Dan Mullen has built a reputation for being able to plug holes quickly by bringing in players from the transfer portal. What has been less of a storyline around his tenure, at least lately, is that his program has seen holes appear quickly.
In each of his first three full years, at least one player from that year’s signing class has left the team before fall camp even started. I’m not even talking about non-qualifiers or players who left after their first seasons began. I’m talking about guys who signed and then shortly thereafter left the team. Every one of those departures is its own story and an independent event, even if their repeat occurrences taken together could look like a pattern if one wanted them to.
The first such departure came before the February signing day of 2018 even happened. In January, the routine medical screening disqualified early enrollee safety Randy Russell due to a heart condition.
Then over the summer, Justin Watkins was dismissed following the second of a pair of arrests. The details of the arrests made that an easy call. Had Watkins not made a series of poor choices and made it to campus, he either would’ve played receiver or cornerback. Given the depth at receiver and lack thereof at corner in 2018 — Trey Dean started as a true freshman once Marco Wilson went down, and Dre Massey got a look at CB at one point for depth — it seems likely that he’d have gone on the defensive side of the ball.
Another pair of them came the following year. Quarterback signee Jalon Jones basically transferred out to avoid being dismissed following a dorm room incident in April in which he was accused of sexual assault. One of his roommates, corner Chris Steele, chose to leave around the same time. I’m not going to re-litigate his departure here, but he did go back home to his native Los Angeles to play for USC.
Then last year, UF lost offensive tackle signee Issiah Walker to a transfer to Miami. In an extensive story with The Athletic, he revealed that the stress of being away from home during the intense early period of the COVID-19 pandemic led him to choose to leave Gainesville. Despite rumors suggesting some amount of interest elsewhere, Walker said he only considered Miami due to the family factor.
There aren’t a lot of lessons to draw from all of this. Russell’s case was an unforeseeable situation. Watkins was a late commit in January of ’18, and while the McElwain staff recruited him, Mullen and his guys had not. Like any transitional staff, they didn’t have a long time to vet him. They did have more time with Jones, but I don’t know what the staff did or didn’t think about him, and coaches aren’t precogs. Steele and Walker show that any player could have second thoughts about being more than an easy car ride from home whether he’s from southern California or south Florida. Either way, these guys are people first before football players and don’t have to justify their choices to any of us.
The point of bringing all this up is to show how Florida missed having many of these players a year ago. We’ll never know what kind of college players Russell and Watkins would’ve been, but UF’s secondary could’ve used a couple of extra experienced options last year. Russell might’ve pushed guys like Donovan Stiner or Shawn Davis for playing time, and Watkins possibly could’ve been another option outside to help fortify the depth chart there.
Steele is perhaps the one who was most missed, as he has been a consistent contributor for the Trojans. He started six games as a true freshman in 2019 and was great in six games of action in 2020. He registered more than four tackles per game last year with four pass breakups and a pick, earning him second team All-Pac-12 honors. There were some schematic issues last fall that Todd Grantham and staff addressed in spring practice, but having a player of Steele’s caliber would’ve been a game changer.
I don’t know if Walker could’ve passed up Jean Delance at right tackle last year, but he’s talented enough to have given the elder player a run for his money. He definitely would’ve put up a strong battle in spring this year, but alas.
Jones is the one who UF missed the least. He was never going to pass up Kyle Trask or Emory Jones by last year, and Florida is more than fine with Anthony Richardson coming up behind Emory Jones in the pipeline. Jalon Jones’s exit is the difference between signing Jalen Kitna or not, but that’s it for firm repercussions.
And that’s another point: in addition to missing the likes of Steele or Russell on the field, they’d be taking up scholarship spots if they were on the roster. That means UF would’ve signed a little different position balance in subsequent classes, and the Gators might’ve taken fewer transfers without as much room under the 85-scholarship cap. That, or the staff would’ve had to help some older career backups see the upside of transferring elsewhere or more promptly going pro in something other than sports.
I won’t speculate on who might not become a Gator had these early departures stayed around outside of the very obvious roster math of the quarterback position. It’s not hard, though, to see how these moves affected the teams we saw on the field, and Florida’s vaunted portal work never really addressed the roster holes left behind. Mullen has yet to land a defensive back transfer, and Stewart Reese was going to be needed on the O-line whether Walker was around or not.
UF has gotten through spring practice without any attrition among the 2021 signees, though it was the earliest practice session on record. It’s weird to think that this year might finally be the first where Mullen doesn’t lose a signee before the first fall camp, but it has a chance to be just that. It’ll be a good thing for the program and his tenure if they can finally pull it off.