Billy Napier is an Elite recruiter

I am thrilled with the number of quality guys we have committed from FLA (and footprint). It is going to go a loooong way toward successful FLA recruiting in the future and will really bond recruits together. We'll cherry pick from outside the footprint in the future.

 

BN is a great recruiter.... for a lot of reasons. To me the most impressive thing is he inherited a program that , in no small part, had a reputation for not returning recruits' calls and not following up during the season. That's the kind of negative news that gets around quickly. It is easier to write w school off than to to write it in. It makes a tough decision a lot easier.
To many, if not all these kids, you have got to show them the love every day and all the time--even when they commit elsewhere. We have seen that materialize and we are going to get more committed players before it is all said and done. That is a character thing and people are attracted to that. Billy doesn't give up. He doesn't take a recruiting vacation and he doesn't wait for you to call him to not return the call.
That, my friends , is a process that doesn't come to fruition in May or June. Honestly, it was asinine for anyone to reach any conclusions about his recruiting before the man ate his first taco in Gainesville. If you build a house in a day, it will fall tomorrow. He is building something that will outlast one of the "hurricanes" G'ville has been threatened with lately, including the one in Miami.

 

He's been hurt and hasn't dressed out for several weeks

 

So glad this staff is what they are. I think when we start winning more battles consistently that exclude the in-state rivals, georga, bama, lsu, ohio state we can think of the staff as elite. But my read so far is that at minimum they are on their way. My impression is that when players eliminate a school for a competitor they rarely come back. That Rashada didn't seek an alternative school but came back to UF seems relevant. Overall, this staff is at minimum much greater than the previous staff. Feels good to be wanted by these young super athletes, as twisted as that may be.

 

Do you recall his contributions and capabilities prior to being hurt? ... are we missing him somewhat on the field?

 

I think he is athletic but struggles with assignments. Didn't play a ton, but was having his best game/most snaps when he got hurt

 

We are seeing guys who have shown to be studs on special teams get some looks in game time now. I don't doubt we will see more of him and guys like Jordan Young and Pyburn as time goes on. Black still has time to develop.

 

Yeah I wouldn't be shocked by a transfer. Can't get on the field and there is playing time out there on defense.

 

It all starts with your HC when it comes to recruiting. Not every single position coach on the staff will be a dog on the trail, but if your HC is, undoubtably you will try to emulate that as well. C Rob was the only one on the last staff that I felt went hard on the trail.

Look at the difference on the DL in one full cycle at the difference in recruiting DL from David Turner to coach Spence. Same with the WR recruiting, secondary recruiting, and RB recruiting.

What I do want to point out is that the last staff wasn't POOR at recruiting; it's just that they recruited at a level that would be deemed satisfying at a place like say hell South Carolina but it wasn't going to cut it at UF if the CFP was the goal.

 

If nothing else, Diwun had the coolest onsides kick recovery in the history of organized football.

 

I agree. And I really think we will win many of those battles. Geez, our prior staff basically told recruits something about their mamas that wasn't too nice. To even get our foot in the door after that takes an elite type strategy. To go further and put together what could end up being a top 5-7 class would scare the hell out of me if I were a coach at UG, OSU or Bama. We started with two hands tied behind our back and blindfolded.

 

or, say for instance, at Mississippi State?

 

There was an article out a few weeks ago that broke down Napiers recruiting and when it went over the numbers, hes just slightly out recruiting Mullen and Muschamp at this point.

 

That was Will Miles after the Cormani commitment. That article compared bump classes between all the coaches after Zook and said that Napier was recruiting more like Mullen and McElwain.

I thought it was unfair since it was still October and we had 3.5 months to go. Also based on what we see play out on the field, I trust Napier’s player evals a lot more than the previous two staffs.

 

That article sounds like it might be BS

 

Will Miles is the living embodiment of "spreadsheet psychosis." I started taking anything he has to say with a grain salt some time ago.

 

Mullen seems to have been a good evaluator of talent but not a good evaluator of who should be getting the lions share when they got on the team.

 

His classes were not very balanced as we had a bunch of 6’4” WRs on offense and tweeners on defense.

 

NIL and the portal have changed things up greatly. It almost doesn’t make sense to compare.

“Compared” to last year, We’re doing a lot better in the Top 50 from Florida. Now we need to step it up in the top 10.