Congrats to coach for this amazing class so far. My concern is the lack of OL commitments. The challenge is the state of Florida lacks five-star OL talent. Have to have quality OL protecting DJ.
Big boys are the most important by far. If you are the best blocking and tackling team in tge country, you won’t lose many games.
I think we still have a good chance at a couple of very large 4 star tackles. The guards are never particularly highly rated but should be plenty to pick from even if it's unclear who they are now.
Not really a plug & play application though. Takes time to start working as a unit - and time we don’t have a lot of if we want to see improvement in 2023
Probably need to see what happens in the portal over the next couple of weeks, a couple of OL would alter the landscape
I wonder that too. But I suspect that the coaches will be tactful in the way that they make room for more portal recruits. If in fact they do want to make more room. I would think the coaches will know whom might not cut it IOW, I don't think all the players we have right now on the team will be on the team come September. But if we did have the space right now, how many would we try and find in the portal? And which position are we in need of? I wish I had the answers to those questions. I will say that if two can't miss O-lineman, and two can't miss D-lineman wanted in that our coaches would make room for them. Big-Uglies and Big-Nasties, that are SEC Conference ready to play, are hard to find.
I haven't looked at the latest numbers, but I think we take a few more portal guys (2 OL)....and that likely means a few more guys leaving as well
We have 16 OL on the roster, with zero seniors...so hard to project how many we take this high school cycle.
I think we may be fine on the defensive line, but we had two guys go down on the office of line that we’re definitely going to play big minutes. And we need a quarterback.
We have had OL transfer to TN, Arkansas, two to USC since Billy’s hire. Even the. Recent Baylor transfer guard briefly said he was departing. King Rich’s brother not a lock for UF now that he has departed for draft. OL coaches obviously want different type of player in their system. However, neither of our two OL coaches appears to relate well to kids or be a great recruiter. Relying on portal to offset losses to portal and not getting the top OL to come our way. Both FSU and UM had higher ranked OL recruits from HS last year. Realize it is all about development in college but our 2 OL coaches getting out worked on recruiting front by 1 OL coach at other top programs
It's a challenge since there's so little OL talent in-state. Then again, the coaches are putting a great class together with mostly out-of-state prospects so far.
Speaking of ugly, here's a list of UF's OL prospects. Not promising at all. https://247sports.com/college/florida/Season/2024-Football/Targets/?PositionGroup=O-LINE
