If you happened to see my article on the GC main site from Tuesday, I put in a clue for why you could have some optimism for the 2022 season. Did you catch it? If not, go ahead and skim it. It’s in the first sentence of a paragraph.
I’ll wait.
Back? What’d you find?
This was the clue: “Muschamp did win more than ten games himself in his second campaign in 2012, boosted by Meyer’s sensational 2010 recruiting class.”
We all know that recruiting was Dan Mullen’s achilles heel as a head coach. Easily his highest rated class was the 2020 group, however.
It was the only true top ten class he had, remaining at No. 9 even after you subtract non-qualifier Johnnie Brown. The 2019 class also shows up as being No. 9 if you look at the 247 Composite team rankings, but it falls to the late teens once you remove non-qualifiers and guys who transferred before the summer sessions even arrived.
So if Muschamp got a boost from Meyer’s 2010 class in 2012, then the biggest boost Napier’s going to get is from the Mullen era is probably from the 2020 class in 2022. That’s just how the math tends to work out, since the best players from a class can go pro after three seasons.
The likely best player on each side of the ball comes from that group: Anthony Richardson and Gervon Dexter. Maybe Jason Marshall might compete for the defensive title, but Dexter should be a monster nonetheless.
Seven of the top ten most highly rated players should be contributors. Two of the other three have transferred — Jahari Rogers to SMU and Issiah Walker to Miami, where he’s back in the portal again — and the third Ethan Pouncey has struggled to stay healthy.
But Dexter, Pricely Umanmielen, Derek Wingo, and Antwaun Powell-Ryland will either be starters or regular rotation guys, and the same goes for Richardson, Xzavier Henderson, and Ja’Quavion Fraziars.
Dexter was a 5-star, Wingo and Henderson were high 4-stars, and all of the rest except Umanmielen were mid 4-stars. These are a talented bunch, even if several of them didn’t have great chances to shine yet in Mullen’s seniority-focused regime. Napier doesn’t seem to have any such hangups about preferring older players, so everyone has a chance finally.
There are some other starters from this class too. Jeremy Crawshaw is a terrific punter. Low 4-star Rashad Torrence probably has one of the safety spots locked down to start with (note: this newsletter was written before Napier released a depth chart on Wednesday as promised; if he did so, you can go look it up). Fellow low 4-star Avery Helm is in the mix for the cornerback rotation. High 3-stars Jalen Lee and Tre’Vez Johnson will be mainstays on the defense, and Jonathan Odom will play plenty at tight end.
And then if anything should happen to a starter on the interior of the offensive line, Joshua Braun and Richie Leonard (in that order) will be top candidates to step in. Kamar Wilcoxson will see some run in the defensive backfield too, and remember that he reclassified to come to college a year early.
Considering that Rogers is one of the best DBs in the American — he led SMU in pass break ups last year and is preseason first team All-AAC according to Phil Steele — the bust rate on this group (injuries aside) is fairly low. You can count on one hand the number of players who just didn’t pan out, or at least have not yet.
If Mullen had signed classes like this one all along, well, he still wouldn’t have an SEC championship in Gainesville. He might still have his job though. It’s hard to say for sure since some players like Wingo appear poised to take off under the new staff in a way they didn’t under the old. Of course, it might just always work that way. Plenty of players, offensive ones especially, didn’t do much under Jim McElwain’s watch but really took off when the Mullen staff came to town
Given the choice, you would of course take Meyer’s 2010 class over Mullen’s 2020 class. That 2010 class was the last time Florida set atop the recruiting rankings. A class that finished a solid ninth simply will never compare. That is why I didn’t say that Napier had a good shot at winning 10 games this year in a way that Muschamp did in 2012. The tailwind simply isn’t as strong.
It’s too early yet to tell whether the 2021 class will end up comparable to the 2020 class in contributions. Its rating wasn’t as high, but the ratings are never bulletproof. If you look up and down it, there are a handful of names that have gotten good reviews from preseason camp to go with Marshall, the only guy to contribute heavily as a true freshman last year.
Regardless, it won’t be easy for 2021 to match up with 2020. It is more than possible that 2020 will prove the ratings right and be the best overall class that Mullen ever signed at UF. In that case, this year really is the biggest boost Napier will get from the old staff.
It is up to the new staff to develop the 2021, 2022, and 2023 players while also finding key transfers to make sure that there is no dropoff heading into next season. But for now, the 2022 team is quite possibly getting the largest possible contribution from the previous coaching regime.