Cormani McClain spurns the Gators

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Even if Billy Napier’s Gator team loses by 50 this weekend against Georgia, that won’t be a worse loss than when Cormani McClain shocked Napier and the entire recruiting industry by committing to the Miami Hurricanes.

As someone who absolutely hates Georgia, I don’t say that lightly. But a loss to the Bulldogs is a one-time event that says very little about long-term, sustained excellence. Missing out on a player of McClain’s ilk is all about grasping – and coming up short – of long-term, sustained excellence.

I wrote earlier this week about the first year struggles of both Nick Saban and Kirby Smart before they built their dynasties. Saban went 7-6 in year one while Smart went 8-5. But one of the key things I found when looking at those seasons was that Saban went 4-6 in one-score games while Smart went 6-3. Both of them combined for two blowout (20-plus point) wins in those seasons.

That completely flipped in year two for both of them, with the two teams combining for 17 blowout wins. What changed? Jake Fromm and Julio Jones.

Obviously those players weren’t the only guys making a difference on those teams, but Jones came in and caught 58 balls as a true freshman in 2008. Fromm came in for an injured Jacob Eason and threw for more than 2600 yards and 9.0 yards per attempt.

They were both important parts of each coaches’ bump class.

What is a bump class?

Bill Sikes familiarized me with the term “bump class” years ago. Bill’s explanation is a great one, which is that since recruiting is based on relationships, it’s hard to really recruit truly elite players when you’re behind the eight ball right after you’re hired.

But in the second recruiting class, you have plenty of time to build relationships and an extra added advantage. There isn’t anything your opponents can say about you that they can actually prove.

If someone wants to say Billy Napier can’t win in the SEC, go ahead. There isn’t any evidence of that. If they want to say he’s not going to be able to build Florida into a power again, they’re free to do so. But again, they’re projecting just like any recruit is going to be.

That means that Napier gets to sell his vision without any interference from wins and losses, at least as the relationship is starting. Additionally, I’ve looked at in-season performance and whether it correlates to recruiting quality and I’m not convinced that recruits care all that much about what the product on the field looks like prior to arriving (clearly that’s the case with McClain after Miami’s ugly loss to Duke just last week).

They’re committing to a coach and his vision.

What that means is that a bump class is truly a measure of whether a coach is going to be able to recruit at an elite level. Saban had the third ranked class nationally for his bump class. So did Smart. I already mentioned names like Fromm and Jones, but those classes also included D’Andre Swift, Richard LeCounte, Isaiah Wilson, Andrew Thomas, Mark Barron, Courtney Upshaw, Mark Ingram, Marcell Dareus, Dont’a Hightower and Terrance Cody.

That’s a boatload of talent.

So that leads to the obvious question: what does missing on McClain mean and where does Napier’s bump class stand?

Comps for Napier

Without McClain, Florida’s 247Sports point total stays at 270.92, but drops them to 9th nationally as the Hurricanes have jumped them in the overall rankings. It also keeps the Gators a solid 4th in the SEC rather than nipping right at the heels of LSU for 3rd. The Gators also have an average playing rating of 91.72.

This is important because recruiting these days is really about tiers. Tier 1 consists of Georgia (average player rating of 93.28), Alabama (94.10) and Ohio State (93.33). Tier 2 consists of Notre Dame (92.89), Oklahoma (92.23), Texas (92.26), LSU (92.27) and now Miami (92.49).

Florida (91.72) is in a third tier with Clemson (91.73), Oregon (90.85), Tennessee (90.62), Penn State (91.18) and USC (91.06). Those programs are not slouches, but being in the third tier of recruiting and fourth in the conference isn’t good enough for the sustained excellence that Scott Stricklin said he wanted when he let Dan Mullen go.

I know that those differences in point totals don’t sound all that significant, but they really are. Dan Mullen’s recruiting classes were all pretty much between 90.1 and 90.7 in his four years at Florida, and while Mullen fielded some good teams, he never fielded an elite one.

If we compare Napier to former Florida coaches, we start to see the problem.

I’ve written repeatedly about how players at the top of the rankings get drafted significantly more often. Because of that, I like dividing up recruits into Zone 1 players (ranked 1-60), Zone 2 players (ranked 61-200) and Zone 3 players (ranked 201-600) instead of blue chips or 5, 4 and 3-star rankings.

The result is that you can get an idea of how many players we should expect to be drafted from a given class. Since a team is made up of 22 players, you have an elite roster if you can average 5.5 draftable players per recruiting class.

Napier’s bump class just isn’t that much better than either Mullen or McElwain at this point. He has a ton of players in Zones 2 and 3 but zero top-end talent. Even with McClain in the fold that would have been true, but the number two player in the country is a different kind of deal as we’ll discuss in a minute.

The result is that as currently constituted, this class sits right where Jim McElwain was at in 2016 and just slightly in front of Dan Mullen in 2019 in terms of expected players drafted. Not exactly what we want to hear at this late stage of recruiting.

To be certain, there are still players on Florida’s board. Keon Keeley (7th nationally), Desmond Ricks (15th), James Smith (16th) and Qua Russaw (30th) are possibilities, as is OT Samson Okunlola (18th). But the only way Napier is matching what Meyer, Saban or Smart did in their bump classes is by signing four of those five. Considering that McClain was the sure thing, it’s hard to have confidence that outcome is in the cards.

I mentioned Smart and Saban and here’s how Napier’s class stacks up to their bump classes, along with that of Urban Meyer at Florida.

Again, we can see that Napier is way behind the pace. The hope was with McClain in the fold that he could sign two more of those players listed above and get close to Saban and Smart. But at this point, that’s pretty much out the window.

McClain can be truly special

Lost in all of these rankings is the fact that players ranked as high as McClain almost always get drafted and become major impact players in college football.

I group him together with players ranked 30th or 55th because I have to draw the line somewhere and that’s really where the likeliness of being drafted starts to level out, but that likeliness drops precipitously just going from the number one ranked player to the 15th ranked player.

McClain is the second ranked player in the entire country. Here are some recent players to occupy that prestigious slot.

• 2016 – Dexter Lawrence, Clemson (1st round NFL draft pick, 17th overall)
• 2017 – Najee Harris, Alabama (1st round NFL draft pick, 24th overall)
• 2018 – Justin Fields, Georgia/Ohio State (1st round NFL draft pick, 11th overall)
• 2019 – Kayvon Thibodeaux, Oregon (1st round NFL draft pick, 5th overall)
• 2020 – Bryce Young, Alabama (Heisman Trophy Winner)

In fact, the last player ranked second to not really work out (and that’s not completely fair because he did end up being awarded freshman All-SEC and twice All-SEC second team honors) was Martez Ivey from the 2015 class.

So that’s your absolute floor for McClain: freshman All-SEC honors and a 2-time second team All-SEC performer. You can keep going back further if you want and the story is the same: Myles Garrett (1st overall pick), Jaylon Smith (2nd round, 34th overall due to injury), Mario Edwards (2nd round, 35th overall), and Cyrus Kouandjio (2nd round, 44th overall).

If we just sub in another 5-star – the 18th ranked Okunlola, for example – there is a lot more variability.

• 2016 – Jeffery Simmons, Mississippi State (1st round, 19th overall)
• 2017 – Jacoby Stevens, LSU (6th round, 224th overall)
• 2018 – Adam Anderson, UGA (13.5 sacks, rape charge)
• 2019 – Brandon Smith, Penn State (4th round, 120th overall pick)
• 2020 – Jalen Carter, UGA (future NFL first round pick)

These are still really, really good players. But the variance in outcome that we see has already become much more significant than it was at the second spot. McClain was essentially a player guaranteed to be drafted. To get the same level of guarantee, Florida needs to sign Okunlola and Russaw.

Takeaway

When David Waters asked Dan Mullen a recruiting question last year following the 34-7 shellacking from the Bulldogs and Mullen responded with a non-answer, it was the beginning of the end for Mullen.

That set the stage for the entrance of Billy Napier, who had to prove to the fan base that he both understands how important recruiting is and can execute on his plan to get Florida back to prominence. He clearly expressed an understanding at his press conference, as he immediately called college football “a talent acquisition business.”

But when signing day came last February and Napier missed on Harold Perkins (who has 36 tackles and 2.5 sacks for LSU), Jacoby Mathews and Trevonte’ Citizen, it caused some worry. For sure, it didn’t spell doom and gloom but it meant that he had failed to answer THE question that everyone knows will define his tenure here: can he land the recruiting classes necessary to win big.

McClain’s decision to go to Miami leaves that a gaping, open question. And in some ways, that’s a generous assessment. There’s no doubt that recruiting is better than it was under Dan Mullen, but Florida fans didn’t want better than Dan Mullen. They wanted better than Kirby Smart.

I’m not sure there’s any way to sit here with a straight face and say that Napier has given us confidence that he’s going to be able to get there at this point. McClain’s commitment is a signal. He was the number one priority recruit for this staff ever since it arrived. He is from Lakeland, Florida. Getting him may not have answered the recruiting question completely, but missing on him just takes any air out of the balloon that Napier has been building as many very good recruits have picked Florida over the summer.

The state of Florida was leaky when Napier arrived, surrendering elite players to Alabama, Georgia, Clemson and Ohio State on a way too regular basis. McClain’s decision to go elsewhere in Florida may mean that those leaks are starting to get sealed off, but the fact that they’re being sealed by Mario Cristobal and not Napier is a big problem for the Gators.

To be sure, the Gators have 10 players in the top-235 nationally who hail from the state of Florida. But none of the best 15 players and only two of the top-25 players in the state are coming to Gainesville. Conversely, 3 of the top-15 players and 5 of the top-25 (with a sixth possible in Rueben Bain) are going to Miami.

Folks are going to point to NIL and rumored payments that may have enticed McClain to change his mind and pick the Hurricanes. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t really matter.

NIL is here to stay and Florida has to compete in that landscape. It isn’t immoral for a player to maximize his earning while going to a college that is going to reap the benefits of his labor. In fact, you could make the argument that the old way was much worse from a morality standpoint.

And regardless, it is Napier’s job to acquire talent within the rules that exist. This isn’t little league where everybody gets a participation trophy. You’re getting $7 million a year and have a staff of approximately 35,000 people to ensure players like Cormani McClain come to Florida.

Napier whiffed and there’s no other way to spin this. I suspect there may still be an opportunity to flip McClain at some point along the way, but that’s what it’s going to take to have a successful bump class.

Because just like Napier said, this is a talent acquisition business.

November Sweepstakes

My friend Dan reached out to me about having a little bit of fun the rest of the season and has graciously donated the prize. The Gators schedule – especially now that Texas A&M is imploding – is a lot easier than what we saw in September and October. So will the Gators bounce back in November?

Enter the November Sweepstakes HERE and enter for a chance to win 2 tickets to a Gators home basketball game (you can pick any game other than Kentucky).