When UF recruits better players more than one will be drafted

The National Football League has held its annual cattle show,  a showpiece for all the usual suspects like Michigan, Texas, Alabama and Georgia whose programs combined to send 42 players to the league. The SEC, as always, led the way with 59 players selected, 16 more than the Pac-12, 17 more than the Big Ten.

Ricky Pearsall, selected with the 31st pick by the San Francisco 49ers not only kept Florida’s streak of years with at least one first rounder alive at five, but prevented the Gators from whiffing completely. Twelve SEC schools – Alabama 10, Georgia 8, Missouri 6, LSU 6, Auburn 5, Kentucky 4, South Carolina 4, Texas A&M 4, Arkansas 2 – had more players selected than Florida.

Why even Wake Forest, Troy, South Dakota State and UTEP had more players drafted than the Gators. There is something seriously wrong when that happens.

If you are looking for reasons – not excuses but reasons – why the Florida Gators have had three consecutive losing seasons, the last two during the coaching realm of Billy Napier – then look no further than the draft. College football, just like the pros, is mostly about talent acquisition. The teams with the best talent win the most games and the teams that win the most games send the most players on to the NFL.

As Ron Zook used to say, “It’s not about Xs and Os, it’s all about Jesses and Joes.”  

Sure, coaching has something to do with it. My friend, the late, great Al McGuire, told me once that coaching mattered at practice. Once the games began, he typically made only two or three decisions that truly impacted the games. Sure, he was talking about basketball, but whether it’s basketball or football, it is one and the same. Once the games begin, it’s the players who decide the outcome probably 90 percent of the time.

Florida has combined for a 17-21 record the last three seasons, 6-7 in Dan Mullen’s last year, 11-14 in the first two seasons under Billy Napier. In the last three seasons Georgia is 42-3. Alabama is 36-6. That is just in the Southeastern Conference. In the Big Ten, Michigan is 40-3 and Ohio State is 33-6. Georgia, Alabama, Michigan and Ohio State have been draft dominant because they have far more talent. Florida has been sinking like a rock to the bottom of the Southeastern Conference because it has been losing the talent acquisition battles in a very big way.

Florida State, which had 10 players drafted this weekend, is 23-4 in the past two seasons. In the two previous seasons, Mike Norvell and the Seminoles were 8-13. Did Mike Norvell suddenly figure out how to coach football in 2023 when the Seminoles went 10-3 (13-1 last year) or did he finally load up on talent?

You know the answer to that one. Once Mike Norvell accumulated enough talent, he started winning football games. To Florida State’s credit, Mike Norvell was allowed time to build a roster capable of winning at a high level.

That brings us back to the Florida Gators and Billy Napier. It’s all too easy to complain that the Gators have had three straight losing seasons and how the distance continues to increase between the UF and Georgia programs. The reason is fairly simple and quite obvious. Georgia has had better players. Lots of them. And, Kirby Smart has done a brilliant job of bringing in players that fit the systems he runs.

Florida has been playing catch up and it hasn’t been easy because Florida’s downhill slide was years in the making. Billy Napier is the sixth Florida football coach since Steve Spurrier left to coach in the NFL after the 2001 season. Kirby Smart is just the second Georgia coach during the same time frame. Mark Richt was an excellent recruiter. Kirby took Richt’s foundation and expanded the program by loading up with even more talent.

When kids look at where they plan to play college football they want to know these things in this order: 1. What’s in it for me (NIL and Georgia is way ahead there)? 2. Who is sending the most players to the league (Georgia)? 3. Which program is the picture of stability (Georgia) while the other gives the appearance of a revolving door for coaches (Florida)?

Georgia  has done a better job of accumulating talent, creating a pipeline to the NFL and maintaining stability in its program. It isn’t rocket science why Georgia has been loading up with one loaded recruiting class after another.

It also isn’t rocket science why Florida only sees Georgia’s tail lights in the distance.

Can Florida and Billy Napier reduce the distance between the two programs? Right now, Georgia seems to have an insurmountable lead but it wasn’t all that long ago that Alabama was far ahead of Georgia. Georgia caught and surpassed Alabama.

Florida has the resources to catch up but it is only now that the Gators are starting to reverse the slow descent that began immediately after Urban Meyer resigned following the 2010 season. Florida hasn’t been the same since Meyer left. It has taken a systematic approach by Napier, rebuilding from a ground level organizational standpoint that the Good Ship Gator has stopped taking on water.

Napier may not seem like the most charismatic guy you’ve ever met, but he is an organizational freak who plans everything down to the most minute detail. That may not sell well with many in the Gator Nation, but most fans and boosters alike are unaware of just how far behind Georgia and Alabama the program was when Napier took over. Systematically, he has plugged one hole after another to stop the Florida ship from sinking.

The proof will be on the field and in future NFL drafts. If the Gators are winning football games it will be because Billy Napier has recruited better players to the University of Florida. If Florida has better players and is winning football games, then more Gators will be drafted.

There isn’t a week that goes by that Gators everywhere hear someone say, “Winning cures everything.” However true that may be, it starts with accumulating better players.