2025 NON Gator Recruiting thread

Looks to me like we are spending significant money, but probably second tier compared to a handful of teams.

 

I’m not complaining. I’m saying there’s always someone willing to spend a dollar more.

 

I think winning has something to do with it too. You don't see teams going into Bama, Ohio and Georgia and taking a recruits that they wanted. But who knows we probably didn't want that 5 star anyway.

 

Not really true. Collins, Toney, Shemar and Perine we pulled out of Bama. Georgia… quite a few more. Ohio? Who cares.

None of those states have had a talent pool as deep as Fla. Georgia has exploded in the last 10-15 years, but teams have been plucking Fla talent since the 70s.

 

Any 5 Stars? We keep losing ours.

 

Out of State teams were plucking 2nd and 3rd tier FL talent since the '70's. In the 2010's they started hoovering up every 5 star in the State leaving the State schools with the 2nd tier talent. What changed?

 

IMO, accessibility. With the explosion of ESPN, where you could watch most college games by the end of the 90s, then all of them 10 years later, the “regional” part of the game went away. Then social media exploded. Oregon, Ohio St, Oklahoma and USC don’t seem like the other side of the world like they once did.

You add in all the camps that have sprung up all over the place, 7 on 7 tournaments and the like …HS players just have more accessibility and experience with the outside world than they did 25 years ago. The Shoe or Death Valley don’t seem like some far off foreign world like it once did.

 

I think everything you wrote is valid, but what jumps off the chart to me is the significantly high percentage of the cream of the cream that head out of State vs. the % of lower ranked players. To me that speaks to one thing, and one thing alone: Cash. These out of State institutions certainly used what you spoke of to assist their cherry picking efforts, but the primary motivator was cold, hard currency and that started long before the current legal pay to play era.

 

I don’t disagree. After about 2010(ish) you couldn’t get by on brand alone, anymore. And we moved slower than everyone else to address that. If anything, I think the timing of our success under Urbs (2006-9), probably slowed us down. We thought we had a plug in play program
after he left, for the next coach(s). But the game had changed when the playoff era came along and several programs passed us by.

We FINALLY figured it out with this last hire and the commitment to funding and resources. Which is why I’m trying to be more patient than the last few.

 

Do you realize LSU has beaten UF 5 years in a row, 7 out of 10. The way UF lost was because of some odd ball stuff happened late in the game. Tired of those corn dogs. It's time for CBN to turn this series around. I know, it's off topic.

 

pill guess Oregon since they lost Pickett

 

Now that the playing field is much more even and out in the open, hopefully we can start to keep the Top talent in Florida.

It would make no sense for a kid to sign with a school in a crapy state like Louisiana, Alabama, Ohio,...etc, when they can play in much nicer state, wealthier, more populated with more opportunities in the long run, for a few bucks difference, if there even is one. He would be trading dollars for nickels.

I would negative recruit the hell out of that and make them think twice about their future, as most kids won't play in the NFL or for a very short time and then what? Look for a job in Alabama? Kill me now.

 

Winning is never off topic!

 

Remember there are schools in the BIG with almost no talent in them, but they can source NIL. That talent is going to flow to the highest bidder in a majority of cases You may not think getting an extra 50k is worth living there, but a kid (or his parents)who have never had money, might not agree with you.

 

He's projected to go to UT.