Napier’s Florida rebuild not as big a task as it seems

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To properly fix a problem, you first have to diagnose what went wrong.

Over at Saturday Down South, Matt Hayes had an interesting article about the Florida program. Hayes is much more plugged in than I am to the inner-workings of the program, so many of the quotes about Florida not having a recruiting identity under Dan Mullen ring true.

I have to give Hayes credit, as usually the stinging rebukes of an administration occur after a coach has been fired, but Hayes has been consistently critical of Mullen for more than a year now.

I absolutely agree that Florida’s recruiting under Mullen has been unacceptable. But I disagree that Napier is coming into a major rebuild based on the results of the 2020 and 2021 recruiting classes that Hayes describes as part of Mullen’s “shell game.” To quote Hayes:

“That’s back-to-back recruiting classes (2020 and 2021) ranked in the top-12 in the nation that produced minimally for the program. That’s either recruiting or development – or both.”

Hayes isn’t wrong that the 2020 and 2021 classes haven’t produced any bona-fide stars yet. But the question I think we should be asking is whether a star should be expected and whether that star is going to be the basis of a championship program?

By that measure, I think blaming the 2020 and 2021 classes is a misdiagnosis. I think a lack of stars and impact players is a fair criticism of Mullen, but I think you have to look at the 2019 recruiting class instead as the center of that criticism.

Dan Mullen’s “Bump” Class

Bill Sikes did a wonderful job here at Read & Reaction back in 2018 of outlining what a successful SEC second – or “bump” – class looks like.

It’s why I’ve been critical of Mullen’s recruiting going all the way back to April of 2018 (and June of 2018, June of 2019, August of 2020, December of 2020 and February of 2021). The data is in, and a top-10 recruiting class isn’t good enough in the SEC. I’m not even sure if a top-5 class is good enough given that the SEC now occupies the top-3 spots of the 2022 rankings.

So Mullen’s recruiting has been sub-elite his entire tenure. Why am I pointing specifically to the 2019 bump class as the nexus of his demise?

Well, Nick Saban took over Alabama in a similar situation to Mullen taking over the Gators. The Tide had Mike Shula at the helm for four years, and he had recruiting classes that ranked 41st, 21st, 16th and 13th.

Saban took over and had a transition recruiting class that ranked 12th, pretty much in-line with Shula. But the next year – mostly without showing any success on the field – Saban had the third ranked class nationally.

And boy did he hit with that class. His 2007 transition class had just two All-SEC players (AP or Coaches) in linebacker Rolando McClain and center Will Vlachos. But his 2008 bump class had nine All-SEC players, including a Heisman winner and six All-Americans (Mark Ingram, Julio Jones, Terrence Cody, Mark Barron, Courtney Upshaw, Barrett Jones, Marcel Dareus, Robert Lester and Dont’a Hightower).

In fact, of the 26 All-SEC players that Saban coached from 2007-2009, 17 of those players came from the previous administration. But being able to supplement those players with the 9 difference makers (only one from the 2009 class) he recruited helped turn Alabama into a juggernaut.

Now let’s look at Dan Mullen’s situation coming into Florida. Jim McElwain had presided over recruiting classes 21st, 12th and 11th, very similar to those of Shula. Mullen then took over and had a transition class ranked 14th, very similar to Saban.

But that’s where the similarities to Saban end.

Mullen’s bump class in 2019 ranked 9th nationally and had six players in the top 109 (for comparison, Saban had 8 in the top 113, including players ranked 3rd, 23rd, 27th). Mullen either barely or didn’t hit any of the metrics that Sikes mentioned in his analysis of SEC Championship coaches.

And whereas Alabama got significant results from Julio Jones, Mark Barron, Courtney Upshaw and Mark Ingram among those top-113 recruits, Florida got far different results.

The Gators lost Chris Steele before his first fall practice as he transferred to USC. Kaiir Elam turned into a good player, making second-team All-SEC in 2020. Khris Bogle, Ty’Ron Hopper, and Keon Zipperer have been career backups at this point. Only Mohamoud Diabate was able to be a consistent starter from those top players in addition to Elam.

Mullen got slightly less production from his transition class than Saban as well, with Kyle Pitts becoming a transcendent talent at tight end, but no other all-conference level play from anyone else.  All told, Mullen had 13 All-SEC players in his tenure at Florida, and the only ones brought in by him were Elam, Pitts (who was a McElwain commit who stuck with Mullen) and Jonathan Greenard, the Louisville transfer who had played under defensive coordinator Todd Grantham.

Look at any consistently successful program in the SEC – or any other conference really – and you’ll see a significant contribution from the bump class. I detailed this earlier this month when writing about expectations for Billy Napier’s recruiting, but I think it’s worth repeating.

Urban Meyer’s transition class in 2005 ranked 12th nationally and had one All-SEC player. His bump class ranked 2nd nationally and produced 13 All-SEC seasons (six players). Gene Chizik’s 2009 transition class ranked 23rd nationally and produced two All-SEC players. His bump class ranked 6th and produced five All-SEC players. And Kirby Smart’s 2016 transition class ranked 6th overall and had three All-SEC performers. His bump class ranked third and had six All-SEC players.

The conclusion is pretty clear. The bump class is critical to building a program, and Mullen whiffed.

The Napier Takeover

The reason I’m harping on this is because of what Hayes is insinuating in his article: that Billy Napier has a major rebuild on his hands and Florida is in for darker days ahead. That may be true in 2022, but I just don’t think that’s the case overall.

Certainly there are things Napier has to fix. Recruiting is number one and then apparently culturally there are things to fix as well. Scott Stricklin alluded to more than just wins and losses being wrong in the press conference where he announced Mullen’s dismissal, indicating that some disciplinary pain – and subsequent attrition – may be coming.

But let’s go back to the examples I gave earlier. Napier inherits a team with slightly more talent than Saban took over in 2007. Mullen has brought in recruiting classes ranked 14th, 9th, 9th and 12th. The first two classes don’t look to contribute much to the fold, but the last two might.

In fact, I think if you look at the 2019 class as a failure, you actually have to look at the 2020 class as a success thus far.

By my count, you have seven starters from the 2020 class who are coming back in 2022 with multiple years of eligibility. That includes a potentially elite talent at QB in Richardson, both starting safeties (Rashad Torrence, Tre’Vez Johnson), a 5-star defensive tackle who has shown flashes (Gervon Dexter), a solid starting left guard (Joshua Braun), a starting wide receiver/punt returner (Xzavier Henderson) and punter Jeremy Crawshaw.

It isn’t hard for me to imagine a situation where these guys – along with Derek Wingo and Avery Helm – combine to produce some of the All-SEC performances that Napier will need to turn things around.

Indeed, expecting a ton of production from the 2020 or 2021 classes at this point in time is really pretty misguided. You see why if you look at the playoff participants from the past three seasons and where they get their best performances.

The following chart shows the percentage of all-conference players from the last 12 playoff teams and when they were recruited. Because they are in different years, I have set the recruiting cycle in which they came into the program in reference to the current year.

So for example, for this year (2021), based on this chart we would expect the contributions for Cincinnati, Alabama, Michigan and Georgia to mainly be from the Minus-3 (2018) and Minus-2 (2019) recruiting classes. That’s exactly what we see, as there are 16 all-conference players from the 2018 recruiting cycle and 11 from the 2019 recruiting cycle. There are only 21 all-conference players who weren’t from those two cycles for all four teams.

The same thing is true for the playoff teams from 2020 and 2019, as 61 percent and 63 percent of all-conference performers were from the Minus-2 and Minus-3 recruiting cycles.

I know this may seem a little bit obtuse, but the point is that if Florida was going to make the playoff this year – or just be a decent team – the players who were going to determine that were from the 2018 and 2019 classes, not the 2020 and 2021 classes.

Indeed, that’s what we saw as the underperformance of Emory Jones, Amari Burney and Trey Dean along with the departures of Justin Watkins, Chris Steele and Jalon Jones meant the Gators had to turn to players in the 2020 class that, by definition, don’t produce playoff performances.

Timing of elite programs

So what does that mean for Billy Napier and Florida?

It means that the attrition and underperformance of the 2018 and 2019 classes should be starting to appear in the rear-view mirror. What will determine his success early on is what he coax out of the 2020 and 2021 classes now and how he can supplement those players with a few gems from the 2022 class and a banging 2023 bump class.

If we go back to the Florida program’s history, we see that with Urban Meyer’s success. You often hear that Meyer won with Ron Zook’s players, and that is absolutely true early on. The 2006 championship team had two All-SEC players from the 2002 class, five from the 2003 class and three from the 2004 class with zero from the 2005 or 2006 classes.

It is also absolutely true that the Gators don’t win that championship without Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin, but those guys were not the main contributors.

The step back the team took in 2007 was directly related to the transition to Meyer in 2005 and the lack of playmakers from that class. That 2007 team had a Heisman winner at QB and Harvin at the peak of his powers and got five All-SEC performances from the 2006 class, but none from the 2005 transition class and four combined from the 2003 and 2004 classes.

Essentially, the team couldn’t overcome the hole that the 2005 class produced.

But that changed in 2008, as the bump (2006) class produced six All-SEC players and the 2007 class produced five as well. The only holdover from the Zook era for that team making a major impact was Phil Trautwein, but everything else was Meyer.

The same thing happened – abeit with slightly different timing – if you look at Alabama. Saban ran into the Urban Meyer 2008 buzzsaw or he probably wins the championship in his second year as well. But he was able to supplement five All-SEC performances from Shula recruits with another six from his recruiting (four from his bump class) to win the title in 2009.

And in 2010, the conversion was complete as Saban had 9 of 10 All-SEC players coming from his recruits either in 2008 or 2009.

The point isn’t to say that Napier will be able to replicate this. It’s to say that once Mullen couldn’t get that sort of production from his bump class and all of McElwain’s productive recruits left, it’s clear in hindsight to see why the Gators took a nosedive in 2021.

Takeaway

So how do we gauge whether Napier is more Saban, more Mullen or somewhere in between?

Well, one way is to obviously track the quality of his bump class, which we should know a lot about by kickoff of his inaugural season. But the other way is to look at the Freshman All-SEC teams in his first couple of years.

In 2006, Percy Harvin, Tim Tebow and Brandon James all made the Freshman All-SEC team. Those players combined for seven All-SEC seasons in their Florida careers.

In 2008, John Michael Boswell, Julio Jones, Mark Ingram and Dont’a Hightower all made the Freshman All-SEC team. Those players combined for seven All-SEC seasons in their Alabama careers.

Conversely, in 2019, Kaiir Elam was the only Gator who made the Freshman All-SEC team. He’s the only player from that 2019 class to make an All-SEC team as well.

So what does that mean for Florida now? Initially you’d think it looks like bad news for Napier, as the 2020 Freshman All-SEC team didn’t include any Gators and the 2021 team only included Anthony Richardson and Jeremy Crawshaw.

But then you go back to the Alabama example. The Tide only had three players, one a punter, named to the 2006 Freshman All-SEC team. That 2006 team also went 2-6 in conference and had recruiting classes the previous four seasons worse than what Napier is getting walking into Gainesville.

I’m not saying Napier is going to be Saban. Nobody has been in the history of college football.

What I am saying though is that this idea that Florida is some enormous rebuild is just a myth. The 2020 and 2021 classes have enough talent that if Napier can supplement those with two or three elite players from the 2022 class and then have a huge 2023 class, the Gators can be right back to the elite of college football in 2023.

But remember that in 2023, the Minus-2 and Minus-3 recruiting cycles are finally the 2020 and 2021 classes, the very classes that Hayes was expecting major contributions from this season. Perhaps both of those classes will end up being busts.

But you can’t judge that from the 2021 season.