Is patience or panic warranted for Billy Napier’s 2023 recruiting class?

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Panic or Patience?

In late June of 2018, I asked the exact question in the title of this article about Dan Mullen. He didn’t have a lot of momentum on the recruiting trail and his class was clearly behind teams that Florida wants to beat. My statement at the time was pretty simple: it isn’t time to panic, but things need to pick up quick otherwise the class will be below what is necessary to win an SEC Championship.

Both of those things are true yet again.

A previous Gators head coach liked to talk about “noise within the system” and that noise is back again. Gators fans are feeling anxious as they see players like linebacker Jordan Hall committing to Michigan State, 5-star CB Tony Mitchell leaving Florida out of his top-4, and crystal balls for Miami coming in for QB Jaden Rashada. Combine that with the announcement that Demarkcus Bowman is entering the transfer portal, and it wasn’t a week with a ton of good news for the Gators.

Still, not all hope is lost. Perhaps the winds are starting to change with the commitment of 4-star DL Gavin Hill on Saturday following up on the flip of 4-star edge rusher Isaiah Nixon from Central Florida. Those two are the first top-300 recruits Napier has been able to snag this cycle.

But we do need to deal with reality when it comes to the recruiting situation. And that reality is that while there is still time for Napier to put together an elite-level class, that time is starting to wane. And until things really start to get going, the noise is going to stay in the system until kickoff in September.

Where things stand

Florida has eight commits: Isaiah Nixon (194 national rank), Gavin Hill (259), Aaron Gates (318), Knijeah Harris (389), Creed Whittemore (467), Bryce Lovett (558), Tyree Patterson (712) and Tommy Kinsler (965). The average national ranking of those eight is 483 and the average 247 player rating is 88.88.

That is almost an exact carbon copy of where Mullen was at in late June of 2018 for his 2019 class, except that he had 10 commits with an average 247 player rating of 88.48. Mullen had three top-300 players while Napier only has two, but Mullen had more lower-level 3-star players.

The point is that Napier is going to have to differentiate himself pretty soon from his predecessor or we can expect this class to end up fairly close to where that one did (9th nationally, 90.56 average 247 player rating).

All of that said, Florida is definitely behind most of its rivals.

As the chart shows, Florida isn’t just behind Alabama and Georgia. The Gators are also behind Tennessee, LSU and FSU, three teams that Napier is going to have to play – and beat – every season for this rebuild to work. In fact, if Napier had the LSU class that Brian Kelly has put together thus far, I wouldn’t be worried at all.

Because each class has so few commits, one or two can skew the rankings as things get close. But it’s the top-300 percentage that has me concerned as a Gator fan. Napier is going to have to get that up soon to give any hope that this class is going to be a major improvement on recruiting at Florida.

Top-300 Projections

In the article I wrote about Mullen years ago, I had this chart, now modified to include Mullen’s other recruiting classes and Napier’s second one.

If there’s one thing you should take from this, it’s that there isn’t a huge change in top-300 percentage for a class between August 1 and the final rankings. I showed that previously as well for average 247 player rankings. It’s pretty clear: where you are by the time kickoff comes is where you’re going to end up in February.

I’ve also previously shown that there’s a linear relationship between top-300 player signings and recruiting ranking. That means based on just the percentage of top-300 player signings, we should be able to predict where Florida’s class is going to end up.

Now you can see why I say Napier has his work cut out for him. A class ranked 18th is not going to cut it at Florida. Quite honestly, a class in the 12-15 range would verge on a disaster considering that’s exactly what Mullen was bringing in with a far deeper X’s and O’s resume.

I believe Napier is going to have to bring in top-3 classes to really succeed long-term at Florida, but it looks like that ship has likely sailed for 2023. Perhaps he can sneak into the top-5, which quite honestly, would be a major coup at this point.

Takeaway

There are still some reasons for optimism.

Mullen’s 30 percent top-300 rate in August would have normally portended a finish of around 17th nationally. But he was able to finish strong and up both his average player ranking and his top-300 percentage to salvage a top-10 class. Napier could certainly do the same.

The other reason for optimism is who is still on the board.

If 5-star corner Cormani McClain were to commit, that would immediately take the Gators average player rating to 90.11 (or pretty much in-line with FSU and Tennessee). If Napier can add Malik Bryant, Treyaun Webb, Payton Kirkland, Will Norman and Jaden Rashada, that rating would be up to 91.83. That also would increase the Gators top-300 percentage to 57 percent, or more in-line with a Will Muschamp recruiting class.

The good news is that all of those players whom I listed except Rashada are from the state of Florida. The bad news is that Florida hasn’t recruited Florida all that well in recent seasons, and we haven’t really seen reason to believe that it is improving as of yet under Napier.

I absolutely hear when some fans say that we should be patient; that Napier hasn’t even coached a game yet. I actually agree that some patience is in order. But blind patience isn’t something that Florida fans can give for too much longer given the goals of the program and the arms race developing under name, image and likeness rules.

Additionally, waiting to “show it on the field” is a problem. That’s because winning on the field doesn’t translate in recruiting. This idea that everyone can be the Clemson outlier just isn’t based in reality (or the SEC). More often, you end up being Michigan (just wait and see what happens to the Wolverines this year against Ohio State).

Or you end up being Florida, who kept waiting for Mullen to turn a 10-3 2018 season or a 11-2 2019 season into recruiting success and instead wound up with virtually identical recruiting classes year after year.

I titled this article with a question about whether it’s time for patience or time to panic. A look at the stats says that particular question is a more nuanced one than maybe we’d like.

I don’t think Napier is going to get a top-3 or even a top-5 class at this point. He’s just too far behind for it to be the likely outcome, and that is disappointing given what has historically been needed in bump classes to win the SEC.

But if Napier can reel in 55-60 percent top-300 players with some real high-end talent (i.e. McClain, Bryant, IMG OT Francis Mauigoa and perhaps flip Notre Dame edge rusher Keon Keeley), then that’s a real step-up from where Florida has been under Mullen.

It still is going to have to improve from there to compete year-in, year-out with the beasts of the SEC, but at least it gets us out of the Groundhog Day recruiting classes that we got every year from Mullen. That isn’t what we were promised when Napier came in assuring us that he knows this is a “talent acquisition business,” but it is progress.

Perhaps NIL payments have shifted things quicker than Napier anticipated. Maybe the same things that worked at Louisiana don’t work at Florida. Or perhaps Napier is finding recruiting is a lot harder in the SEC when you don’t have Nick Saban behind you to close the deal.

Whatever the reason, things are going to have to pick up this year, and fast. Criticism of the staff at this point is both pointless and premature. Let’s see where things stand in August or September. If Florida is still bringing in 3-star recruits without top-300 players, it will mean something is wrong. If Napier loses out on homegrown talent like McClain and Bryant and is unable to backfill with equal level talents, criticism will be valid.

I know fans want to win. Recruiting clearly is the lifeblood of doing that. Napier knows that better than anyone; he was on staffs with teams absolutely teeming with NFL talent. But throwing haymakers at the home coach isn’t doing any good considering where we are in the recruiting cycle.

Fans can afford to give him the next two months to show significant progress. But after that, the gloves can come off.