How hard is it to recruit well at the quarterback and running back position simultaneously? Steve Spurrier made it look easy, but for the several (sigh) Florida head coaches of this century, it’s been surprisingly hard.
Ron Zook
QBs: Gavin Dickey, Chris Leak, Justin Midgett, Cornelius Ingram
RBs: Ciatrick Fason, DeShawn Wynn, Skyler Thornton, Markus Manson
The Zooker had one big hit in both categories. Leak is at or near the top of many passing categories in the Florida record book, while Fason turned in a 1,200-yard season in 2004 before turning pro. He was the last 1,000-yard rusher before Mike Gillislee pulled it off eight years later in 2012.
Ingram turned out to be a good tight end, while Dickey chose to pursue baseball. Those are better attributes than can be mentioned for the forgettable non-Fason running backs here. Wynn was passable but never amounted to much. Despite being a big back, a quarterback passed him up as the short yardage option in 2006.
Urban Meyer
QBs: Josh Portis, Tim Tebow, Cam Newton, John Brantley, Bryan Waggener, Jordan Reed, Trey Burton, Tyler Murphy
RBs: Kestahn Moore, Chevon Walker, Mon Williams, Chris Rainey, Bo Williams, Jeff Demps, Mike Gillislee, Mack Brown
UF may never sign a better pair of quarterbacks in back-to-back years than Tebow and Newton. It’s just too bad that Newton couldn’t get his head screwed on straight until after leaving Gainesville. I still feel bad for how things worked out with Brantley given his family’s history with the Gators, but Meyer mentally checked out after his breakdown in late 2009 and Steve Addazio has no idea what to do with a pocket quarterback.
Reed and Burton at least turned out to be good players at something other than quarterback. Still, Meyer got himself into trouble with signing no quarterback who stuck at the position other than Murphy (a huge project) from 2008-10. Murphy, for his part, was passable before getting hurt in 2013 and ended up having a decent year for Addazio at Boston College after transferring.
Rainey and Demps were the standouts among the running backs, but they were speedy complimentary backs. Unfortunately, they never got to compliment a quality bigger back. Moore was underwhelming, but at least he played. Walker and the two Williams guys didn’t make an impact before transferring; Walker actually made it to the CFL for a few years before becoming a chef. Gillislee was the best pick of the non-microbacks that Meyer signed, but he didn’t get a chance to show off his skills until years after the head coach changed.
Will Muschamp
QBs: Jeff Driskel, Jacoby Brissett, Skyler Mornhinweg, Max Staver, Will Grier, Treon Harris
RBs: Mike Blakely, Matt Jones, Kelvin Taylor, Adam Lane, Brandon Powell
The guy who was best at recruiting these positions simultaneously seems to actually have been Muschamp. The catch is that the good quarterbacks he signed did their best work at other schools.
Meyer gets partial credit for lining up Driskel, but Muschamp closed the deal to keep him a Gator after the coaching change. Driskel and Brissett were drafted from other schools, and Grier is a couple of months from the same. Harris showed some flashes of potential in a scheme that fit him well in 2014; he was less promising in a poorly fit scheme the following year and transferred after some bad off-field issues.
After the false start with Blakely, Muschamp hit on some good ones with Jones and Taylor. I wish Taylor had played on better teams given his strong legacy as Fred’s son, but he did top the 1,000 yard mark in 2015. Powell ended up one of the Gators’ top receivers for multiple years later on down the road.
It might’ve just been luck that Muschamp did so well at recruiting these positions, since he was a disaster at recruiting offensive line and wide receiver. He also gets no points for deploying the quarterbacks well. His tenure is still so frustrating because there were pieces of goodness on offense around and no ability to put them together.
Jim McElwain
QBs: Feleipe Franks, Kyle Trask, Jake Allen
RBs: Jordan Scarlett, Jordan Cronkrite, Mark Thompson, Lamical Perine, Malik Davis, Adarius Lemons
Mac didn’t sign many quarterbacks given the roster needs, opting to go to the transfer market frequently. For what it’s worth, Luke Del Rio and Austin Appleby did have better success at running his offense than anyone he signed out of high school did. Malik Zaire, less so.
At this point there’s not enough time left for both Franks and Trask to star at Florida unless Franks blows up this year and Trask dominates in 2020. That’s likely an impossible scenario, though, as it’s probably in Trask’s best interest to transfer somewhere he can play right away if he doesn’t win the starting job in the spring. A maximum of one of them will go down as a hit, while Allen was a casualty of the scheme change from McElwain to Mullen.
The running backs require fewer caveats. Scarlett, Perine, and Davis all have shown high-end skill and potential; Davis just needs to find a way to stay healthy. Cronkrite couldn’t find his way at UF, but he did rush for 1,100 yards at USF last year including over 300 in a single game against UMass. Thompson did finally figure things out in the second half of 2017, a shame since that season was lost by then. Only Lemons has ended up an all-around bust so far, but we’ll see how his career ends away from Gainesville.
Dan Mullen
QBs: Emory Jones, Jalon Jones
RBs: Dameon Pierce, Iverson Clement, Nay’Quan Wright
Obviously it’s far too early to judge any of these signees. Emory Jones and Pierce showed some good flashes last year, so there’s cause for optimism. All of them had 4-star ratings in the 247Sports Composite, which doesn’t guarantee anything but does show that there was a consensus among scouts that they were all high-end picks. Jalon Jones was the lowest ranked of any of them, including only getting a 3-star rating from Rivals, but Mullen has earned the benefit of the doubt with his eye for quarterbacks.
If Mullen can get (or has gotten) Florida back to a point where it routinely signs good players at both quarterback and running back at the same time, that’s a bigger win that it might initially sound.