Can Florida build its program using the Clemson blueprint?

With the commitments of 5-star recruits D.J. Uiagalelei and Demarkcus Bowman to Clemson this weekend, Clemson has leveraged its national championship win to pull away into the first place recruiting ranking for the 2020 cycle.

The Tigers now have 14 commits and an average recruiting rank of 95.72. Their 273.62 points according to the 247Sports Composite would have ranked them just behind Florida in the 2019 cycle.

The commitment of Bowman, in particular, is tough to stomach for Florida fans. He’s the 17th ranked player nationally, but he’s also from Lakeland High School. After the commitments of his teammates Keon Zipperer, Deyavie Hammond and Lloyd Summerall last season, it was thought that Bowman was a lock.

Apparently not.

But not all is lost. Clemson – after all – didn’t start out recruiting all that well under Dabo Swinney. But slowly that program has built into one that can take on Alabama, not just on the field but on the recruiting trail as well.

So the question is, can Dan Mullen build the same way at Florida?

Clemson’s Recruiting Record

Dabo Swinney took over six games into the 2008 season. Thus, his transition recruiting class was 2009, which ranked 36th nationally, sixth in the ACC.

You can understand how this particular class would have been ranked so low. It wasn’t a sure thing during the 2008 season that he would be named the permanent head coach in 2009. Clemson fans weren’t really inspired by the hire, and neither were the media who rank such things (which tells you something about us).

One thing a lot of analysts missed in that class though was the crown jewel, 5-star QB Tajh Boyd. Boyd would throw for nearly 12,000 yards and 107 TDs in his time at Clemson.

The next cycle was marginally better, as Swinney signed the 27th ranked class, fourth in the ACC. From that point on though, Clemson has been very good on the recruiting trail. From 2011-2018, the Tigers have had an average national ranking of 12.6. But perhaps more important, Clemson had an average ranking of 2.2 over that time in the ACC.

There are other markers for success that Clemson has hit over that time as well.

• 4.1 top-100 players per cycle
• 10.1 top-300 players per cycle
• 45.7% top-300 players per class
• 1.8 5-star recruits per class

Those stats look fairly similar to the numbers that my colleague Bill Sikes cited last year for SEC coaches in their “bump” classes who went on to win the SEC Championship, at least related to their conference foes.

What this means for Florida

Florida actually compared pretty well to those numbers for Clemson from 2011-2019.

The Gators have signed four top-100 players in each of Mullen’s first two recruiting classes, along with 53.5 percent of its players being in the top-300 of the rankings. The only area where Mullen really comes up short is 5-stars, as he has not yet been able to sign one.

Of course, that’s coming up short compared to Clemson. If we compare to Florida’s main rivals – particularly in the SEC – the picture gets a little more murky.

Florida’s recruiting in 2018-2019 compared to its rivals. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Note that Florida State, which is Clemson’s main competition in the ACC, has a conference recruiting ranking of 2.5 the past two seasons. Despite Taggart’s struggles, he’s still getting top-3 classes in the ACC!

The Gators have actually recruited significantly better than Florida State. But for their trouble, Florida has had an average class of 4.5 in the SEC, the same as LSU.

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence then that the following are Florida’s scores the last two times it’s played these teams.

• FSU: 63-52 (1-1 record)
• UGA: 24-78 (0-2 record)
• LSU: 43-36 (1-1 record)
• Alabama: 31-83 (0-2 record)

It’s also likely not a coincidence that LSU has been a close game for the past decade for Florida, regardless of the coaches. The reality is that those teams are fairly evenly matched talent-wise.

Importance of Conference

And this is where the comparison to Clemson really breaks down for me. When Dabo Swinney led Clemson to a 10-4 record in 2011, he faced two teams that had recruited better than Clemson the previous four seasons (Florida State and South Carolina).

Had Clemson been in the SEC and faced Florida’s schedule, the Tigers would have faced eight such teams (Tennessee, Alabama, LSU, Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida State and Ohio State).

I’ve shown this chart before, but I think it’s worth revisiting. It shows winning percentage versus conference recruiting ranking average for the four previous years for all Power-5 schools from 2015-2018.

Comparing winning percentage versus conference roster talent (via 247Sports). (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

There is a precipitous drop-off in winning percentage once you get to fourth. A team with a 70 percent win probability over a season has about a 1 percent chance of going undefeated and a 5.4 percent chance of going 12-1, which is what is typically needed to make the playoff.

However, a team with a 50 percent win probability only has a 0.2 percent chance of going 12-1 over the course of a season.

So can a team with an average conference ranking of 4.0 make the playoff? Yes it can and has happened three times (out of 20 teams) since the playoff started in 2014.

In 2015, Michigan State made the playoff with a 12-1 record and an average conference recruiting ranking of 4.3. The Spartans were a remarkable 6-1 in one-score games, including this miracle.

The Spartans got demolished by Alabama in the Cotton Bowl semifinal, 38-0.

In 2016, Washington came out of the Pac-12 to make the playoff despite an average conference recruiting ranking of 5.5. The Huskies got beat in the Peach Bowl semifinal by Alabama, 24-7.

Finally, in 2017, Georgia won the SEC with an average conference recruiting ranking of 4.0 (not 14,000). Of course, the Bulldogs averaged a national recruiting average of 5.8 over that time. And also, Georgia also lost to the team that had the best conference recruiting ranking in the SEC.

We started this article talking about Clemson. Well, the Tigers have made the playoff every year since 2015. Surely with all of the recruiting futility people talk about, using Clemson as the example of building a program slowly, the Tigers must be an outlier?

• 2015: 2.8
• 2016: 2.5
• 2017: 2.5
• 2018: 2.0

Nope. The Tigers have had a conference recruiting ranking below 3.0 in each of the years that they have made the playoff. In fact, this is how the break-down of playoff teams looks (I even included a row without Alabama so nobody can claim Saban is skewing the numbers into unrealistic territory).

Recruiting metrics for playoff teams from 2014-2018. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Florida has a national ranking of 11.5, a conference ranking of 5.0 and zero composite 5-star recruits signed the previous four seasons.

Takeaway

The reality is that the truth is harsh in the SEC. You have to recruit with your competition.

From 2015-2018, the SEC averaged four teams in the top-10 nationally of the recruiting rankings. The average rank of the third SEC team in the rankings was 6.8 nationally.

Compare that to the ACC, which averaged 1.8 teams in the top-10 and the average rank of the third ACC team in the ranking was 18.3 nationally. The same story is true for the third team from the Big 10 (18.3), Pac-12 (17.0) and Big 12 (31.5).

That means easier schedules for everyone else.

From 2011-2018, Clemson has averaged playing three teams with more talent per season. Had they played Florida’s schedule, that number would have been five. That doesn’t seem like much of a difference, but it really is significant.

Most teams with top-10 talent win at about a 38 percent clip when facing more talented opponents. That number drops to 30 percent for teams ranked 11-20. If we use a 38 percent win probability over three games, the odds of going 2-1 or better are 32.3 percent.

However, if you increase the number of games to five, now the odds of going 4-1 or better (which is likely necessary to reach the playoff) are 7.3 percent.

There are two morals to this story. First, South Carolina is absolutely doomed this season. Second, you’re going to have trouble building like Clemson in the SEC because in the ACC, top-10 is good enough.

In the SEC, it’s just not likely to be.

Featured image used via Creative Commons license courtesy Sweet Carolina Photography