Hi everyone, as a reminder (or if you missed last week’s edition) I am expecting a new baby at the end of this week, so my output for Gator Country is going to be unpredictable for a while. I’ll be back writing regularly at some point. Onto this week’s newsletter.
A lot of folks have internally dissonant views of the media. At once they see it as out of touch, covering things they don’t care about or actively dislike, while also too-closely trying to follow what they think the general audience wants. The latter can be found in accusations of just trying to get clicks, for instance, or the old saw about “if it bleeds, it leads”.
For my part, I do both at different times. So do many in the media, at least those who don’t have a single hammer that the wield at every issue. I will sometimes write highly analytical pieces that may test the patience of some members of my audience who would rather just read narrative stories (there’s nothing wrong with that by the way; different strokes for different folks). Trust me, I hear about it just about every time when people’s eyes glaze over at something I’ve written.
At other times, I will see a general feeling sweeping through the fan base that people can’t quite agree on the verbiage to describe. In those cases, I will sometimes try to synthesize those feelings into something that is coherent and makes people feel heard. As much as I like the quantitative side of things, it’s gratifying to get comments that amount to, “thank you for putting that into words that make sense”. I’ll note that I do this even at times when I myself don’t necessarily share those feelings.
I took a swing at doing that second thing a couple weeks ago when the fan base was feeling very down about the state of UF’s recruiting. Florida was about to lose blue chip QB Jaden Rashada to Miami, prized OT recruit Payton Kirkland from Orlando was trending towards Michigan State of all places, and the tea leaf readers thought UF legacy-of-sorts Treyaun Webb (cousin of Dee) was going to pick Penn State.
I went through some reasons why UF was not racking up top recruits, though I framed it as “Florida is not going to be a quick rebuild” to keep the people who hate recruiting coverage on board. Some people just won’t read anything if it smells like a recruiting-centric piece, but they’ll hang in there if you make it sound like it’s not just that.
I got two main reactions to this piece. One was the one I was going for. The other was from people mad about what they saw as me being overly pessimistic and/or impatient.
Well, it’s a couple of weeks on. Rashada did pick Miami, and Kirkland probably isn’t coming to Gainesville. However, Webb did end up picking the Gators, and he was one of six different 4-star recruits to choose orange and blue since I hit publish on that piece. That flurry of commits includes four of the five highest-rated players in the class. It also includes QB Marcus Stokes, who flipped from those Nittany Lions that UF was supposed to lose Webb to.
You’d certainly rather see Billy Napier go on a heater like that than the reverse, and picking up a quarterback was a huge deal. Stokes is much less highly rated than Rashada, as he’s barely on the right side of the 3/4-star rating line, but he’s still a 4-star guy. Quarterbacks are key recruiters these days, so having a blue chip guy (even if a marginal one) to go sell the program to fellow prospects is not to be underrated.
But really, I’m not sure that this run of commits changed all that much. UF doesn’t have anyone you’d call higher than “mid 4-star” in the class. Only one is even top-150, WR Eugene Wilson at No. 147 overall. In this run Napier avoided losing some guys he really shouldn’t lose, but that’s just doing the job. It’s not a surprise or delight.
The share of blue chip (4 or 5-stars) recruits is promising at 75% (nine out of 12 commits), and we’ll see if it holds. Even Dan Mullen was able to get a class with 74% blue chips in 2020, and it had four players rated higher than the current class does — including 5-star Gervon Dexter. You also have to keep in mind that UF recently lost a 3-star offensive lineman whose crystal balls now all say Miami, and the share would be a hair under 70% had he not decommitted.
So as of now, Napier is on track for this not being an immediate rebuild like Saban’s Alabama or Smart’s Georgia were. The reasons I gave in the piece a couple weeks ago still hold, and Napier doesn’t have a national title ring from being a head coach like Saban what could flash in living rooms in 2007.
There is still time for Napier to make some real splashes, such as landing apparent Florida lean Cormani McClain. He’s a 5-star cornerback who’s rated the No. 3 overall player in the cycle.
Really, though, you can see the seeds of Napier playing the long game. His contract allows him to do so, since it’d be ridiculously expensive to fire him and his enormous staff any time in the next few years.
He’s focusing mostly on the state of Florida with a couple of Georgia recruits in the mix. Between him and Mario Cristobal, there is finally a concerted effort to close the state’s borders for the first time in a decade.
Seriously, a decade. If you look back before about 2012, the top ten recruits in Florida mostly stayed home. You might have a national power like USC, Ohio State, or Alabama pick one off, but the state is full of transients and you can’t keep the national powers out entirely. However in the ’12 cycle, half of the top ten went out of state. The next year, it was six that left the borders. The gates have been open ever since.
Miami has its notorious NIL war chest to draw upon in a manner than UF isn’t using its resources, but the fight is worth fighting. Every in-state commit is a sign of a good relationship with a high school program, and getting on the locals’ good side is valuable in many ways. FSU, for its part, is recruiting more out-of-state, which is why so many of Florida’s battles are directly against Miami right now.
Anyway, it’s not a race directly up the mountain for Napier. Logos don’t sell themselves; if they did, Mullen would still be around since he’d have recruited a lot better with both the Gator and Jordan brands on his side. The new regime is putting in the work, and it will take some patience. It’s not 2007 anymore, and the program Mullen left behind is not in as good a shape as the one Mark Richt bequeathed to Smart.
Just like a stock chart, the recruiting momentum will have a lot of volatility in the short-run. The longer term trend is what matters, but there’s simply not enough data on the Napier era yet to establish one. Also just like the stock market, it’s best not to watch the tickers every day and only check in periodically. But hey, It Just Means More down this way, right?