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Florida’s star RB enters the portal

Trevor Etienne is in the transfer portal. The worst-kept secret over the past couple of weeks came true on Thursday and Billy Napier – who came to town expressing that he understood this is a talent acquisition business – lost one of the best talents on the team going into what is a must-win season against a brutal schedule.

Florida does have replacements for Etienne. Montrell Johnson has received more carries than Etienne each of the past two seasons, Cam Carroll is going to be back from a knee injury this spring and Treyaun Webb showed some flashes early in the season. Add to that 2024 recruit Kahnen Daniels (who just excelled in his high school’s state championship run) and Florida’s running back room isn’t exactly barren.

Additionally, running back is also one of the easiest places to replace talent. We see that with the NFL every year as running backs taken in the fifth and sixth round outperform those who were taken in the first. A lot of that has to do with the fact that many running backs give you the same relative production, at least compared to the next best alternative.

To that point, Montrell Johnson is a good player. He had more carries than Etienne the past two seasons and has averaged 5.4 yards per carry over those two seasons after averaging 5.2 in his freshman year at Louisiana. But Etienne has averaged 6.1 and 5.7 yards per carry the past two seasons. That doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but it correlates to scoring more than you might think.

In 2023, Etienne had 10 explosive plays on 152 touches (131 rushes, 21 receptions), meaning he created a 20-plus yard play every 15.2 touches. Johnson had 7 explosive plays on 182 touches (152 rushes and 30 receptions). That equates to a rate of an explosive play every 26 plays. Because Johnson and Etienne averaged 14-15 touches per game, that meant you would get an explosive from Johnson about every two games while you’d get one from Etienne in every game.

Florida scored 41 touchdowns on offense in 2023. Of those 41 drives, 27 (66%) included at least one explosive play and 10 (24%) included two. That suggests that if you had given Johnson’s carries to Etienne, you would have gotten an additional 3-4 points per game from one extra explosive play.

Treyaun Webb showed flashes, but he only had one explosive in 30 touches. That’s an extremely limited sample size, but it might suggest that he is more Montrell Johnson (again, not a bad thing) than Trevor Etienne.

But beyond the production, the Etienne transfer is a PR nightmare.

Billy Napier came to Gainesville and immediately made the decision to revamp the recruiting class that Dan Mullen was putting together. Players like Nick Evers (QB, #172 overall) and Isaiah Bond (WR, #52 overall) decided to go elsewhere. Evers said that he didn’t click after meeting Napier and Bond committed to Alabama while calling Florida his “dream school” during his commitment announcement.

Those decommitments shouldn’t be held against Napier, but the unspoken promise was that those commitments were a sacrifice in search of a larger goal: namely, putting together a transition class that would stick and provide value to Florida.

That looked to be the case in 2022 after Etienne and linebacker Shemar James made the freshman All-SEC team and true freshmen Chris McClellan and Kamari Wilson each played in all 13 games. To get that level of production from your top-four recruits suggested that Napier knew exactly what he was doing.

But with an injury to James, McClellan falling on the depth chart and getting absolutely nothing from Wilson in 2023, the production from that group fell to only Etienne. Had those players been able to take a leap – or even just keep their 2022 production – a jump for Florida would have also been possible considering the just-announced freshman All-SEC seasons of Tre Wilson, Kelby Collins, T.J. Searcy and Jordan Castell.

But now that transition class is gutted, with the departures of not only Etienne, McClellan and Wilson, but Caleb Douglas, Jalen Farmer, David Conner and Max Brown as well. And it’s not like the guys from that class, excluding Wilson, are also-rans who flamed out at Florida and won’t have options. McClellan has already been offered by Auburn. And the rumor mill has Etienne going to Georgia (ugh).

Instead of having those guys in blue and orange, Napier is facing the real prospect of having to rely on lots of true freshmen for a second season in a row, but in an environment where nobody is going to accept youth as an excuse. And as the heat dials up, Florida is going to have to be really careful that it doesn’t overextend itself in the transfer portal.

Bud Davis tweeted this after the Etienne news broke and I agree wholeheartedly:

I’m coming around to the idea that one of the biggest advantages an elite P5 program could have right now is a GM who provides continuity and roster management beyond a single coaching cycle. Keeps the boosters aligned. Manages the NIL. Performs long term planning.

— Joshua “Bud” Davis, PhD (@JBudDavis) December 7, 2023

But it’s not just about keeping everyone aligned. Deeper in that thread is a comment by Bud Elliott that strikes to the heart of why a GM-type is important. Florida is at a real risk of chasing wins in 2024 when the right thing to do might be to cast a vision for 2025. At this point, you have to look at the roster and assume that a longer-term strategy is the right way to go.

The problem is that I’m dubious that a long-term strategy can work because 1) it’s difficult to sell to boosters who fund the strategy and 2) it’s difficult to sell to recruits who know how bad Florida fans want to win. This is why the bump class was so critical and missing major metrics were such a red flag for Napier: recruiting during your first full year allows you to falter on the field while blaming the predecessor, whereas any faltering at this point is clearly on Napier.

I thought of this today because somebody asked me what my strategy would be if I were Napier trying to lure the best recruits to campus. The only answer is money through NIL.

You know how I know that? Because I thought about what it would take to get me down there if they asked me to join the staff. While that is obviously a pipe dream, it’s also essentially a one-year contract depending on program success in 2024. You have to be supremely confident that things are going to turn around – or that you’re the key factor to turning things around – to make that bet.

After the FSU game, I said on Gators Breakdown and Stand Up & Holler that walking out of the stadium and hearing the Seminole war chant the whole way out was Napier taking a huge draw on his bank account of good will with the fan base. Etienne’s transfer – and the commitment of 5-star OT Jordan Seaton to Colorado – are more withdrawls. At some point, Napier is going to have to make major deposits into that account and likely fast.

Because in 2024, the bill is going to come due.