When should Gators fans start to panic about the 2019 recruiting class?

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Dan Mullen’s 2019 recruiting class is currently ranked 20th according to the 247sports composite rankings.

It consists of six 3-star players (ranked 400, 438, 571, 728, 783 and 946 nationally) and one 4-star player (ranked 365 nationally). That’s a major perception problem because at the time Jim McElwain was fired, he had verbal commitments from wide receiver Frank Ladson (5-star, 14th nationally), defensive lineman Jaquaze Sorrells (4-star, 83rd nationally), defensive back Tyrique Stevenson (4-star, 86th nationally) and linebacker Jaleel McRae (4-star, 113th nationally).

Ladson has since committed to Clemson and McRae to Florida State. Sorrells announces August 27 and Stevenson is thought to be a Miami lean.

It’s expected that there will be turnover when a new staff comes in. Individually, the decommitments of each of these players is not a huge deal. We also need to be honest that after the 2017 season fell to pieces, many of these players may have begun wavering on their commitments.

But that is a hypothetical. What is true is that up to this point, Mullen has not been able to replace the talent that McElwain had committed, at least verbally. And while Mullen has talked a lot about winning at Florida previously, he did so with Tim Tebow backing up Chris Leak and Cam Newton backing up Tebow. Those aren’t exactly 3-star recruits.

At this point, there have been lots of offers and lots of players on campus to visit, but Florida appears to be lagging behind on the recruiting trail.

So the question is, how worried should Gators fans be?

Where things stand now

As mentioned above, the current Gators 2019 recruiting class doesn’t have commits rated in the elite tiers. But it’s still pretty early, so it means more to compare Florida’s class to teams it will be competing against in the upcoming years.

National recruiting statistics as of 4/22/2018. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Well, that’s a problem. Every one of Florida’s rivals – and Dan Mullen’s former program – are ahead of the Gators, and significantly so. I’m not counting Tennessee as a rival, as that match-up has been incredibly one-sided towards the Gators even with Florida’s struggles.

The story is just as bleak if we examine the number of players in each class and those who are rated higher than Florida’s top recruit.

Total recruits and recruits ranked higher than Florida’s highest ranked recruit (365). (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Every single recruit committed to Alabama and Georgia are rated higher than Florida’s highest ranked recruit. Florida State has seven out of ten recruits rated higher.

Recruiting rankings aren’t everything, but when you are consistently behind your competition, it makes winning much more difficult. Florida is behind, and unless things turn around quickly, the Gators are going to continue losing ground.

When do recruits commit

To compete with Georgia and Alabama, Florida is going to have to get some elite talent to commit to play for the Gators. That means 5-star, top-30 national-level players. So I wanted to ask the question of what date do those players commit? My concern was that Mullen may have already missed his opportunity with that type of player.

Timing of 5-star commitments from 2016-2018. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

To examine this, I looked at every 5-star recruit from 2016-2018 and found the date that they verbally committed to the school where they ended up. I then sorted that based on date to understand when players of that caliber normally commit.

What the above chart shows is that a minority (22%) commit on National Signing Day, with more committing very early (28% prior to May 1) or relatively late (32% from December 1 – January 30).

The good news is that based on past history, Mullen still has time because 72 percent of 5-star players commit after December 1. The bad news is that there are only 26 players currently rated as 5-stars according to the 247Sports composite, and 9 of them (35%) have already committed.

Based on the visitor lists, I do think it likely that Mullen pulls in at least one 5-star player. But he’s only got 17 shots left and only one of those players (running back Trey Sanders) is from Florida.

Mullen’s path to a top-3 class

This is all a problem because my expectation of Mullen in 2019 is a top-3 recruiting class. That’s because the second recruiting classes for Ron Zook, Urban Meyer and Will Muschamp were ranked first, second and third, respectively.

Mullen has talked a lot about the Gator Standard and as far as recruiting is concerned, a top-3 class is that standard. That’s a problem when we start looking at the numbers.

Mullen has been linked to the first, sixth and 21st-ranked players in the nation (Kayvon Thibodeaux, Trey Sanders and Derek Stingley). Let’s say he signs all three of those players. Then let’s say that he fills out his class with sixteen 4-star players spaced evenly within the rankings (meaning players ranked 30, 50, 70, 90, 110, 130, 150, 170, 190, 210, 230, 250, 270, 290 and 310).

That would be an enormous haul, and based on what we’ve seen thus far is extremely unlikely. It would also give the Gators a rating of 300.2 according to 247Sports. Over the past three years, that class would have averaged third, meaning Mullen has to hit on absolutely everyone to get the Gators to that point.

If he misses out on one of the 5-stars, the class falls to 292.5, which historically would be fourth. Miss on two of the 5-stars and the class falls to 285.4, which would be sixth. And if a couple of the higher ranked 4-stars decide to go elsewhere, the class quickly would fall into the 8-10 range, which is frankly unacceptable at Florida.

When to get concerned

It is concerning that Florida is currently way behind some of its rivals. But is it time to panic?

Maybe not. In Urban Meyer’s transcendent second recruiting class, he only had one commit at this point. In fact, 20 of his eventual 24 commits pledged after December 1, including Percy Harvin (December 19), Tim Tebow (December 13) and Brandon Spikes (January 7).

Will Muschamp had a much more balanced approach, getting commitments from seven players prior to May 1 and another five before August 1. But of those seven players, five were rated 4-stars. Every one of those 4-star players has a higher national ranking than the seven that Mullen currently has committed.

If we go outside of the Florida program for comparison, we can look at Kirby Smart’s second recruiting class at Georgia. He had six commits before May 1, five of whom were top-200 players. He then signed eight players prior to December 1 and another 10 before signing day.

Nick Saban’s second recruiting class at Alabama consisted of five commits prior to May 1 (only 2 4-stars). This was at the height of oversigning and so Saban signed 30 players that year, 19 of them after December 1.

Takeaway

The question I asked coming into this analysis was whether Florida fans should panic about the state of the 2019 recruiting class? Panic is a strong word, but there is reason for concern.

Of the four second-year classes examined, only one was worse at this point in the process than Mullen’s. Of course, that one class is Urban Meyer’s 2005 class that was a major reason for the 2006 and 2008 championships. It’s entirely within the realm of possibilities that Mullen brings in a massive haul and I look like a fool for even writing any of this.

But relying on a historical outlier is probably not a great idea. Smart, Saban and even Muschamp had much more talent at this point in the process. Additionally, Meyer’s class only had one commit before May. Mullen has seven, and those players do not have the same talent profile of the players that Meyer signed in 2005.

That means that Mullen is going to need to close on just about everyone that he targets to approach the caliber of class of Zook, Meyer and Muschamp.

Second year recruiting rankings of former Florida head coaches along with a best-case scenario for Dan Mullen. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

With the best case scenario that I outlined above, Mullen would achieve a class similar to Meyer’s. As I said, that scenario is completely within the realm of possibilities.

But at this point it is just as possible that Mullen will have to bolster his class ranking with 3-star rated players like McElwain did in 2016. That would be a real issue as recruiting is a big reason why McElwain was asked to leave.

As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in between. Mullen will likely end up with a class with more top-end talent than McElwain but considerably less blue-chip depth than Zook, Meyer or Muschamp. That would still be a disappointment given that recruiting was the big concern about Mullen coming over from Mississippi State. A top-10 class would be seen as progress and certainly wouldn’t be an abject disaster, but it wouldn’t be ideal.

I’ve certainly learned my lesson from the McElwain era. Yes, there are outliers who win championships (Clemson, Auburn) but those teams have transcendent QBs (Watson, Newton). Unless Joe Burrow is coming to Gainesville, I don’t see a transcendent QB on the roster.

That means that Mullen is going to have to win the same way other big-time programs do: outrecruiting the opposition. He may still prove to be able to do it. But with Kirby Smart and Nick Saban in the same conference, it was always going to be an uphill climb.

And at least to this point, that climb is looking really steep.

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