The strengths of Billy Napier’s 2025 recruiting class
With the flip of wide receiver Dallas Wilson right after early signing day and the flip of 4-star defensive back Onis Konanbanny from Tennessee this week, Florida finished the 2025 recruiting cycle with the 8th ranked class nationally. That is significant progress by Billy Napier, especially considering where this class stood before the season started.
To be sure, the vote of confidence Napier received from athletic director Scott Stricklin – and more probably the 4-game winning streak to end the season – helped salvage this class. It looked entirely possible early this past season that the recruiting class was a lost cause, but Napier has been able to bring some really good players to Gainesville.
The question is, how good are they, and will they contribute to winning in 2025?
How good is this class?
As I mentioned, the 247Sports Composite has this class ranked 8th overall. That beats Napier’s previous classes at Florida (18th, 13th and 13th). Definitive progress, right?
The ranking cited above uses point totals assigned to each player to provide a point total, but the story does get a little bit murkier if we just look at average player rating. There, Florida ranks 13th nationally – and 9th in the SEC – just behind Missouri. Florida’s average player rating (90.95) isn’t much better than Napier has had thus far in his tenure at Florida, and is pretty close to Dan Mullen’s classes as well.
So is this a Mullen class or is it better? The answer is more nuanced than most probably wish to admit.
It was easy to forget by the time Gator Dave Waters was asking Mullen about recruiting during the 2021 season, but Mullen brought in the 8th ranked class in 2020. The momentum of two New Year’s Six bowl games and the development of Kyle Trask into a legitimate Heisman contender had Gainesville buzzing.
But that recruiting class had some holes. It was headlined by 5-star defensive tackle Gervon Dexter, but he was the only top-60 player in the class. Instead, Mullen built the strength of that class on 7 players ranked 61-200 and 12 ranked 201-600. The result was that Mullen built points in the rankings with depth, not elite talent.
Napier has done the opposite in this class. He has 4 players ranked in the top-60 of the 247 Composite rankings with Vernell Brown, Wilson, and defensive backs Ben Hanks, Jr. and Hylton Stubbs while adding 6 from the 61-200 range and 8 from the 201-600 range. The result is that the class is much more top-heavy with guys who we would expect to pan out.
Years ago while Mullen was still in charge, I wrote about my five-three theory of recruiting, which essentially argued that the best way to optimize in recruiting was to ignore players in the 61-200 range because they became NFL players at almost the same rate as those ranked 201-600. The idea was to save money at the intermediate level to make sure you have money for the elite prospects you want.
Florida did that a year ago with D.J. Lagway and L.J. McCray (3 top-60, 2 61-200 and 9 201-600) and that trend has continued this season. If you’re not going to spend with the Ohio State’s and Georgia’s of the world, that’s the way to go.
But what about 2025?
Let’s be honest. Florida has a two-year window with Lagway. That means this recruiting class can’t just be effective long-term. It has to provide value right away.
The beauty of the five-three theory is that part of the return is that your elite prospects should perform right away, whereas even high-level 4-star players often take a year or two to develop (i.e. Aiden Mizell, Dijon Johnson, etc.).
If immediate performance is important, that means you can’t just bring in elite prospects, but they have to be at a position of need. This is where Napier and Co. really made hay in this class.
The top-60 commits in this class are at wide receiver (Brown and Wilson) and defensive back (Stubbs and Banks). With the return of Tyreak Sapp, Caleb Banks, Jaden Robinson, and Pup Howard, Florida should be relatively strong in the front-seven. But with the departure of Jason Marshall and Trikweze Bridges and injuries to Aaron Gates and Devin Moore, Florida is both really thin and relatively unproven at the safety and corner spots.
And with the departures of Elijhah Badger and Chimere Dike, Florida has to replace its two best wide receiver threats. They’ll attempt to do that with the return of Tre Wilson from injury and the addition of transfer J. Michael Sturdivant from UCLA, but make no mistake, they are going to need significant contributions from Brown, Wilson, or preferably both to make the offense go.
But if I’m grading the positional distribution in this class, Florida did exactly what it had to do. Maybe these guys don’t pan out; that’s always a possibility. But Florida spent its NIL dollars on players who will have an opportunity to win jobs if they’re as good as their rankings suggest, which means they would get tremendous value from filling those spots.
Takeaway
Billy Napier isn’t Nick Saban or Kirby Smart on the recruiting trail. That may be because of Napier’s limitations or it may be because he doesn’t have the same war chest to spend NIL dollars on as those programs. I suspect it’s probably a little bit of both.
But given the numbers distribution the past two cycles, it does appear that Napier and Co. are allocating their resources effectively. In the 2024 class, they go a can’t miss QB prospect who showed how valuable that can be at the end of the year. They also got a big-time defensive end prospect. This year, they brought in two big-time wide receivers to help Lagway and then defensive back help, both of which fill holes that need to be filled.
Bud Davis (@jbuddavis on X) has a lot of graphics that describe recruiting, but I like this one the best.
📊2025 CFB Recruiting Class Expected Value
NSD Edition
▫️Tier 1: UGA & TEX. 400 EV & 4-year title win rate of 40%. UGA’s trench talent=low risk
▫️Tier 2: Mich, Bama, OSU, Oreg. 20-30% title-rate. Skill-heavy/high risk
▫️Tier 3: LSU, Tenn, AUB, TAMU, UF, ND. 10-15% title rate pic.twitter.com/ddyBjrgdYG— Bud Davis (@JBudDavis) February 5, 2025
His is a much more rigorous treatment of the data than mine, but he essentially has the same general takeaway: Florida could win a national championship with the talent that they’ve brought in with this class, but it isn’t very likely.
But classes that give some percentage chance to win a national title, combined with Lagway at QB, means we have hope. And that’s all we can really ask for from our team’s coach: give us wins or give us hope.
Here’s hoping this class helps Napier gives us both in 2025.
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