about well ahead of time, there just isn’t a reason to invest much emotion into the February signing day anymore. Some schools will even fill up all their slots in December and focus entirely on the following cycle between New Year’s and February.
Losing a player projected to be as good as Williams is at a position of need stings, but the Gators finished well enough by keeping Henderson and landing Umanmielen. Sometimes that’s all a program needs on the February signing day anymore.