Embed from Getty Images

Should Gators fans panic about the 2025 recruiting class?

It’s that time of year again, where I get to write about whether Gators fans should be apprehensive about this year’s recruiting class.

Normally, my message is pretty simple: look at the 247Sports Composite average player rating of a class when the season kickoff occurs and you can pretty much project where a class is going to end up. That’s served me well except for last year, as Florida’s top class fell apart at the end and wound up ranked fifth in the SEC.

With Oklahoma and Texas now joining the conference, that class actually ranks seventh in the SEC now, which means Florida has fallen further behind. But how much further behind have the Gators fallen, and don’t they need to win first to stabilize things so that recruiting can pick up?

Winning in the SEC – A question of talent

Whenever I write about recruiting, the first thing people tell me is that Florida needs to win first so that it can see recruiting pick up. Examples like Clemson early in the Dabo Swinney era or Mike Norvell more recently at FSU are the programs that get pointed to for those making that point.

However, that overlooks a key issue for both of those examples: those programs are in the ACC.

Clemson’s big-time winning really started in 2015. In the five recruiting years prior (2011-2015), the Tigers ranked second in the ACC in recruiting. FSU just had it’s “unconquered” 13-1 season last year. In the five recruiting years prior (2019-2023), the ‘Noles ranked fourth in the ACC, but if you look at the average player ratings of the teams they are immediately behind (Miami and UNC), their average player ratings are incredibly close (89.14 for FSU, 89.33 for UNC and 90.48 for Miami).

This is important information to have when we look at the same type of numbers for the SEC, the conference that concerns Gators fans, as shown in the following chart.

The chart shows the average SEC winning percentage from 2013-2023 plotted against the 247Sports average player rating from 2012-2022. I am making the assumption that winning lags behind recruiting here given the year offset, but given the relationship you can see in the chart, I suspect that’s a pretty good assumption.

The real takeaway from this chart is that while Florida has had some up-and-down years, the Gators have actually gotten exactly what they’ve deserved based on the quality of player they’ve brought into Gainesville. You can say the same thing about LSU, Texas A&M, Auburn, Tennessee and just about every other SEC program out there.

Unsurprisingly, the message is pretty clear. Talent wins games in the SEC.

But is it the chicken or the egg?

Of course, that doesn’t answer the question being posed to me by critics of recruiting. They’re not suggesting that recruiting isn’t important (if they’re arguing in good faith). Instead, they’re suggesting that you have to win to get recruits in the door, which begets more winning.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, considering Billy Napier is 11-14 in his two seasons in Gainesville), I believe the data suggests you need to recruit first, then winning comes. I can show this a bunch of ways with lots of different interpretations of the data, but to me, the following chart gives the most stark example.

What we see here is Florida’s and Georgia’s average recruiting ranking the three years prior to its season and its SEC record for that season, excluding SEC Championship games. So in 2023, Florida went 3-5 in the SEC (37.5% win pct) and have an average player ranking of 90.3 from 2021-2023. Meanwhile, Georgia went 8-0 in the conference with an average player ranking of 93.6 from 2021-2023.

Kirby Smart took over the Georgia program in 2016. The Bulldogs took a step back in the SEC in his first year and went 4-4, worse than Georgia had been in 2014 and 2015. But Smart immediately improved recruiting and look at the path that Georgia has followed ever since. Meanwhile, Florida has meandered around in the exact same space that Georgia was in prior to Smart’s arrival as the Gators have cycled through three different coaches.

It shouldn’t be lost on us the cliff that Florida fell off from 2020 to 2021. Dan Mullen was able to paper over talent deficits by getting more out of Feleipe Franks in 2018 and then finding Kyle Trask in 2019 and 2020. But once his QB was no longer elite, the bottom fell out.

Smart was able to weather the D’Wan Mathis, J.T. Daniels, and Stetson Bennett combination in 2020 (Bennett was bad that year) with an 8-2 SEC record and then had a supercharged program once Bennett took off.

The 2025 Class

All of this started with asking whether Florida fans should panic about the 2025 class. Currently that class is ranked 67th nationally  in point total with an average player rating of 90.28. That’s not too far off from the talent level that Florida has brought in over the past decade. Of course, Florida’s results for the last decade have not met expectations in Gainesville.

There’s also the added complication of Oklahoma and Texas coming into the conference. Right now, Florida’s average player rating of 90.28 is tenth in the SEC so the problem isn’t that Florida only has nine commits, but that the quality of those nine commits is behind the teams Florida is directly competing against. Even if Billy Napier were able to pull out 8 or 9 wins this season, that level of talent isn’t likely sustain that sort of success over the long haul.

I say that because the chart above suggests that while Dan Mullen was able to get more out of the talent he had than we might expect, it also suggests that Napier has been unable to do the same with the same level of talent. That is within the context of an SEC East schedule that included Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Missouri and South Carolina every year. Clearly that schedule is not at play in 2024 or 2025.

I still think we’ll have a much better idea of where this class is by the time the ball kicks off against Miami. Maybe Napier is able to get Vernell Brown (98.49), Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng (95.98) and flip some other high-level recruit that raises the recruiting average to a point where we are hopeful heading into the season. But I’m not sure what in his history as Florida head coach at this point makes us think that will happen beyond blind hope.

I’ve shown previously that you can tie the percentage of top-300 players in a class to final finish pretty reliably. At this point, with Florida at 33 percent of its commits in the top-300, and so the expectation should be a finish around 15th in the country. Even if Florida adds the three guys I listed above, that would project a recruiting class that finishes 9th, or essentially where Florida has ended up on the recruiting trail for the past decade. That isn’t terrible, but it isn’t good enough to consistently win the SEC unless you have a huge schematic advantage.

Hopefully Florida plays great in 2024 and far exceeds Vegas’ expectations. But don’t be fooled by the results, whether they’re good or bad. The data is pretty clear: Florida is going to need an average player rating of greater than 93 to consistently beat Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Texas and Oklahoma. If you’re okay finishing behind those teams consistently, then cheer and enjoy the occasional year that Florida turns in a good performance.

Otherwise, alarms should be going off everywhere. I know D.J. Lagway is the player that everyone is pointing towards as turning things around in the future. I have a piece in our preseason magazine preaching patience specifically because of Lagway. But even I have to acknowledge the glaring problem with that argument: with a slightly higher talent level, Florida got a Heisman-level performance from Kyle Trask in 2020. That team went 8-4, and 8-4 isn’t acceptable in Gainesville.

Or at least it never used to be.

Have you bought your copy of the 2024 Read & Reaction Florida Gators Preseason Magazine?

Insights include:

• How does Billy Napier use Tre Wilson to stress the opposing defense?
• How did Florida perform in the middle-8 (last 4 minutes of the first half, first 4 of the second half) in 2023, and how did that tie to winning?
• What did Ron Roberts learn at Baylor that should help the Florida defense?

Order yours TODAY!