An in-depth look at Florida’s recruiting as signing day approaches

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It’s no secret that recruiting hasn’t been elite during the Dan Mullen tenure at Florida.

Whether you want to blame that on having to rebuild after the McElwain administration, the need for facilities upgrades, or Mullen himself, the reasons don’t really matter. The fact remains that historically, a certain level of high school recruiting has been necessary to win the SEC. The transfer portal may be changing that a little bit, but the fact remains that recruiting is still the lifeblood of every program.

So that’s why when you look up the day before National Signing Day and see Florida ranked 13th nationally, it’s concerning.

Some of that is self-induced. Florida apparently rescinded its offer to 3-star offensive tackle Adrein Strickland, ostensibly to make room for transfer Arik Gilbert and potentially more to come through the transfer portal.

Strickland may end up being a fine player, but he doesn’t profile as a big-time difference maker for a program like Florida. That means pushing him out isn’t really a huge deal, but that just dropped Florida from 12th to 13th. Miami and eventually North Carolina were almost guaranteed to rise up above Florida on signing day, so numerically it doesn’t make much of a difference.

But a lot of it is not self-induced. A lot of it is because other programs are eating Florida’s lunch when it comes to recruiting in traditional Gators’ territory. I get that Mullen is excelling in the transfer portal, and that’s a great addition.

But no major program has done anything other than use the transfer portal to supplement major talent already on the roster (see: 2019 LSU with Burrow, 2019-2020 Ohio State with Fields). Florida is trying to buck that trend by staking its future success on elite-level players recruited from other colleges rather than from high school.

Some may believe this is a game of chess being played by Mullen and Co., exploiting an edge that other programs have been slow to mine. There may be some of that.

But just as likely, the focus on the transfer portal is because of the numbers I’m about to go over below in grisly detail.

The circle around Florida is leaky

When you listen to coaches talk about recruiting, they often talk about drawing a circle around their geographic location and locking down that location. Especially in talent-rich geographies like Florida, that makes a ton of sense.

Urban Meyer’s 2006 signing class contained two of the top-8 players in the state of Florida, 5 of the top-12, and 9 of the top-25. Florida State had the next highest, with 3 of the top-25 in the state.

Meyer’s added 10 of the top-25 in 2007 (including 7 of the top-9) and 4 of the top-25 in 2008. This actually does make me wonder whether “only” getting 4 of the top-25 in 2008 and the decision to go out of state led to some of the high-profile misses that Meyer experienced after ’08.

Mullen hasn’t come close to matching the blueprint for success that Meyer provided. This administration has recruited 3 of the top-25 players in 2018, 4 in 2019, 5 in 2020 and 3 in 2021 (with the unlikely addition of Terrion Arnold on NSD a possibility).

And of those Florida commits, a bunch of them have not played any games at all with the Gators. Justin Watkins (20th in 2018) was dismissed from the team following a domestic violence incident. Diwun Black (20th in 2019) is a great story and will get his chance to be a Gator this year, but thus far hasn’t been able to contribute to the team. And offensive tackle Issiah Walker (24th in 2020) left before fall camp last year. Those fans who wanted to see adjustments on the offensive line last season might have pointed to Walker as an option had he been there.

Here’s the reality. Alabama coming into the state and recruiting is excusable.  The Tide are a huge draw and what Saban has built is tough for any coach to deal with.

But what about Terrence Lewis going to Maryland? Or J.J. McCarthy going to Michigan? Or Mario Williams going to Oklahoma? Or that Miami – a school with a demonstrably worse record and FAR worse facilities – bringing in four top-25 players from the state?

There are likely excuses for each individual case. But taken as a whole, the excuses are running out. Mullen is ignoring (or incapable of executing) the blueprint that he helped set back in 2006 and 2007 with Meyer.

The circle around Gainesville is really leaky, and the Gators have to look outside of the state to fill things up.

Year 4 Comparisons

Only Urban Meyer and a limping Will Muschamp were ever able to put together a fourth recruiting class at Florida since Steve Spurrier left. Ron Zook and Jim McElwain were only given three years (or less) to prove what they could do.

In some ways, this is really a feather in Mullen’s cap. Getting to this point, with the record that he has, is significantly better than some of the coaches that have come through Gainesville. But that also begs the question: is Mullen more like Muschamp? Or more like Meyer?

If we look at traditional recruiting metrics, the answer is somewhere in between but probably closer to Meyer. Meyer had the highest ranked class, but Muschamp boosted his class with volume, adding 15 3-star recruits to the ledger. Mullen hasn’t quite equaled Meyer in 4 or 5-star recruits, but is much closer to Meyer in blue-chip rating.

But what if we segment these recruits in a different way? You’ll recall that in the past I’ve done work that’s indicated that players rated in the top-50 get drafted far more regularly than below and that beyond the top-100, the odds of getting drafted as a 4-star are basically the same between rankings of 101-300.

That means that there is more value to top-100 level players, and this is where Mullen’s recruiting shortages really show up.

If we look at top-300 recruits only, Mullen’s class is almost identical to Muschamp’s. And remember, Muschamp was limping into this class on the hot seat after a 4-8 debacle.

Perhaps more importantly, Meyer had 10 top-100 recruits to 4 for Muschamp and 3 for Mullen. So those impact guys – the guys who end up in the NFL way more often – were much more prevalent in the 2008 class than the 2021 class.

If there was any doubt coming into this year, there can’t be any doubt now. Mullen isn’t a “show them you can win and the recruits will come” coach. He’s a great coach and a mediocre recruiter.

I doubt that will be enough when you consider who he has to go up against every year, but the stats tell the same story.

But what about the transfers?

And here’s the rub with Mullen. For all of his struggles landing elite high school players, he seems to have a knack for figuring out how they tick after they’ve spent a year or two on another campus.

It started almost immediately, when he was able to convince Trevon Grimes and Van Jefferson to join in 2018. It continued in 2019 with Jon Greenard. It really became significant in 2020 with the additions of Lorenzo Lingard, Stewart Reese, Justin Shorter and Brenton Cox.

And now with the additions of Arik Gilbert and Demarkcus Bowman, the 2021 team is going to be sporting more 5-star level talent than Florida has had in years.

So what if we incorporate all of those 5-stars into the numbers?

Well, Cox, Lingard and Shorter were all originally in the 2018 recruiting class. The Gators finished ranked 14th nationally (4th in the SEC) with a point total of 259.56. Adding those three to the class would have raised the point total to 287.09, good for 6th nationally but only 3rd in the SEC.

None of the 5-star transfers were from the 2019 recruiting class, so the Gators remain at 9th nationally and 5th in the SEC.

Bowman and Gilbert were both from the 2020 class. The Gators ranked 9th nationally last season (6th in the SEC) with a point total of 273.10. Add Bowman and Gilbert to that total and Florida’s point total would have jumped up to 290.11, good for 6th nationally and 4th in the SEC.

Certainly, national recruiting classes of 6th, 9th, 6th and 14th (presumed finish for 2021) would be perceived a lot differently by the fan base. There is absolutely precedent for teams with that profile winning the national title. LSU in 2019 is actually a pretty good example as the Tigers had classes ranked 2nd, 7th, 15th and 5th from 2016-2019.

That LSU team also used the transfer portal for major impact players, including TE Thaddeus Moss (NC State) and of course, Joe Burrow (Ohio State).

Could the transfers lead Florida to glory? Perhaps.

But one thing I do think we should pay attention to is that of the 5-stars Florida has added through the transfer portal, only one (Cox) has been on the defensive side of the ball. So while the transfers of Shorter, Lingard, Bowman and Gilbert are exciting, they aren’t fixing the reason Florida didn’t make the playoff last season.

Takeaway

Early signing day is probably good for the players, but it’s really anticlimactic for fans. We already know where Florida’s going to end up this year, and it isn’t where we want the Gators to be.

The arrival of Gilbert eases that sting a little bit, but I warn about this every year. If you grade a class based on one player instead of in the aggregate, you’re doing it wrong.

I see what Mullen’s doing in the transfer portal, and in some ways it makes a lot of sense. Take the transfers of defensive tackles Daquan Newkirk and Antonio Shelton as an example. Mullen knows those guys can start for Power-5 teams, so there’s little risk that they will be busts.

Conversely, even 5-star recruits have a bust rate. Lots of them go on to All-SEC and get drafted, but somewhere between 20-30 percent don’t live up to that potential.

That means the additions of Newkirk and Shelton are sure things for one year, which is valuable when you have a definitive need to fill.

But you only get 25 slots. The Gators only signed 20 players in 2018 and 24 in 2019 (and Black and Deyavie Hammond count back to then) so they have been able to push the count back to bring in these transfers. They aren’t going to be able to do that again next year

The Gators may be able to add one or two transfers next season, but the days of adding 12 in two years are over.

That means that you might be able to make the argument that the Gators 2020 class is retroactively ranked 6th nationally, but this 2021 class is going to pretty much stay right where it is.

And where it is isn’t good enough to win championships unless the one following it is outstanding. Look back at that LSU example and yes, the Tigers had a class ranked 15th nationally. But that was sandwiched between three classes that averaged a national ranking of 4.7. Florida won’t be able to replicate that even with the top class in the country next season.

I wish I had better news (I will have an article out later this week about an approach to recruiting I think Florida could and should take), but the reality is that Mullen and company just aren’t cutting it on the trail and the transfer portal isn’t going to be a long-term solution to that deficiency.

So this staff has one shot.

Arik Gilbert is likely in Gainesville for two seasons and then off to the NFL. Same for Demarkcus Bowman and Gervon Dexter. Whoever starts at quarterback next season has to establish themselves as a star coming into 2022.

Because after that, the inability to land 5-stars consistently through traditional high school recruiting is going to show up.

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