Florida only had three players drafted this year, which is the lowest since the 2012 draft. It still does extend UF’s streak of having at least one player drafted in every year of the common draft era (1977), along with Michigan and USC, and a 70+ year streak if you go before that.
The reason it happened is not just that the team struggled. You would expect a less effective team to have fewer draft picks in general. It’s worth taking a look at the ’12 draft to see how a different dynamic can also play out.
The 2012 NFL Draft came after the 2011 regular season. Will Muschamp’s first team went 6-6 in the regular season, just like last year’s squad, but it actually won the bowl to finish 7-6. Fair enough so far.
The Gators in general tend not to have many fifth-year seniors. Players who are good enough to lock down starting roles are often good enough to play as true freshmen, go pro early, and/or get drafted without needing to stay their fifth seasons. You can think of exceptions, but that’s the general rule. UF is not like, say, Wake Forest where they try to redshirt as many players as possible and take a slow developmental track with under-the-radar players to maximize their number of fifth year seniors and win based on experience.
Therefore, the top draft candidates on a given Gator team almost always come from recruiting classes three and four years in the past.
Those classes for the 2011 team were the 2008 and 2009 recruiting hauls. While Urban Meyer signed enormous 2006, 2007, and 2010 classes, the ones in between in ’08 and ’09 were necessarily on the smaller side. The 2008 class wasn’t tiny at 22 signees, but ’09 really was with 18 total.
Now, two players in the 2008 class, Carl Moore and Troy Epps, were JUCO transfers whose eligibility was always going to run out before the 2011 season. For 2012 Draft purposes, the ’08 class was really 20. That class is more on the small side than it first seemed.
There also is the matter that Will Muschamp dismissed ’08 signee Janoris Jenkins just before the 2011 season for failing too many drug tests. Jenkins ended up a 2nd round selection out of North Alabama in 2012, so a new house philosophy on discipline prevented the Gators from having three picks that year instead of two.
One other issue was that the 2009 class was more than a quarter — five out of 18, or 28% — composed of offensive linemen. O-line guys do go pro early sometimes, but I’m pretty sure it’s at a lower rate than most other positions. It takes time to develop a pro-ready body in the trenches and learn the more advanced skills.
Now, let’s turn our attention to the 2022 draft. It came after the 2021 season, which means the 2018 and 2019 recruiting classes are the ones most pertinent here.
The ’18 haul was Mullen’s transitional class, and it was small with 20 players. Randy Russell was immediately DQ’d for a heart issue and Noah Banks was a JUCO, so again for 2022 Draft purposes it was really 18 players. That’s as small as the 2009 class.
The ’19 class was one I’ve argued before is a stealth transitional class. If you go to the 247 team standings, for instance, it shows the Gators as having 26 commits. Go to the class page, and it’s down to 24. The difference is that Arjei Henderson (released from LOI, went to FCS) and Wardrick Wilson (federal visa issue) were taken out of the class after the team rankings locked shortly after signing day.
Even then, three of the 24 were, like Henderson, non-qualifiers. It’s really more like 21 at this point. However on top of all that, Chris Steele (transfer) and Jalon Jones (transfer to avoid dismissal) left the program before the summer even began.
The class of 26, therefore, was whittled down to 19 months before fall camp even began. With 18 and 19 actual players for 2022 draft purposes, the pool of potential 2022 picks from the 2018 and 2019 recruiting classes is actually one smaller than what the 2008 and 2009 classes produced for 2012.
A couple of things worked against UF having more picks this year. One is ’18 signee Evan McPherson going pro early, which is a true rarity for specialists. I know the Bengals were mighty glad he did, though. The other factor is the usually durable Ventrell Miller losing nearly all of ’21 to injury and having a Covid exemption to return to school this year. I think there’s a chance that with a good 2021 performance like his 2020 campaign was, he might’ve gotten into one of the last couple of rounds had he turned pro.
There are always plenty of what-ifs, though. Steele staying might not have even made a difference to the draft count, for instance, since he declared early and went undrafted. The Steelers picked him up on a UDFA deal, so he’ll have his shot at making a roster. He might’ve had a better college career playing opposite CJ Henderson and Kaiir Elam and therefore been a pick, but we’ll never know.
Regardless, the Gators should see their draft pick count rise next year. They’ll have some older players from 2018 (Richard Gouraige, Trey Dean) and even earlier (Miller) to help out, and the ’20 class has a real early entrant threat in Gervon Dexter. Louisiana transfer O’Cyrus Torrence seems a likely draft pick as well. There are five potential picks right there.
Thing is, the 2019 class is about spent in terms of future pro potential. Elam is gone, and players with at least potential NFL-level athleticism in Ty’Ron Hopper, Khris Bogle, and Mohamoud Diabate transferred elsewhere. Ethan White will be a future pro, but I don’t know if he leaves or stays. I’m not sure anyone else from the class can reasonably go pro after next season unless someone just goes supernova unexpectedly. Maybe one of transfers Lorenzo Lingard or Demarkcus Bowman will be that one rather than a UF signee.
But back to the main point, you get small draft classes off of small recruiting classes. UF twice in the last decade had tiny draft numbers by the program’s standards because of consecutive small recruiting hauls.