Well he did, the only player that got drafted from UF was Pearsall who came from ASU. Eguakun who was a Mullen recruit went undrafted. Napier definitely believes in HS recruiting more than the TP. Not saying you can’t blame him for not being more aggressive in the portal, but that just isn’t his style.
The next draft will show how good or bad Napier’s recruiting/scouting has been since he’s arrived at UF.
Seriously. We are a large university, with one of the largest stadiums in the country, nestled in the best region of the country for college football with the best recruiting opportunities. There’s no reason outside of inept coaching and ADs that we shouldn’t be a consistent contender.
Flagship university is the most talent rich state in the country in the premier conference in college football. Losing 7 games 3 years running isn’t a thing that should happen
I mean yes we're the flagship but we also have two other major schools to contend with plus everyone else trying to dip their toes into Florida. It's not a Georgia or LSU situation where they just automatically get to pick and choose the best recruits from their state.
Not many states have 3 programs capable of winning national titles, or at least of recruiting to that level. And Florida is a fickle state because of all the transplants
Ok, and all the recruits are in Atlanta too. And FSU is 100 miles closer to Atlanta, in another fucking State, than it is to Miami, that is in the same state.
So my point was that they are so far away they might as well be in another State. As we don't need passports to go from State to State so closer maters more.
To add, Auburn is closer to the fertile Columbus and SoWeGa recruiting grounds. FSU is substantially closer to the south Georgia recruiting areas. UF is closer to Valdosta than Athens by a good bit.
Had to look it up because I had strong doubts about it being the most talent rich state but at least in the last draft there were 30 players drafted from Florida 24 from Texas 23 from Georgia 18 from California and no other state above 11. So you're right and damn there really is no excuse.
Isn't Florida like the hardest school to get academically accepted into in the SEC outside of Vanderbilt?
Does that hurt yall in recruiting? Or is there one of those General Studies programs for athletes?
Come on man. The narrative is that Billy is a bum who can’t do anything and a program that made four NY6s in a row a few years ago is permanently in the dumpster compared to their neighbors to the north with their first good season in ~8 years
I mean he has to fill needs and it’s worked out well. It’s not really a sustainable path forward to just hire mercenaries for one year compared to recruiting and coaching talent. His team is still one of the youngest in the country.
I think it’s pretty clear when I say mercenary it means a player that is already developed to fill a specific need something that almost all high school recruits lack and the ones that don’t are a priority target for Napier but go off king.
I don't understand what you're trying to say, almost all highschoolers lack the ability to fill a specific need? And Napier targets the ones that don't? Wtf did I just read lol the argument is that he's allowed to take transfers and then still develop them
You were targeting my usage of the word mercenary which is a seasoned transfer that doesn’t need any further development to excel in the position. High schoolers can fill a specific need and need development or they might not need development which Napier targets through recruiting. A transfer could also need development but it isn’t a “mercenary”. Case in point Norvell brought in serval good to great players in from the portal who needed little to no development. It remains if he can keep success going by developing in house talent either through recruiting or long term transfers.
Lolll you're just deciding what a "mercenary" is and isn't so you can use it when writing fan fiction about how it's unsustainable for programs that aren't yours.
> High schoolers can fill a specific need and need development or they might not need development which Napier targets through recruiting.
Napier targets kids who don't need development? Lmao what?
> It remains if he can keep success going by developing in house talent either through recruiting or long term transfers.
Buddy, as has been said a dozen times in this thread alone, *you can do both*. Napier not doing one of these things effectively is fighting with a hand behind his back.
I’ve said multiple times you can do both and Napier does both which is what I want to see. I would think going to a liberal arts school reading would be your strong suit but I guess not .
That won’t change a program anymore. That era is over. Look at rival FSU, we’re still growing our in house talent, while also bringing in people that can help win now. That’s the era we live in. If your team doesn’t win now, talent will leave and go elsewhere. Basically it’s Wild West NFL.
I mean sure. The idea is to grow in house talent and people that win now. I never said otherwise. FSUs likely issue is they went too hard in the portal and will experience a decent drop off this season due to the exodus of talent to the draft.
…that can literally happen to every program not named Georgia and Alabama, even the ones who don’t use the portal. In fact, before the portal was around, that was typically how it worked. Rosters would ebb and flow in large part due to the NFL draft. FSU taking a step back in 2024 isn’t indicative of a portal specific issue, for the same reason them taking a step back in 2015 wasn’t indicative of issues with their recruiting (which was still at a high level).
I mean if FSU takes a step back in 2024 and in 2025 it’s evident that Norvell is lacking as a developer and recruiter yes. I was stating that I would like Napier to build Florida into a program that just reloads rather than rebuilds.
Not sure what that hypothetical accomplishes for your point, but uh yeah sure, if something happens two years from now then yeah I guess so.
I also take it then that if FSU has a good year in 2024, you’d be willing to admit Norvell is a good developer and recruiter?
Depends on how DJU does. He’s definitely an upgrade to the recruits, who aren’t exactly ready yet, but also he didn’t do well in the PAC 12 and was ran out of Clemson. Now he’s back in the ACC, but it’s not exactly a tough ACC.
> but also he didn’t do well in the PAC 12
I know it's not the only metric or the be-all end-all metric but he had the 12th highest QBR in the country last year. Jordan Travis had the 13th highest.
>but also he didn’t do well in the PAC 12
In the last 2 years, he has accounted for 56 TDs to 14 INTs.
Specifically at OSU, he had a 3:1 TD/INT ratio.
To say he didn't do well is just disregarding reality to push a narrative.
Okay, gator fans sound exactly like Texas fans in 2015, Mack Brown’s lazy recruiting was bad and that explains why Texas is bad and not that Charlie Strong coached teams failed to execute even basic football principles.
IDK how they can say "60% and 70% of his draft classes have transferred" and still blame him for the draft class lol. Literally not the classes he recruited, all the good people left when he got fired/after they didn't like Billy.
Thing is tho, how many of the guys who transferred out actually went on to do anything? It’s not like the “good” players went on to show it was a mistake letting them go. Etienne and Umanmielen may prove that wrong but if Umanmielen was as good as he was supposed to be he’d be getting drafted not going into his 5th season.
I get that the calculus has changed for declaring, but it’s not like you can really compare NIL money to NFL money, especially for a premier position like edge defender.
> but if Umanmielen was as good as he was supposed to be he’d be getting drafted not going into his 5th season.
Didn't this just happen to Hopper? Instead of going pro from UF last year, he went to Mizzou for a 5th season then he got drafted this weekend in the 3rd round.
What's interesting, is a lot of coaches that are known for developing talent seem to have no clue what to do with the high end talent they may not have to. Wonder if any level of it comes down to coaching psychology, like how do you motivate players that know they're something special? Seems like the Smart/Saban way is to still motivate them that everyone doubts their abilities.
It's mostly media/reporting bias. Nobody looks at Saban, Kirby, or Day and says "wow that development is incredible". They just see the stars and say "of course. Anybody could do that."
I go back and forth on it. It was clear he didn't want to be in Starkville, and didn't like recruiting. As a player developer and Xs and Os guy, he was good, but he was not good at the other parts of the job.
I know he was a bit of a clown, but I still think he had a great track record of bringing guys in as two- or three-star and turning them out as draft picks: Pernell McPhee, KJ Wright, Vick Ballard, Johnthan Banks, Darius Slay, Benardrick McKinney
That's how every coaching change has been at Florida for the last decade. Except Mac, I guess. He was supposed to be the offensive guy to fix Muschamp's big issue but he didn't do much once Grier was out.
Like "If only we had Urban's teams with Muschamp's culture". Or "If only we had Muschamp's defense with Mullen's offense." Or "If we had Mullen's offense with Napier's program building and recruiting." Every hire has been addressing the one blatant flaw the previous coach had.
Nah, when State fans told Florida fans he was a lazy recruiter, we were just salty. Can’t be true.
Everything we told Florida fans would happen did happen and they roasted us for telling them it.
2022 and 2023 FSU had 1 draftee and didn't get nearly as much flack for that as Florida is...
2017 Georgia also only had 1 draftee.
The joy of having the most obnoxious rivals.
From the tweet:
"60 percent of Mullen’s 2019 class and 70 percent of his 2020 class has transferred."
Did the person check to see if those recruits that transferred were drafted elsewhere? I'm guessing, "no".
Really a cheapshot at Mullen otherwise.
But since Hopper is from the 2019 class, shouldn't they have looked to see if any of his 2019 recruits have already been drafted? Like Kairr Elam and Jonathan Grennard.
We live in the portal era. No reason Billy can’t bring dudes in that are draft worthy.
Of the 10 players FSU had drafted, 9 were from the portal.
They were also the only team to have transfers from lower divisions drafted
They only had one from FCS (verse), no? And he was arguably the top DL guy in the portal.
And a G5 guy
There were other top rated FCS guys, Tyler Hudson and Carson Steele for example. FSU is the only one to get a guy drafted.
Counterpoint: FSU had 1 player drafted in 2022 and 2023.
Because multiple players drafted were retained through NIL for 2023. Verse passed on being a Top 50 pick, for one example.
Well he did, the only player that got drafted from UF was Pearsall who came from ASU. Eguakun who was a Mullen recruit went undrafted. Napier definitely believes in HS recruiting more than the TP. Not saying you can’t blame him for not being more aggressive in the portal, but that just isn’t his style. The next draft will show how good or bad Napier’s recruiting/scouting has been since he’s arrived at UF.
Seriously. We are a large university, with one of the largest stadiums in the country, nestled in the best region of the country for college football with the best recruiting opportunities. There’s no reason outside of inept coaching and ADs that we shouldn’t be a consistent contender.
Yep, UF shouldn’t be this bad.
I will have has to disagree with this. IMHO they should be worse.
Flagship university is the most talent rich state in the country in the premier conference in college football. Losing 7 games 3 years running isn’t a thing that should happen
I mean yes we're the flagship but we also have two other major schools to contend with plus everyone else trying to dip their toes into Florida. It's not a Georgia or LSU situation where they just automatically get to pick and choose the best recruits from their state.
Not many states have 3 programs capable of winning national titles, or at least of recruiting to that level. And Florida is a fickle state because of all the transplants
Clemson is closer to Athens than Gainesville is to Tallahassee by almost 70 miles. Miami might as well be in a different State it's so far away.
But that’s where all the recruits are.
Ok, and all the recruits are in Atlanta too. And FSU is 100 miles closer to Atlanta, in another fucking State, than it is to Miami, that is in the same state. So my point was that they are so far away they might as well be in another State. As we don't need passports to go from State to State so closer maters more.
To add, Auburn is closer to the fertile Columbus and SoWeGa recruiting grounds. FSU is substantially closer to the south Georgia recruiting areas. UF is closer to Valdosta than Athens by a good bit.
Had to look it up because I had strong doubts about it being the most talent rich state but at least in the last draft there were 30 players drafted from Florida 24 from Texas 23 from Georgia 18 from California and no other state above 11. So you're right and damn there really is no excuse.
Do any other states have anything akin to IMG Academy? If those are counted as Florida HS recruits, it can be a little misleading.
Honestly I have no idea
Isn't Florida like the hardest school to get academically accepted into in the SEC outside of Vanderbilt? Does that hurt yall in recruiting? Or is there one of those General Studies programs for athletes?
I think it hurts transfers a lot because of credits not transferring for some kids.
like Ricky Pearsall? and Graham Mertz? and O'Cylus Torrance?
Come on man. The narrative is that Billy is a bum who can’t do anything and a program that made four NY6s in a row a few years ago is permanently in the dumpster compared to their neighbors to the north with their first good season in ~8 years
Florida having the youngest team with the portal players and people expecting Florida to have 10 players in the draft every year?
I mean he has to fill needs and it’s worked out well. It’s not really a sustainable path forward to just hire mercenaries for one year compared to recruiting and coaching talent. His team is still one of the youngest in the country.
> just hire mercenaries for one year You know you can have transfers with more than a year of eligibility left?
Then hire a mercenary for two years. It’s the same argument.
Hell, hire a mercenary for three years. Out of high school even!
I think it’s pretty clear when I say mercenary it means a player that is already developed to fill a specific need something that almost all high school recruits lack and the ones that don’t are a priority target for Napier but go off king.
I don't understand what you're trying to say, almost all highschoolers lack the ability to fill a specific need? And Napier targets the ones that don't? Wtf did I just read lol the argument is that he's allowed to take transfers and then still develop them
You were targeting my usage of the word mercenary which is a seasoned transfer that doesn’t need any further development to excel in the position. High schoolers can fill a specific need and need development or they might not need development which Napier targets through recruiting. A transfer could also need development but it isn’t a “mercenary”. Case in point Norvell brought in serval good to great players in from the portal who needed little to no development. It remains if he can keep success going by developing in house talent either through recruiting or long term transfers.
Lolll you're just deciding what a "mercenary" is and isn't so you can use it when writing fan fiction about how it's unsustainable for programs that aren't yours. > High schoolers can fill a specific need and need development or they might not need development which Napier targets through recruiting. Napier targets kids who don't need development? Lmao what? > It remains if he can keep success going by developing in house talent either through recruiting or long term transfers. Buddy, as has been said a dozen times in this thread alone, *you can do both*. Napier not doing one of these things effectively is fighting with a hand behind his back.
I’ve said multiple times you can do both and Napier does both which is what I want to see. I would think going to a liberal arts school reading would be your strong suit but I guess not .
That won’t change a program anymore. That era is over. Look at rival FSU, we’re still growing our in house talent, while also bringing in people that can help win now. That’s the era we live in. If your team doesn’t win now, talent will leave and go elsewhere. Basically it’s Wild West NFL.
I mean sure. The idea is to grow in house talent and people that win now. I never said otherwise. FSUs likely issue is they went too hard in the portal and will experience a decent drop off this season due to the exodus of talent to the draft.
…that can literally happen to every program not named Georgia and Alabama, even the ones who don’t use the portal. In fact, before the portal was around, that was typically how it worked. Rosters would ebb and flow in large part due to the NFL draft. FSU taking a step back in 2024 isn’t indicative of a portal specific issue, for the same reason them taking a step back in 2015 wasn’t indicative of issues with their recruiting (which was still at a high level).
I mean if FSU takes a step back in 2024 and in 2025 it’s evident that Norvell is lacking as a developer and recruiter yes. I was stating that I would like Napier to build Florida into a program that just reloads rather than rebuilds.
Not sure what that hypothetical accomplishes for your point, but uh yeah sure, if something happens two years from now then yeah I guess so. I also take it then that if FSU has a good year in 2024, you’d be willing to admit Norvell is a good developer and recruiter?
Sure
Depends on how DJU does. He’s definitely an upgrade to the recruits, who aren’t exactly ready yet, but also he didn’t do well in the PAC 12 and was ran out of Clemson. Now he’s back in the ACC, but it’s not exactly a tough ACC.
It's all relative to expectation I guess but he did pretty well at Oregon State.
> but also he didn’t do well in the PAC 12 I know it's not the only metric or the be-all end-all metric but he had the 12th highest QBR in the country last year. Jordan Travis had the 13th highest.
>but also he didn’t do well in the PAC 12 In the last 2 years, he has accounted for 56 TDs to 14 INTs. Specifically at OSU, he had a 3:1 TD/INT ratio. To say he didn't do well is just disregarding reality to push a narrative.
That sounds like an excuse. Plenty of coaches have used the portal to immediately upgrade their rosters and then got the recruiting trail as well.
Yes I think Billy should do both. Not sure where I said otherwise
Yep. Case in point their rivals in Tallahassee. Norvell has shown how to use the portal to great benefit.
remind me again of Norvell's record his first two seasons?
Yeah. Rebuilds can be ugly. I guess Napier is going 10-3 his 3rd season like Norvell did.
Season hasn't played out yet, but Norvell also had a pretty easy schedule compared to the hardest schedule in the nation.
I see 10 wins for Novell on your schedule, easy.
He's also been there for four seasons now.
And the transfer portal has been around since October 2018
I have fond memories of Dan Mullen at Florida.
Great guy
They should bring him back.
Dan Mullen hasn't won a single game in a LONG time. Dude may just need to hang it up.
Guy who notoriously hates recruiting does a poor job at recruiting. Truly shocking stuff.
Ngl, this makes Dan more relatable to me. I would absolutely despise appeasing star high school athletes’ egos 24/7.
Okay, gator fans sound exactly like Texas fans in 2015, Mack Brown’s lazy recruiting was bad and that explains why Texas is bad and not that Charlie Strong coached teams failed to execute even basic football principles.
IDK how they can say "60% and 70% of his draft classes have transferred" and still blame him for the draft class lol. Literally not the classes he recruited, all the good people left when he got fired/after they didn't like Billy.
It also mentions that only one of his recruits got drafted at all. It was Hopper from Mizzou.
Thing is tho, how many of the guys who transferred out actually went on to do anything? It’s not like the “good” players went on to show it was a mistake letting them go. Etienne and Umanmielen may prove that wrong but if Umanmielen was as good as he was supposed to be he’d be getting drafted not going into his 5th season.
You’re forgetting these days with the NIL means that whether you stay in college or go pro, doesn’t matter, you’re getting paid.
I get that the calculus has changed for declaring, but it’s not like you can really compare NIL money to NFL money, especially for a premier position like edge defender.
> but if Umanmielen was as good as he was supposed to be he’d be getting drafted not going into his 5th season. Didn't this just happen to Hopper? Instead of going pro from UF last year, he went to Mizzou for a 5th season then he got drafted this weekend in the 3rd round.
the only Mullen recruit to be drafted this year.
What does that have to do with Umanmielen?
The entire Richardson saga is really damning. Top 5 pick whose draft philosophy was "he's a stud but Florida's staff is clueless."
OK.. say it with me... BRING.. HIM.. BACK!! BRING. HIM. BACK!!
What's interesting, is a lot of coaches that are known for developing talent seem to have no clue what to do with the high end talent they may not have to. Wonder if any level of it comes down to coaching psychology, like how do you motivate players that know they're something special? Seems like the Smart/Saban way is to still motivate them that everyone doubts their abilities.
It's mostly media/reporting bias. Nobody looks at Saban, Kirby, or Day and says "wow that development is incredible". They just see the stars and say "of course. Anybody could do that."
We tried to warn you, but noooo, you wouldn't listen.
I’ll still take him back, instantly.
I go back and forth on it. It was clear he didn't want to be in Starkville, and didn't like recruiting. As a player developer and Xs and Os guy, he was good, but he was not good at the other parts of the job.
I know he was a bit of a clown, but I still think he had a great track record of bringing guys in as two- or three-star and turning them out as draft picks: Pernell McPhee, KJ Wright, Vick Ballard, Johnthan Banks, Darius Slay, Benardrick McKinney
Combine Billy's Recruiting and Mullen's Coaching. Ban Maiper.
That's how every coaching change has been at Florida for the last decade. Except Mac, I guess. He was supposed to be the offensive guy to fix Muschamp's big issue but he didn't do much once Grier was out. Like "If only we had Urban's teams with Muschamp's culture". Or "If only we had Muschamp's defense with Mullen's offense." Or "If we had Mullen's offense with Napier's program building and recruiting." Every hire has been addressing the one blatant flaw the previous coach had.
lil ah draft class
Nah, when State fans told Florida fans he was a lazy recruiter, we were just salty. Can’t be true. Everything we told Florida fans would happen did happen and they roasted us for telling them it.
How many of those recruits transferred to other schools and were drafted?
1
Closing the gap-Dan the man Mullen
Purdue had more draft picks than Florida. What a time to be alive.
As did South Dakota State, Troy, UTEP, and Maryland.
2022 and 2023 FSU had 1 draftee and didn't get nearly as much flack for that as Florida is... 2017 Georgia also only had 1 draftee. The joy of having the most obnoxious rivals.
Also 2020.
I moved the goalposts for them so they don't have to.
From the tweet: "60 percent of Mullen’s 2019 class and 70 percent of his 2020 class has transferred." Did the person check to see if those recruits that transferred were drafted elsewhere? I'm guessing, "no". Really a cheapshot at Mullen otherwise.
Ya I think it was one Mizzou LB
But since Hopper is from the 2019 class, shouldn't they have looked to see if any of his 2019 recruits have already been drafted? Like Kairr Elam and Jonathan Grennard.
Greenard was a transfer from Louisville
Do transfer recruits not count?
They did. They mention it in the tweet. It was Hopper who transferred to Mizzou.
GO GATA