One or two players can make all the difference for a college football team.
Consider what would’ve happened if Florida didn’t sign Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, or both in the 2006 recruiting class. Urban Meyer might not have won a national championship at all in Gainesville.
Or think about the greatest example of this ever, the 2010 Auburn Tigers. They had one-man wrecking crews on both sides of the ball in Cam Newton and defensive tackle Nick Fairley. Newton I don’t need to describe; Fairley had more tackles for loss and only half a sack less than Ndamukong Suh did for Nebraska the prior season. They were almost the only NFL prospects on the team, as the roster produced just five total other draft picks (plus a couple of UDFAs that had good careers).
That’s why it mattered so much that Dan Mullen wasn’t signing elite prospects with enough regularity.
His Blue-Chip Ratio was always good, though it was less good if you factored non-qualifiers, but he missed out on a lot of instant-impact types who could blossom into the kind of unfair advantages that championship teams have. It’s hard to name anyone other than Gervon Dexter and Jason Marshall who walked in the door and immediately leapfrogged older players absent injuries. Not coincidentally, they were his only 5-star signees.
Other top-100 recruits that Mullen signed include:
- Jacob Copeland (good but not great)
- Khris Bogle (same)
- Chris Steele (transferred within months)
- Kaiir Elam (star player)
- Ty’Ron Hopper (rotation guy before transferring)
- Derek Wingo (has seldom played)
- Xzavier Henderson (okay but not even good)
- Scooby Williams (struggled in limited action)
Development is always a factor, as that’s only three high caliber players among ten top-100 signees (Elam, Dexter, Marshall). And even then, Marshall hasn’t gotten up to where Elam did as a corner yet.
The jury is still out on Wingo and Williams, though late last year we saw some promising things from the former. Steele was a consistent starter, only it was for USC and not UF. Hopper might’ve been a star at UF if not for Mullen’s staff refusing to use him as much as his play suggested (their seniority preference strikes again) and his eventual transfer to Missouri.
All in all, though, Elam is really the only one where you can envision him being a difference maker on a championship team. Dexter might’ve performed as such last year had depth issues from Mullen’s recruiting choices not meant he had to play way too many snaps per game for a defensive tackle. Maybe Wingo could still get there, but it’s tough to blossom that much this long into someone’s career.
When you think about the guys who were championship-caliber difference makers from the Mullen era, it’s dudes like Kyle Pitts, Kadarius Toney, and Heisman finalist Kyle Trask. Pitts committed to the McElwain staff and the other two signed with them. It wasn’t Mullen who identified and landed those stars.
The good news is that things are beginning to shift. Partially it’s attitudinally, as Billy Napier and staff aren’t as locked into playing older guys just because they’re older. They’re closer to the Meyer-era belief that the best players get to play, period. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe Mullen and Meyer worked together for how different they are.
Much more than that, though, it’s that Napier has been able to land some more instant-impact kind of players. Four of the top five highest ranked players from the 2022 class were regulars when healthy: Kamari Wilson, Chris McClellan, Shemar James, and Devin Moore. Fellow classmate Trevor Etienne has just made the preseason All-SEC team for 2023, and Caleb Douglas, Miguel Mitchell, Jack Pyburn, and JUCO transfer Thai Chiaokhiao-Bowman were rotation regulars or occasional starters by the end of the season.
I think we’re about to see even more from the new staff’s signees. Napier already said so about the defense at SEC Media Days. He predicted both true freshmen contributing everywhere — something he of course has control over as the head coach — as well as second-year players making a true SEC-caliber impact.
In the same interview, he highlighted Douglas as a player who he’s excited to see this fall. He was less committal on the three true freshmen at receiver, all of whom have their upsides. Aidan Mizell has the speed to be a deep threat, while Andy Jean’s college-ready body has him near the top of the list of players ready to contribute right away.
I, like others, am the highest on Eugene “Tre” Wilson. Even though he missed spring practice, his skills are manifestly obvious from his high school highlights. I caution those without a trained eye to read too much into Hudl videos, but he jumps out clearly. A few videos of him doing workouts have made it to social media this offseason, and I haven’t seen a Florida wideout with his speed and agility in quite some time. He doesn’t have the human-joystick ability to cut like Toney did, but his smoothness is reminiscent of an Antonio Callaway or even a Harvin.
It’s going to take time to get these kinds of true differentiators all over the field as the Gators had in the past, but the process is in motion. Florida is once again accumulating players who can not just make the team a divisional contender every few years but much more than that.