Gator Sports: Thoughts of the Day

June 20, 2023

A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning:

Billy Napier must be channeling his inner Yogi Berra, because what’s going on with Florida football recruiting seems like déjà vu all over again. Think back to December of 2005. The Gators had just finished the regular season at 8-3 and were prepping for an Outback Bowl date with Iowa. On December 13 in front of a packed auditorium at Nease High School and an ESPN national audience, Tim Tebow chose Urban Meyer and the Florida Gators over Alabama, a move that triggered a recruiting tsunami that would bring Percy Harvin, Brandon Spikes, Jermaine Cunningham, Marcus Gilbert, A.J. Jones, Riley Cooper and others to the Gators. That hot class led to Meyer recruiting at an unprecedented level to UF for the next four years. From 2006-09, the Gators went 48-7 with SEC and national championships in both 2006 and 2008.

In the last three days, Billy Napier has been recruiting at a level we haven’t seen in years. Monday, the momentum continued as Napier added to those four 4-stars who committed to the Gators over the weekend. Monday, the Gators added 5-star EDGE Jamonta Walker (6 -2, 225, Picayune, MS), 4-star offensive tackle Marcus Mascoll (6-5, 295, Snellville, GA South Gwinnett) and monstrous 3-star nose tackle Michai Boireau (6-5, 375, Hampton, GA Creekside). To land Walker, the Gators beat finalists Auburn and Penn State from an initial offer list that included Alabama, Georgia, LSU and Tennessee. Mascoll chose the Gators over LSU and North Carolina State while Boireau had offers from Georgia, Auburn and Florida State among others.

Florida is the hot team in the recruiting rankings. Currently, On3 has Florida No. 2 behind Georgia, while 247Sports and Rivals have UF at No. 3 behind Georgia and Michigan. Only 10 or so days ago, Florida was ranked as low as 23rd by 247Sports.

Napier, his coaching staff and army of recruiting staffers have made Florida the state’s most attractive football landing spot. The Gators have all the momentum now and Florida State seems to be spinning its wheels. FSU hasn’t landed a recruit since April 17 and its recruiting class has dipped outside the top 10 (13 at On3; 17 at Rivals; 18 at 247Sports). The Seminoles could take a hit if Florida flips 4-star wide receiver Tawaski Abrams (5-11, 180, Fort Myers, FL Dunbar). Miami’s class currently ranks No. 21 at both On3 and Rivals, No. 23 at 247Sports and that’s even with the Hurricanes landing three 4-star recruits within the last week.

It's entirely possible the Gators will be getting commits rather soon from 4-star wide receiver Jerrae Hawkins (5-9, 170, Bradenton, FL IMG Academy), 4-star linebacker Kristopher Jones (6-2, 225, Fairfax, VA), 4-star offensive tackle Ethan Calloway (6-7, 310, Mooresville, NC Lake Norman) and 3-star corner Teddy Foster (6-2, 175, Sarasota, FL Cardinal Mooney). Also, you shouldn’t count the Gators out from flipping 5-star Ohio State wide receiver commitment Jeremiah Smith (6-3, 198, Hollywood, FL Chaminade-Madonna). If he is so solid to Ohio State, then why has he taken an unofficial to FSU and has an official visit set for Miami tomorrow? Florida is still in the hunt and the way the Gators are trending, you have to like Florida’s odds for a flip.

One last thing to consider. Once Tebow committed in 2006, Florida became the hot team on the recruiting circuit. Tebow told recruits come to Florida and win championships with me and they did. The 2024 recruiting class has star power at quarterback in 5-star DJ Lagway (6-3, 225, Willis, TX), who dusted off Tebow’s 2006 recruiting pitch and is in the process of convincing players that Florida is the place to be in the future. DJ, obviously, is a kid others can believe in and want to follow.

It was Ron Zook who coined the phrase, “It’s not about the Xs and Os but all about the Jessies and Joes.” Napier inherited a roster that top to bottom had the look of an SEC bottom feeder. He brought in a very good 2023 class and now has a class that is shaping up as the best since the Gators have landed since 2013.

It’s elimination day in Omaha

Florida (52-15) and Wake Forest (54-10) have a day off to find out who they play in the College World Series semifinals. Oral Roberts (52-13) will face off with TCU (44-23) today at 2 p.m. with the loser going home and the winner advancing to a Wednesday (2 p.m.) game with Florida. Wake Forest, a 3-2 winner over LSU (49-16) Monday night, will get the winner of today’s 7 p.m. elimination matchup between LSU and Tennessee (44-21) Wednesday evening.

The Gators will be sending lefty Jac Caglianone (7-3, 3.78 ERA) against whichever team emerges from the TCU-ORU game. Caglianone scattered four hits while striking out seven in six scoreless innings against Florida A&M in the Gainesville Regional, his last outing on the mound.

At 2-0 through their first two games, the Gators are in very good shape with their pitching. If the Gators get a win Wednesday, they will have two full days to rest before the championship series begins Saturday. That would set up Brandon Sproat (8-3, 4.66 ERA, 127 strikeouts in 102-1/3 innings) for the Saturday start and Hurston Waldrep (10-3, 3.99 ERA, 154 strikeouts in 99-1/3 innings) for Sunday. If the Gators needed a third game on Monday to play for the championship, O’Sullivan probably wouldn’t risk Caglianone throwing on five days rest, but he might be willing to send him out for an inning or two late in the game. O’Sullivan would probably choose between Ryan Slater (10-1, 3.79 ERA) or Cade Fisher (6-0, 3.32 ERA) as the starter and then take an all hands on deck approach the rest of the way.

Mountain West says no extension for San Diego State

When San Diego State sent a letter of resignation to the Mountain West Conference while at the same time requesting a one-month extension so it could work out where it might land in the future I had to laugh. This is like telling your partner, “Look, I never close my eyes when I kiss your lips anymore … I’ve lost that loving feeling! So, here’s my intention to get a divorce, but don’t do anything for a month or so because I want to go out on a couple of dates to see if I can find someone who sends chills up and down my body and makes me lose control.”

Divorces are always nasty and complicated, especially when one of the parties involved is insistent on being stupid, which is the case with San Diego State. Rather than wait to see if the Pac-12 (a) gets a media rights deal; (b) sees if the Pac-12 deal is close to what the Big 12 schools will be making; and (c) makes sure there will even be a Pac-12 conference in two years, San Diego State sent out the divorce demand as well as the request for an extension. The Mountain West said no, so San Diego State finds itself up to its ears in a Lake Okeechobee-size cess pool and the alumni motor boat is about to blast by at 60 miles per hour. The MWC will be happy to grant the divorce to San Diego State and take the buyout money – $16.5 million if it happens prior to June 30, $34 million as of July 1. Meanwhile, by playing its hand too early, San Diego State may have blown its chances of landing in the Big 12 in case the Pac-12 deal doesn’t come through or the Pac-12 falls completely apart. Stay tuned. This will get messy.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: In a sit-down interview with Joel Klatt of Fox Sports, Nick Saban asked the kind of question that a lot of folks say is sour grapes, but it should cause at least some thought into how the field is picked for the College Football Playoff, particularly with the CFP expanded from four to 12 teams in 2024.

Here is what Saban said: “So all we do is take the teams that won the most games at the end of the year, put them in the playoffs. But do you really get the best teams? When they told me that we (Alabama) would be favored against three of the four teams that got in the playoff, I’m like why aren’t we in the playoff? Does that mean they have a better team or does that mean that those people (CFP Selection Committee) don’t know what they’re talking about? I really don’t know that but I’m not being critical of anybody. But if you’re going to have parity, you have to have a better way of figuring out who has the best teams, not just because you lost two games on the last play of the game.”

Oddsmakers would have favored Alabama to beat Michigan, Ohio State and TCU, which all made the playoff last year along with Georgia, which won the national championship in a 65-7 rout of TCU. Alabama finished the regular season 10-2 with last play losses on the road at Tennessee (52-49) and LSU (32-31). Michigan was undefeated through 13 games before losing to TCU 51-45 in a CFP semifinal. Ohio State’s only losses were to Michigan 45-23 in the regular season finale and to Georgia (42-41) in the CFP semifinal. TCU had a Big 12 championship game loss to Kansas State, 31-28, before the loss to Georgia in the national championship game.

Alabama almost certainly was better than Michigan, Ohio State and TCU, and who knows if the Crimson Tide could have beaten Georgia in a rematch of the 2021 national championship game, but it’s a debate worth having. Because it was a 4-team playoff, the committee can justify eliminating a team that had two regular season losses from contention, but that doesn’t mean TCU, Michigan or Ohio State were better teams.

We’ll have one more year of a 4-team playoff at the end of the 2023 season and then the playoff expands to 12 teams. The new playoff will guarantee the six highest-ranked conference champions which means the best Group of Five champion will have its chance to play the Cinderella role. After that, it will be the six highest ranked at-large teams but once again, we could wind up with a situation similar to what we had in 2022, particularly since the Southeastern Conference will expand to 16 teams in 2024. League schedules all but guarantee that no one will make it through an SEC gauntlet undefeated.

Will 9-3 or 10-2 SEC teams miss at-large selections for the 2024 playoff because teams from the Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 or Pac-12 have better records while playing inferior opponents? That’s a question worth asking. Perhaps a better question is can someone come up with a system that puts the best teams in the playoff not just the ones that got through weaker conference schedules undefeated or with one loss?

Folks who don’t like Nick Saban or who are tired of Alabama’s run of dominance that began with the 2009 national championship would probably say Saban feels entitled to getting in the playoff every year, but he’s right. Simply going undefeated or having the best record doesn’t mean you’re the best team in the country. Think back to 1984. BYU went unbeaten against a schedule that had a combined 61-85-3 record. When the season ended the Cougars were the nation’s only unbeaten team so they were awarded the national championship even though the only ranked team they played all year (Pittsburgh) finished with a 3-7-1 record. The best team in the country that year was Florida and the second best was Washington. There was no playoff back then. If there had been, BYU would have been crushed.