Recruiting NSD 2020 Thread: Zach Evans goes to TCU

Seems like a little progress. A huge year with our schedule might get us that top 3 class we need.

From podcast:
Direct quote "third tier" recruiting and he isn't going to be an elite recruiter.

We knew that though, didn't we?

Summary of podcast:

We are 6th in the SEC again.

You know where your class is going to be basically by Aug now. We were 6th in SEC in Aug, 6th in SEC after NSD.

15% of women prefer hairy balls to be untrimmed.

This Gator class:
Top 50 recruits: 1 (this is 247 composite)
Top 100: 4
Top 300: 13 (counting the 2 nonquals commits)

Last years class
Top 50: 2 (but Steele)
he forgot top 100
Top 300: 10

How is he building in refernce to previous coaches?

The compare 3rd recruiting classes between coaches:
McElwain, DM well ahead
Urban Meyer: not even close, Meyer brought 12 top 100. 2008 NC reload after the great 2006 class.
Zook: 6 top 100
Chimp: 6 top 100.
DM: 4 top 100.

Total percentage of top 300
CUM 66
Zook 65
DM 52
Chump 50
Shark 45

DM in line with Chump, even DM has been better on defense.

Bluechip percentage for total roster is higher,

Zook 57%
Meyer 62
Mullen 72
Muschamp 73
McElwain 50

Will Miles: But many of the lower top 300 used to be three stars per Will Miles, and werent considered "blue chip" but they are now. (Grade creep in last decade.) Meyer had many times the top players, 12 in one class he looked at.

Last year 4 bluechip OL, 2 OL this year. Only past 4 years only 3 DTs, this year 4 bluechip DTs. 4 bluechip corners, 1 bc safety (wanted 2).
Werent able to be successful at RB and TE.

Skill positions on offense... need to focus. Next year, have to prioritize RB, TE. Always QB.

Recruiting in state of FL:
6 of top 26 players on 247. #1 Gervon, #13 Wingo.
(5 of the top 25? 26 is a weird cutoff)
They have to land more top Florida talent. They have to improve here.
Lost #4, 5, 9 to Clemson. Ugly got #3, 10, 12. Bammer #11. LSU got #2 and #17.
Fla must improve here. Can't lose players from Deland.

Dexter is a difference maker. #1 player.

In the end, this is what we probably must expect from Mullen a handful of elite players and some others thrown in. 3rd class we have the data.

Looking at projected starters 2020 vs 2017 McElwain:
3.7 vs 3.59

Defense starters:
3.91 vs 3.03 defense significantly better

He doesn't mention offense. (My quick head math suggests it dropped)

Claims its more likely for a 3 star to excel at offense. (Id like to see this data)

Turner was given football scoop DL coach of year. Claims DL got better vs run after SCar.

Like AR, numbers apparent. Mechanics better. Looks to be the part. Completion percentage 64 up from 48.6, explosive runner. Average 10 yards a rush. Arm is live.

OL Walker and Braun standouts. Depth too.

247 labelled DB class best in country. 7 commits. Freshmen can play here. Florida hasn't had a defensive difference maker, Greenard a little, but Elam could be that guy.

Young guys playing this year helps depth.

It's getting late. 52:00 in. Maybe tomorrow night.

Full article on Read and Reaction.com
With National Signing Day coming, Dan Mullen is building and betting on defense - Read and Reaction

From article:

One thing to note when making this comparison though is that the star rating system going back into the Meyer and Zook eras wasn’t quite as forgiving. Nowadays, it is common for a player ranked in the 350s to be considered a 4-star, whereas back in 2004 that player would have been a 3-star. Thus, it is probably more accurate to look at how players ranked nationally to compare.


Florida coaches in their third year recruiting rankings by top-100 and top-300 players. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Again, Mullen doesn’t compare unfavorably here. In fact, he is pretty much right behind Zook and Meyer (two really good recruiters), tied with Muschamp significantly ahead of McElwain.

Article:

A big part of McElwain’s successful first two seasons was that he went 7-1 in one-score games. When that success regressed to the mean (2-2 under McElwain in 2017), the bottom fell out.

Mullen has gone 6-1 in close games during his tenure. A lot of that is due to his abilities as a coach, but those things tend to level out over time. Were he 4-3 or 3-4 in those games – as we would expect – would we feel as rosy going into 2020?

Rivals.com - National Signing Day: Winners and losers

Always exciting to be considered losers by national recruiting websites.

Its about the same thing. 3rd in the sec still puts us top 5.

We don’t really have a rating or evaluation system to factor in the transfers. The ones we’ve gotten have been very productive, but we won’t know what we have in Shorter or Lingard until we see results on the field. But that’s true of every recruit.

How do those factor into your overall assessment of this class, or as Will Miles looks at it, the 2018 transfer class?

ummmmmm.....How are the facility upgrades coming along? Once all those big football spending projects to bring the bling to our FB complex that Strickland has been fighting for are finished, we will be top 5 every year......right?

Spurdog98 said:

ummmmmm.....How are the facility upgrades coming along? Once all those big football spending projects to bring the bling to our FB complex that Strickland has been fighting for are finished, we will be top 5 every year......right?

Click to expand...

bad facilities will fix bad facilities, if this ever happens years down the road.

bad facilities will not fix bad recruiters.

unfortunately we're stuck with both right now

G. Gordon Gator said:

My gut instinct is that there's likely a lot of truth to The Donk's "Dorky Dan" moniker. Perhaps Mullen does come across as an awkward, uncool doofus to these kids. But then I look at Kirby Smart. To me he seems at least as dorky as Dan, if not more so. So maybe there's more to it than that.

Click to expand...

Kirby is dorky as hell too. Satan looks and acts like.....Satan.

Recruiting is mostly about the assistants but it is also about the facilities and about the staff we have preparing the assistants.

honestly given that we're terrible at all the above it's surprising that we managed to be sixth in the SEC.

you will notice however in Princely's interview he says SEC is a way to get in the NFL. it doesn't say he came to Florida to win championships. you'll probably notice that none of our recruits these days mention that which is realistic.

Swamp Donkey said:

A big part of McElwain’s successful first two seasons was that he went 7-1 in one-score games. When that success regressed to the mean (2-2 under McElwain in 2017), the bottom fell out.

Mullen has gone 6-1 in close games during his tenure. A lot of that is due to his abilities as a coach, but those things tend to level out over time. Were he 4-3 or 3-4 in those games – as we would expect – would we feel as rosy going into 2020?

Click to expand...

Same reason Jason Garrett got fired, 7-1 in one score games in 2018, 1-7 in one score games in 2019.

G. Gordon Gator said:

"Eventually," a shameless para-plagiarization of some meme about good times leading to soft men, by G. Gordon Gator:

Complacency eventually leads to outdated facilities.

Outdated facilities eventually lead to poor recruiting.

Poor recruiting eventually leads to bad teams.

Bad teams eventually lead to new coaches.

New coaches eventually beg AD's for better facilities.

AD's eventually beg boosters for more money.

Boosters eventually kick in more money.

More money eventually leads to better facilities.

Better facilities eventually lead to better recruits.

Better recruits eventually lead to better teams.

Better teams eventually lead to championships.

Championships eventually lead to complacency.

Eventually everything repeats itself.

Click to expand...

So.... let's just stay where we are.

Nah, I need at least one natty at the crest of each of those waves. And the frequency of those waves should come once every 7 years at the least. And in the trough we should be competing for East titles at worst.

Seems to me transfers should be re-rated and included with recruits in an overall roster change rating. From what you wrote, Greenard would have upgraded to a high 4*, Shorter would be a mid-range 4* and Lingard a 3*. Or something like that.

And they could take into account transfers out. Losing Steele, L-Ville losing Greenard, etc. affected those rosters.

That is, after all, the point of recruiting rankings. How is your roster development?

GatorMan5K said:

Its about the same thing. 3rd in the sec still puts us top 5.

Click to expand...

This is spot on.

I keep reading comments that we can "get into the top 5". I just don't see it happening, at least for the next 2 to 3 years, due to who is ahead of us. Who are we going to jump among this group:

Alabama, UGA, Ohio State, and Clemson?

Then there's: Texas A&M - Jimbo can recruit, period. Plus he's got the most money of any team (probably) in the country. If he asks, A&M will give it to him.

Then: LSU. They are the hot new shiny car on the block. We could possibly jump them, but maybe by 1 spot.

Texas. If Herman gets his sh*t together they'll always be a top 10 team....and easily a top 5 team if they improve (on the field).

We can stay with or jump: Oregon, USC, Oklahoma, Auburn, Tennessee (and laugh all you want at Tennessee, but it appears Pruitt actually CAN recruit and has put together a better staff of recruiters).

So, who do we jump to get into the top 5? I just don't see it. I think our ceiling is top 6 or 7. We just need to get more of the top 100 kids (I'd be happy with 6).

Also, about the 'swing and misses' in this class. It's a problem, just like last year when we passed/missed on Dorlus (SDE who signed w/ Oregon - leaving us w/ only one heavy DL in two classes). The staff needs to do a better job of finding a couple of decent Plan C's. UGA, having the #1 class, added two huge Plan C/Butter Specials in a low ranked WR and a low ranked OL/DT, adding depth. I'm not saying for the entire class - like Butters did - but if we're in a bind at the end, why not add one or two low ranked players for depth - and you never know, they often times pan out (Clemson does this well - adding a couple of low ranked kids to the bottom of their class).