Signing Day Recap: After high-profile misses, Napier has to get to work on 2023

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There’s no doubt that National Signing Day was disappointing for Billy Napier and Gators fans. There’s also no shame in saying that.

One of the things that concerned me about the Dan Mullen era was the attitude that it was okay losing on the recruiting trail and relying on strictly coaching acumen to overcome the deficit. I actually think Mullen was uniquely suited to try that experiment, but as we found out in 2021, it was a flawed experiment.

Billy Napier has said all the right things since coming to campus. He immediately showed results, breaking the IMG curse with Kamari Wilson, bringing in Devin Moore from Naples and convincing Shemar James to reconsider the Gators after decommiting earlier in the process.

All of that set the stage for what could have been a huge signing day. After the early signing period, you’d excuse Florida fans for thinking that Napier had a magic spell over recruits. And for Napier, it was an opportunity to answer every question any Gator fan had about him and his ability on the recruiting trail.

As it turns out, proximity and relationships matter. Only six of the 17 signees are from the state of Florida, which just isn’t sustainable over the long haul. Part of that is due to the Mullen regime leaving Napier in a tough situation.

But some of it is that Napier not closing the deals with the few recruits he did have a shot at.

That doesn’t mean Napier is going to be a failure, or that this class won’t eventually be looked at as successful. But it does suggest that there is still work to do and that there are still open questions about Napier’s ability to compete with the big boys on the trail.

Those questions are going to be answered by August or September this year, when we see what he’s been able to put together for the 2023 class. There are some good players coming to Gainesville, but it could have been a haul of top-level talent.

Instead, an opportunity to answer the key question about Napier was missed. It’s okay to acknowledge two truths: Napier still has time to answer that question, but it’s disappointing he didn’t answer it right away on Wednesday.

The Stats

I’ve taken to showing this chart a lot recently.

Percent of players drafted by NFL versus recruiting ranking in 2013 and 2014. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

The reason is that it exemplifies the value that comes with elite recruits, and how that value tails off when you get out further into the low 4-star and high 3-star realm.

I think the reason is pretty simple. It’s really easy to evaluate Walter Nolan (the #1 player overall) and see that he is special. It’s a lot harder to differentiate the skills between a guy like Jack Pyburn (#441) and Caleb Douglas (#470).

A good example of this is defensive lineman Jamari Lyons. 247Sports has him ranked 373rd in their composite ranking (a meshing of multiple rankings) but has him ranked at 230th in their own rankings. That means there’s a large spread for each of the ranking sites when looking at Lyon’s potential, indicating more uncertainty around what Lyons will eventually turn into than someone like Harold Perkins (8th composite, 5th 247 ranking).

I know most sites break kids into 5, 4 and 3-star rankings, but I think it makes more sense to break them into zones based on the data instead of arbitrary star rankings.

Zone 1 consists of the first 60 players in the rankings. These players get drafted at a much higher rate than any of the others and so I think it makes sense to break them out into a separate category. What this means is that someone like Kamari Wilson dropping from 27th to  43rd doesn’t really change this analysis. We should still expect him to be good.

Zone 2 consists of players ranked 61-200. These guys get drafted at a rate higher than Zone 3 (201-600), but it isn’t a ton higher. Having these guys is valuable, but you can probably get away with loading up on Zone 3 if you have a bunch of Zone 1 players.

2022 recruiting class broken down by Zones. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

In that context, looking at Florida’s class shows that the Gators aren’t too far behind the teams just in front of them by traditional rankings. I calculated draftable players by assuming a 50-percent, 25-percent and 15-percent draft rate for Zone 1, 2 and 3 players, respectively.

The first thing to notice is that A&M, Alabama and Georgia are in another league altogether. That’s the goal, and where Billy Napier needs to get to, but it was always unfair to compare him to those classes with a program in transition.

The more interesting data points are the LSU and Miami classes. Both of those programs are transitioning and both Brian Kelly and Mario Cristobal grade out better than Napier. But this actually explains the disappointment from today, as a Perkins flip from LSU to UF would have closed that advantage for the Tigers to 0.3 draftable players, essentially a wash.

But that’s the game. You need those difference-makers to push your program forward.

Comparison to previous transition classes

Based on traditional metrics, Napier’s transition class falls right between Jim McElwain’s 2015 and Dan Mullen’s 2018 transition classes. That’s not a great place to be, but what about if we use the Zone approach to analyze those classes?

Transition class recruiting for last 3 Gators coaches. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

This makes sense if you think about it. Napier’s 2022 class is ranked 19th overall and McElwain’s was ranked 21st. But this analysis starts to gain some credibility when looking at these numbers.

The prediction is McElwain would have 1.9 players drafted from the players ranked in the top-600 in his class. That’s exactly right, as Jordan Scarlett and Antonio Callaway were the only two drafted. Jabari Zuniga was drafted as well, but he was rated at 636 and so falls outside of these parameters.

So what about Mullen’s class? It’s hard to tell given that much of the class hasn’t moved on to the NFL yet. Kyle Pitts is the obvious standout here. I suspect Dameon Pierce is going to be a late-round pick this year and then either Jacob Copeland or Richard Gouraige will get drafted as well. So again, the analysis seems to hold.

So what we should expect from this transition class is two players who end up being drafted into the NFL. I’ve written previously about how Napier needs to get two All-SEC players out of this class to follow a championship path. That means just being NFL draftable isn’t going to be enough. He needs two stars.

Takeaway

The sky isn’t falling on the Florida program. This is a solid recruiting class, and Harold Perkins, Jacoby Mathews and Trevonte’ Citizen would have been some bells and whistles.

In general, I’m much more concerned about process than I am results. If a solid process is in place, the results will eventually take hold. By all accounts, Napier is spending a considerable amount of energy making sure the right processes are in place, and I do think that will pay off down the road.

For example, at his press conference he said he was focusing on the 2022 class and fitting in the 2023 class around those prospects, but that isn’t completely true. He has definitely focused energy on building relationships with local high school coaches.

I suspect he’s also spent a bunch of time meeting with supporters of the program; it isn’t a coincidence that he’s mentioned the Gator Collective at every stop today.

Napier took over a program reeling from Mullen, especially on the recruiting front. The fact that Mullen had allowed Florida players to leave the state meant that Napier didn’t have the same advantages that Brian Kelly had. Say what you will about Ed Orgeron, but the state of Louisiana was his in recruiting, and that’s a situation that Kelly inherited and took advantage of.

There is also a track record for Napier we should pay attention to.

When he took over at Louisiana, his first recruiting class ranked 105th nationally and 5th in the Sun Belt. That was worse than the average of his predecessor (98th and 4th). But in his second – or bump – class, Napier improved the national ranking to 77th and had the best recruiting class in the Sun Belt for the next three years.

That is a must for Florida. The thing that did Dan Mullen in wasn’t his transition class. It was that he only increased the number of draftable players to 2.9 in his second class. That actually drops to 2.2 if you factor in that Chris Steele and Jalon Jones left the program before fall camp.

It’s not a coincidence that Kaiir Elam is the only surefire draft pick out of that class. There were going to be a limited number of players from that class going to the pros just based on the numbers.

So what that means is that Billy Napier set a foundation pretty similar to the last two Florida coaches. It also means that Florida fell further behind Texas A&M, Alabama and Georgia. I’m not throwing a parade for these results, but given some of the limitations, I’m also not ready to raise alarm.

But as I mentioned, Mullen’s numbers predicted 2.2 draftable players in his second class. Jim McElwain’s numbers predicted 3.9 (Tyrie Cleveland, Freddie Swain, Ceedy Deuce and Lamical Perine). Urban Meyer’s 2006 class numbers predicted 5.7 (Marcus Gilbert, Percy Harvin, Tim Tebow, Brandon Spikes, Jermaine Cunningham and Riley Cooper).

That class had four Zone 1 players, 13 Zone 2 players and 3 Zone 3 players. It was the second ranked class nationally. It was a transformative class for Florida, and quite honestly, the SEC as a whole.

The 2005 Georgia Bulldogs are the last team to win an SEC Championship without a top-5 class in the four years prior to the title. Recruiting has only gotten more cutthroat since then. Urban Meyer’s 2005 class finished 12th, but 3rd in the SEC. To finish 3rd in the SEC this year would have required finishing…..3rd nationally.

That’s the expectation for Billy Napier in 2023 and moving forward. He said himself that this is a talent acquisition business. With the limitations inherent in a transition class, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

But come 2023, it’s top-3 or bust.

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