Is it time to panic about Florida’s 2022 recruiting woes?

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“I tried to tell them.”

When that’s the text message I get from my old buddy Bill Sikes, I know something is up with recruiting and in the Dan Mullen era, that means it isn’t good news.

I figured maybe Florida had experienced a decommitment, or maybe Walter Nolen – the second ranked overall recruit and a big Florida target – had committed to Alabama or Georgia. Instead, I logged onto Twitter to discover what Bill would later describe to me as “the recruiting equivalent of 2013 Georgia Southern.”

Leyton Nelson – a 3-star tackle from Orlando – had committed to Central Florida over Florida. Even worse, Nelson outlined to Saturday Down South that Mullen and offensive line coach John Hevesy were “spamming my phone, and they were getting a little defensive about it (him committing to UCF)”. The optics on that are just…..yikes!

But Bill’s right. We’ve been writing about this limitation of the staff for a while now. I got criticized when I wrote about panicking about recruiting back in April and June of 2018, before Mullen ever saw the field, but that was because looking at the numbers convinced me that winning doesn’t cure recruiting ills. Then Bill wrote in July of 2018 that Mullen at Mississippi State was one of five Power-5 coaching hires (out of 132 total) who saw a recruiting ranking decline in their first three cycles, along with Jerry Kill (Minnesota), Kyle Flood (Rutgers), Derek Dooley (Tennessee), and Derek Mason (Vanderbilt). Not exactly a who’s who of coaching circles.

Mullen’s rankings at Mississippi State from 2009-2011 were 18th, 30th and 41st. He’s been a little bit more consistent at Florida, with classes ranked 14th, 9th, 9th, 12th and currently 28th. Now, it’s important to note that Florida’s average player ranking is at 89.87, which has them sitting at 15th overall because the Gators have less commits (11) than many of the other teams in front of them in point total.

But still, this is the same exact story that we’ve seen for the past four recruiting cycles, which resulted in average player ratings of 90.75, 90.56, 90.74, 90.30 and now 89.87. That’s either incredibly consistent or we may even be seeing a trend in the wrong direction.

I’ve got followers on Twitter who are lamenting that recruiting isn’t even fun to follow anymore. I agree with them. I haven’t written about it a lot over the past couple of years because it’s basically been the same story. But this year, it feels a little bit different.

In that second article on recruiting in 2018, I wrote that August 1 is when you know what a recruiting class is going to be, so it’s a good time to look at what this class can be.

Availability of Players

A relatively small amount of players ever actually flip from one school to another after making their commitment. That means that if a large percentage of players are committed to a school, there are less potential players for Florida to bring in. That’s one of the disadvantages of being at only 11 commits at this point, and looking at the percentage of 4 and 5-star players committed doesn’t make the news any better.

Committed recruits versus total recruits as of August 5, 2021. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Of the top-350 players in the country, only 110 of them (31%) are not verbally committed. A large chunk of those are players who haven’t announced yet, but are really heavy leans to one or two schools. There just aren’t that many high-level recruits left on the board who are seriously considering Florida, which is why they were so hot and heavy after Nelson.

For example, if Florida were to land its top-six targets (Walter Nolen, Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy, Jaheim Singletary, Kamari Wilson, Evan Stewart and Gentry Williams) – all rated in the top-34 of the rankings – and then fill out the class to 25 players with 3-stars, the Gators would have a point total of 294.55. That would have placed Florida in sixth place in 2020 and fourth place in 2021.

That is the absolute best-case scenario with almost zero margin for error. It also would be hitting on six targets who are all ranked higher than any Florida commit thus far.

But let’s say Florida misses on just one of those top targets. Take Nolen off the list and the Gators’ class falls to 285.58 and would have been 7th in both 2020 and 2021. Miss out on two and you’re down to 276.21, which is where the Gators have been most years under Mullen.

But think about that for a minute. To get to where he normally has been by the end of this cycle, Mullen likely has to hit on three 5-stars and a 4-star ranked in the top-34!

Now, there are other ways to get your score up. You can bring in a bunch of guys rated in the top-200 overall but who aren’t 5-star players. Mullen could certainly do that. Let’s go through the example with Mullen bringing in Gentry Williams (34th), Chris McClellan (90th), Oscar Delp (93rd), Julian Armella (126th), DJ Wesolak (170th), and Jayden Gibson (218th) with the rest of the class filled out with 3-stars.

That class ends up at 273.48, or exactly where Mullen always is. That’s probably a more likely scenario than snagging all of the 5-star guys I cited earlier, but it still means bringing in six players who would be six of the eight highest ranked commits for the class.

Even if you remove Gibson and Wesolak and substitute in Nolen and Stewart, the class only ends up at 284.80. That would make the six guys committing in the future six of the top seven recruits in the class. That’s not a very likely scenario, but getting a bevy of commits from players ranked significantly higher than the current commit list is the only way this class doesn’t end up ranked in the teens.

What’s going on?

If you have been on Twitter today, you’ve probably seen a lot of ire directed at John Hevesy. That’s warranted given the frustration with Nelson’s commitment.

But at some point, we need to place the blame where it deserves to be: directly on Dan Mullen.

Mullen is the guy who built this staff. That includes bringing in Hevesy, a guy whose limitations he should know well since he’s been with Mullen since the Bowling Green days.

It also includes bringing and then keeping Todd Grantham, in what amounts to a year as a lame duck defensive coordinator. Either the defense plays well in 2021 and Grantham moves on to a head job or an NFL job, or the defense is average or bad and he’s let go. Perhaps not coincidently, Florida only has three commits on the defensive side of the ball (though its two highest commits are on defense).

Mullen is the guy who got a one-year show cause penalty for recruiting violations involving impermissible in-person contact with a prospect in Seattle. I actually have more of a problem with him recruiting in Seattle when he has trouble reeling in the talent in his own state than the recruiting violations, but if you’re going to get popped for violations, you should at least be gaining an advantage from them.

And then we went through the offseason where it seemed as though Mullen’s camp was the source for the rumors around his desire to coach in the NFL. There are varying stories about whether that was done to gain contract leverage, but the result is that in what should have been a very stable coaching situation, I’m sure some seeds of doubt were sown with various recruits.

The combination of these things has become systemic at this point. As pointed out in a recent article in the Athletic, Florida is getting dominated on the trail in its own state. There were a bunch of juicy tidbits in that article that outlined some concerning things about the communication, or lack thereof, that Florida has had with local high school coaches. But even if you just believe they are coaches with an axe to grind, the fact remains that Alabama, Georgia, Clemson and Ohio State are recruiting the state of Florida better than the Gators.

Can this be overcome?

That’s the big question, isn’t it?

I think the answer depends on what you mean by “overcome.” If you mean, can the Gators win an SEC Championship with this level of recruiting, the answer is a luke-warm maybe?

I figured when I looked at recent SEC history, I’d find a bunch of teams that have recruited in the 9-15 range who have won the SEC, but that’s not what I found. Auburn won the 2013 SEC Championship with recruiting classes ranked 6th, 5th, 11th and 10th. The Tigers also won in 2010 with classes ranked 9th, 21st, 23rd and 6th.

Of course, that team also had a transfer named Cam Newton at QB.

Other than that, the list of SEC Champions is just Alabama a ton, with one for Georgia and two for LSU over the past 11 years. Not surprisingly, Georgia and LSU have been the second and third most successful recruiting teams in the SEC over that timeframe. The Tide definitely set a standard that is difficult for any program to overcome, but the ones who are overcoming them are doing so with high-level recruiting of their own.

The path isn’t going to get any easier. Texas A&M has started to recruit better than the Gators on a year-to-year basis. Texas and Oklahoma are on the way. Basically, to get past Georgia, LSU and whomever emerges from the SEC West is going to probably require finding a QB at Cam Newton’s level.

Can that happen? Sure, but it’s not the most likely scenario.

And I go back to the definition of “overcome.” If you mean, can the Gators win SEC Championships and compete for playoff spots consistently, the answer is no.

That’s not just a statement on Dan Mullen’s recruiting. It’s a statement to Nick Saban’s dominance, the growing threat at Texas A&M, the permanent cross-rivalry with LSU, the recruiting ability of Kirby Smart, the new additions to the conference and even the growing threat at Ole Miss. Mullen is 2-5 against LSU, Alabama and Georgia thus far. He’s going to have to start winning some of those to change my mind.

Takeaway

None of this means that I don’t support Mullen or that I don’t want to see him succeed. Indeed, it may make victories over Georgia even sweeter because the Bulldogs won’t have any excuse other than Kirby Smart when it happens.

You also have to ask yourself, “who could Florida get that would do a better job than Mullen?” On the field, I’m not sure you could find a better answer. But on the recruiting trail, you shoudl at least have a higher average player ranking than Missouri.

But you don’t get to stand up there and talk about how your evaluations are superior to the services that rank these kids – as Mullen did at SEC Media Days – and then go 2-5 against those very teams who seem to have zero issues with the way those kids are ranked.

And you don’t get to play footsie with the NFL, get rewarded with a $7.6 million annual salary (the third highest in college football) and not have expectations ramp up for all facets of the program. At that level of compensation, there aren’t any excuses when you get beat, whether it’s on the field or on the recruiting trail.

Mullen came to Gainesville talking about the Gator Standard. He then ranted after the ugly loss to Missouri talking about wanting to win at anything and being a competitor, even if it’s just a thumb wrestling match. I completely understand Florida fans who hear that and then get frustrated when he doesn’t seem to want to win the recruiting wars. Because like it or not, winning those wars are a prerequisite to winning consistently on the field.

Wining those wars is the Gator Standard.