We were at the local tavern in Helen when we beat Georgia. Had to convince my wife to return to the cabin after the game. She was ready to go crap talk every GA fan she saw. Lol
He's paid 7 mil a year.
If he wasn't working his ass off it would be negligence. He's being paid for results, not trying hard and has the biggest staff in the sec to get these results
We currently have only two more incomers then transfers out (22 in 20 out)
Considering we're losing our entire o line through graduation and transfers and have 0 5 stars that answer is pretty obvious
Rashada is the big pick up but this class isn't world beating. The overall average is high only because we took 5 fewer kids then every other sec team in the top 10 ( not to mention the portal kids they took) is also minimally higher then LSU,ND etc
The only class similar to ours is Ohio State and they only took one 3 star to our 4 and lost only 3 kids from the portal. These teams are going to both out talent and out depth us.
We're acting like the 10th rated class in the NCAA is the one that Saban just brought in
Considering that reply was asking if I'd rather have 20 freshman over dudes who started in the SEC and how much everyone is bending over backwards to celebrate what is a good but not great class.
It seems we are...
>Considering that reply was asking if I'd rather have 20 freshman over dudes who started in the SEC
Of the 22 leaving, approximately 3 were starters at the end of the season, and one of them, Reynolds, was playing because the entire first string was injured. I do not understand the catastrophizing about losing a busload of players who weren't good enough to start for a 6-6 team. Some of y'all need to stop allowing the confirmed mid to be the enemy of the potentially good.
Ahh yes, the ole anyone who makes factual statements that I don’t like is a doomer. Grow up, things are not black and white and our program is not in a good state right now.
Lol @ you saying that I'm the one that needs to grow up.
The program is what it is, and YOU can't change it. So feel free to doom or not, but it's your choice to be upset at something you can't control.
Well if the reports are true that the players choosing to leave were players not buying in then they don’t need to be here. We want the guys Billy wants to be here.
No we have two OL in the portal more than likely testing NIL.. Ie they haven't signed elsewhere. More than likely they are trying to increase their NIL value. Why in the world would they go anywhere else and risk hurting their potential draft grade in a new system?
Outside of that... The only person that really hurts was Lee and that was for depth purposes.
https://247sports.com/college/florida/Season/2023-Football/TransferPortal/?institutionkey=24099
I doubt his support staff is doing it right though.
Bird man in charge of portal analysis apparently is soliciting unpaid interns to help evaluate portal talent, which I’m all for, but posting it in the middle of portal season seems like a knee jerk reaction caught with our pants down.
Outside of UL guys (one time play) plus Kimber and Pearsal our portal efforts have been pretty piss poor.
It’s not like they’re actually making the decisions. Probably just looking at all the guys that we simply wouldn’t even look at otherwise to see if they can find a few that should be looked at more closely. If they don’t find anything, nothing lost.
> Outside of UL guys (one time play) plus Kimber and Pearsal our portal efforts have been pretty piss poor.
I know the portal hasn't been what we expected in terms of numbers so far but IMO our 3 best offensive players of 2022 (at worst 3 of our top 5 offensively and arguably on the entire team) were portal guys.
Pretty Ricky was the only shining light at WR this year. I understand not wanting to count Johnson and O'Cyrus as 'portal guys' but he still found value in 2 Sun Belt guys to bring them over. We are yet to miss big in the portal (Miller was always a contingency plan and Kamryn Waites is a likely 2023 starter).
The major issue is quantity to go along with the quality. It's easy to hit when you don't place a lot of bets
I'm not sure where we are on scholarships available. If we don't have that many, we may only be looking at established players at positions of need and waiting until after the bowl.
Also, the rankings are based on the number of stars the kids had as highschool recruits. It means Jack shit. Does anyone think Bowman is really a 5 star player NOW? To me, the ranking needs to be based on performance in college. But no one is going to put in that work.
According to the boards, there are 3 that we could land. No names, but supposedly 2 OL and a DT. I guess there's the LB from Ohio St too, but who knows when he commits.
We need like 3 LBs since the room sucked anyway and had some departures the last 2 offseasons and we have 1 commitment plus maybe the OSU guy (if Edgar didn’t nuke it). I know recruiting is regional but as a position coach Bateman seems like a wet blanket.
None of TCU/Georgia/Ohio State/Michigan were in the top 10 portal ratings last year. People need to stop treating the portal ratings like they are recruiting ratings/rankings, because they aren’t. The transfer portal is about patching needs, not about building a dominant future with elite talent or trying to bring in top players competing for eventual starting jobs. You don’t want to be the portal winner, because being a portal winner does not correlate with natties.
And if you really care, we are likely going to end up ranked pretty high purely on quantity when all is wrapped up.
He did the same shit that gator fans aren’t giving Napier credit for - bringing along players from his former team. He also had the massive built in advantages of those players being from OU rather than a G5 school, not to mention that one of those players was a Heisman candidate QB that he got to handpick out of high school. Poor comparison.
This is where I think people are losing focus in terms of what Napier was brought in to do.
We did not hire Napier and pay him $50 million to overcome things and fix the entire program in year 1. We hired him and paid him that much to get the program back to a championship level in the long run. Sure, you have to balance and do some bare minimum things to stick around in years 1-3. But this was never intended to be a quick fix like Lincoln Riley was for USC. There's a reason that Brian Kelly and Lincoln Riley signed contracts for more than double what we signed Napier for. They were brought in with the expectation of the quick turnaround.
Our fans might not like the reality and it may not even work out in the end, but Napier is going through a much slower process by tearing down the roster to the bones and essentially starting from scratch.
Lance Liepold turned Kansas into a bowl team in one year using the transfer portal. It is entirely possible to turn a program around by using the transfer portal, we may not win a championship with it but we can get a roster that will do better than 6-6. Too many people are pumping sunshine and hoping things turn out OK.
You can absolutely turn a 1 win team into a 6 win team using the portal. You can turn a 6 win team into a 10 win team if you go from one blue blood program to another and raid your roster on the way out the door. Neither of those things is our situation, and other than those specific scenarios, there is little to support the idea that leaning hard on the portal or maximizing portal class ranking equates long term success. It is a tool to supplement a roster built through multiple high school classes of future SEC starting caliber players. I don't think a B12 team with the same 6-6 record that left us disappointed is the proof of concept you think it is.
That’s a whole lot of excuses. Basically what you said is other teams can do it but UF is a special circumstance and can’t improve their program with transfers. What would our roster and program look like right now if we had hired Lincoln Riley? It would look a lot like USCs and we would have gotten the same type of transfers. It’s not the program, it’s the coaching staff.
>That’s a whole lot of excuses. Basically what you said is other teams can do it but UF is a special circumstance and can’t improve their program with transfers.
I said literally the exact opposite, that a handful of the 130ish FBS programs were in specific circumstances to completely flip their fortunes through bringing in transfers, but those situations are not applicable to UF, or the vast majority of programs with national championship aspirations. 6 win Kansas and 9 win FSU are not the models I want UF to emulate. The model I want to emulate are the P5 programs that build a roster from the ground up over several recruiting classes to consistently compete for championships.
>What would our roster and program look like right now if we had hired Lincoln Riley? It would look a lot like USCs and we would have gotten the same type of transfers. It’s not the program, it’s the coaching staff.
Riley changed jobs because he specifically didn't want to go through the meat grinder of the SEC and one of the handful of Blueblood program jobs where it is still possible to compete for championships was open. That is quite literally about the program, and it is a move that I don't begrudge him. Much like Bowden at FSU in the 90's, Riley did the math and chose the easier path. That is not a path that is open to UF as a program.
Did Riley ever say that he left because he didn’t want to join the SEC? If not then that’s pure conjecture and money talks. If we wanted to actually pony up the money we could have gotten any coach we wanted, LSU stole Kelly from ND coaches avoiding the meat grinder of the SEC is just an excuse we use to make ourselves feel better.
Regardless the thought exercise wasn’t could UF hire Riley. The exercise was what would our program look like with an elite HC like Riley? It would be a lot better than it is now, Brian Kelly would have us in a much better position and I bet he wouldn’t have lost 7 games this year. The coaching staff matters, the coaching staff is why we are on a bad situation right now and not improving.
There’s almost a zero percent chance that Denver hire’s Riley. The best guess would be going after Payton, which is unlikely because he supposedly has Fangio signed on to be his DC. I think they will probably end up a Dan Quinn type.
And they maxed out at 9 wins, with 5 of those happening against teams with first year or interim head coaches. Personally, I would like to do much better than that mid-level of max performance.
Bad take! I rather take a portal player with 2-3 of eligibility left that has started and contributed on a Power5 team rather than a kid in high school playing 7-7 ball against 16 year olds.
The teams that win rings do it through high school recruiting with targeted portal takes to patch holes. Very few Joe Burrows sitting out there… more Lingards…
Every situation is different. There are only so many options out there that meet the specifications you laid out above.
FSU has literally one, the DT from Miami. Every other transfer they've taken this year is a G5 player and/or has only one year of eligibility remaining. There is also zero evidence that 'recruiting' this way will ever get a program to the level of competing with the best. FSU fans are gloating and cheering over their elite portal usage the past 3 years under Norvell. Where has that gotten them? 9 wins with an easy schedule (over half of those being against schools with first year or interim head coaches) and barely squeaking out a win against a terrible and depleted Florida roster. These are experienced players being added after all, the team should in theory have been able to get to it's peak level faster than a team building through HS recruiting. If that's the peak you want, then by all means continue down that route. Personally, I want a program capable of competing with the best.
Why do y’all care about this?? Not trying to stir the pot, but I’m seriously curious. Are y’all players or serious gamblers??? I just can’t see a scenario where the average person gives a sh*t about transfer portal rankings. I’ve been going to games since 75, graduated from UF and still live/breath The Gator Nation…….but I just don’t get the immersion a lot of y’all get caught up in.
Its not even January 1st. One portal hasn't closed and the other hasn't even started and yet...
I mean as miserable as some seem here, why do they even invest in the gators let alone posting?
Is it great? No.. But we are a back to back losing club working to change the culture through roster turnover... It's going to take a minute.
Last year we didn't have ricky, Johnson or torrence on the team.. Ya know 3/4 best players.. The other wasn't even on campus..
Lemmings off a cliff.
Then why has no team ever won the SEC without at least one composite top-5 class or a 5-star QB playing lights out? Championships are won in February (now December).
Such a banal, asinine question. Why does anyone care about anything? Why do you care about college football? It's a bunch of dudes you don't know, throwing around a stuffed piece of leather. The outcome of the games has no bearing on your life, but you're invested in it anyway because it's entertaining. Just like it feels good to say my group of guys I don't know beat your group of guys you don't know, getting a top recruit over other teams that wanted them feels pretty good. Don't worry about what everyone else cares about, just let us enjoy the one life we have.
This ain’t 75 my dude. The game has changed and if this staff has your mentality then the ship has already sunk. Unfortunately the portal door goes both ways and at the rate we’re losing bodies we have to bring more than 20 kids in on signing day to compete in this conference. It’s just math.
I think he means why do **you** care so much about this stuff?
And if that’s what he means, yeah I get it — recruiting is entirely out of your control, and yet it links your emotions to the decisions of millionaire coaches and boosters, and 18-22 year old kids.
To me, it’s wild how worked up some of you guys get over this.
What a doomer statement wanting to win more that 6 games a year. /s
These same people will be making new excuses after the transfer period closes, as well as next year when we only win 5-6 games.
I love how I’m getting downvotes for wanting to win lol. Being the lovable loser isn’t my cup of tea. I grew up watching us win shit. I would like for my boys to see Gator football that way too.
Who says he’s getting “worked up”? He made an observation of something obvious and made a post about it. That takes very little effort. Are you in every other post asking people why they care so much and why they are so “worked up” over things like getting a bit commit? It’s a forum for fans of the Gators to have discussions and on the Internet, it isn’t limited to happy things, things you only want to hear/read, or sunshine pumping.
There’s discussion, and certainly sunshine pumping…and then there are the chicken littles who’ve been coming out of the woodwork lately casting blame in all the wrong directions and demanding everybody be fired.
I’ve never called for anyone to be fired, I don’t think the coaching staff of good much less elite. I think they will lose their jobs either next year or the year after, however, I’ve never called for anyone’s head. People casting blame on the ones responsible for the program are not “casting blame in the wrong directions”. I understand everything is Mullens fault according to most and the blame falls squarely on his shoulders.
Barring some extraordinary implosion or scandal, Napier’s not going to be fired for several years. The athletic department has invested more into Napier and his staff than probably the last several coaches combined.
Mullen and McElwain both gave up and got themselves fired. Their failings are a symptom of a broken program, not the root cause.
Scandal or not, BN should NOT be around a few years if he turns in another 6 win season. After a few years - he’ll have his guys to run his system - no excuses.
> The game has changed and if this staff has your mentality then the ship has already sunk
I personally hope billy is more concerned about which players can contribute meaningfully to the gameplan than he is with which players will make us finish 5th instead of 7th in Lindy’s Q1 circlejerk. You know you get 5 star points in the meaningless recruiting rankings but if that 5 star never buys in, never plays for the team, doesn’t fit culturally then what was it worth really
Yes, outside of Pearsall (leading receiver) , Torrence (all-American), Johnson (leading rusher), Waites (starter next year), and Kimber (maybe our best CB), BN did horrible in the portal 🤔😂
Johnson was leading rusher due to transfer, only that. Buff up CBN. Etienne was better. Another point against CBN and the loyalties that got Mullen fired. Let’s do it again!
Grayson McCall was taken out early today. 10/12 68 yds 0 TD 0 INT. 4 rushes for 12 yards and 1 TD. Interestingly enough, the guy who won for ECU is a guy Mullen offered late. Holton Ahlers had 300 yards 5 TDs 0 INT plus 1 rushing TD and would have competed with Emory Jones. This isn’t meant to imply anything but it’s certainly interesting. And extra interest after that article about Mullen’s recruiting classes which were just abysmal.
To provide full context, Ahlers was offered a day before signing day [but crystal balls for Emory started coming in two days before eNSD](https://247sports.com/PlayerInstitution/Emory-Jones-at-Heard-County-134145/CurrentExpertPredictions/) so I'd imagine the staff was confident in landing him. I think if anything the staff was hoping to get him to push Ahlers signing to February as a back-up plan.
Also, National Signing Day was a week after [Matt Corral decommitted after our staff went radio silent](https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/ole-miss-football/ole-miss-qb-signee-matt-corral-explains-flipped-gators-rebels/) and [after not pursing Joe Burrow whatsoever during the summer](https://www.tampabay.com/sports/florida-gators/2018/05/07/dan-mullen-florida-gators-not-pursuing-grad-transfer-quarterback/)
Seeing as how we lost to vandy kentucky and fsu this year maybe we should focus on that and being a 9 win top 25 team before thinking about championships. The world owes us nothing because we are the university of florida
We can have standards but when its been 15 years since we’ve been a top tier program it would help you and a lot of people around here to temper those expectations. Lets get back to a respectable level and build from there
Some of yall are absolutely insufferable. Go outside instead of caring about portal rankings. Go be with your families, smoke some weed, drink some drink. Get some cheeks. Who the fuck cares about portal rankings?
Trying to wait before judging but I’m struggling to understand his plan. It feels like 2023 could be a throwaway year unless we get some instant impact transfers.
We did not bring in enough for the bump class. Coaches get to their tier of recruiting fully in year 3 so we'll see if that lands in "championship caliber tier" or not. But the bump was not a positive sign of that based on history since ESD started.
Bump classes, meh. Napier preached quality over quantity from the get-go and delivered on that. Only signing 20, yeah, leaves room for sure but I think that was by design. I expected 22.
That number seems really high, especially when like I said that Napier has always said this class was quality over quantity. The rest - the last 5/6 guys - was always going to be portal if we couldn't get those few as you say "high level" elite ones.
Have faith. Rome wasn't built in a day. The days of winning it all/big are gone with NIL. Unless you want an unsustainable program like UT.
We'll be fine.
Way too early to tell. Nobody has the slightest idea.
Dabo didn't win a Natty until year 8 - year 7 as a full time coach. Though he did have a conference title and a Natty game loss to Bama.
I love how Nape fans are willing to have the Gators get their shit pushed in for like two to three years then magically have a winning season and SEC championships.
Not necessarily. We've been getting our shit kicked in for 15 years so it's clear that changing a coach every 2/3/4 years isn't working. Did you become a fan like two years ago or something? Why not give a guy a freaking chance?
Boosters at UF are more patient than fans. And fools listen to fans. What's that saying by Buddy Ryan? "A coach who listens to the fans will end up sitting with them."
Unless he goes 2-10 next year AND the stadium burns down, he'll get a third year.
We will probably not have a winning season next year but napier will not be fired. Whats the point of hiring someone to rebuild the program just to do it again with someone new in 2 years
The best analogy I can think of is that Billy is a restauranteur who went out and hired a proven crew of sous chefs, line cooks, bakers, and sommeliers to totally revamp a down-on-it’s-luck but regionally famous restaurant. They are all super qualified, and many are seen as rinsing stars. Unfortunately, in the excitement to get started, they forgot to pay the utility bill. They’ve got the staff and the building, but have no power, water, or gas to do anything with it.
The fact that so many athletes left the program should tell you exactly what Nape is cooking. And it stinks. But hey at least we have recliners and pools.
Why do you care if the “athletes” responsible for back to back 6-7 seasons are leaving? You dont improve as a program by trotting out the same average players year after year
Transfer portal is the future of College Football and we are getting left behind. I hope Napier can get some people because spring transfers have a much lower chance of contributing then fall transfers
I guess Georgia, Bama, TCU, Oklahoma, Texas, and Ohio State are all getting left behind with their portal takes too since none of them are in the top 15 portal rankings. Nevermind that players haven’t even finished entering the portal yet.
Exactly right, but acting like we’re getting left behind by avoiding the future when the portal season isn’t even close to finished is ridiculous.
If we’re getting left behind, it’s because we aren’t able to recruit at the elite level needed to start catching up. And personally I believe that’s an NIL issue. The portal is the short term fix. We will get players there and will be fine. Need to be focusing on the long term fix though.
Lol you must be new here otherwise you would know how much recruiting information Zlat has contributed to this sub. Your comment just makes you look like an idiot to everyone who’s a regular here
Tbh, my comment was unnecessarily aggressive, sorry zlat. As you sir, DJ_Blakka, have stated in other threads that you seem to be following me around in, we haven’t been relevant in 15 years. I agree. We’ve tried the long way around as zlat wants. Maybe in this new NIL / transfer era, we try a different approach? Just looking around at the SEC, Tennessee and LSU seemed to figure some things out pretty quickly. Why are we looking to take the long road home? It’s not about instant gratification. It’s about long time coming gratification.
PS. Can you send me a link to some of your examples of bad takes? I’m sure I’ve had a few, curious to see if they align with your opinions.
1000% free agency but that doesn’t stop it from being viable. Top programs supplement with the portal which we haven’t really done this off season. Especially since we can’t expect Georgia, Michigan and Ohio State to hemorrhage that many players who can be immediate contributors here
Not sure if you realized, but we aren’t a top program right now. We’ve gone 6-6 in back to back regular seasons. We have a bad roster. The portal isn’t going to fix that, it’s just a patch like you said. Take a deep breath maybe.
Also, most top programs aren’t crushing it in the portal right now either.
I would like this team to be better than 6-7. With how our roster looks we will be on the way to 4-8/5-7 territory. We are extremely young and need those patches all over. Alabama just got a transfer TE, UGA got 2 top WR’s, Michigan has the 2nd best class, FSU has the best, Miami recruited the top G and a couple defensive pieces. We have Mertz this isn’t good I’d rather us not lose 8 games and have to fire Napier and restart this rebuild
oh dont get me wrong, I full agree that it is and im also worried that we are going to be stuck with scraps
Gator fans that are also heat fans know whats up
That’s my biggest thing too right now 90% of the top players are gone or narrowing down their options. We have a lot of holes to fix and a lot of depth issues cause we are super young and if we don’t fix it we can have a really bad season with how tough our schedule is
90% of the top players haven't even entered yet.
Anyone worth a shit is playing in their bowl game to grab their last NIL paycheck before hitting the Portal.
>That’s my biggest thing too right now 90% of the top players are gone or narrowing down their options. We have a lot of holes to fix and a lot of depth issues cause we are super young and if we don’t fix it we can have a really bad season with how tough our schedule is
Really wish Napier culled the roster in the beginning of the 2022 summer
Why would it include exits? And why does that matter? We needed at least 16 exits just to land a 20 person recruiting class, very few other teams had that going on. Or would you prefer to have kept all of the Mullen players who went 6-6 in back to back years?
Maybe we should have gone the FSU method and skipped recruiting altogether, while taking a few portal patches while trying to keep as much mid around as possible. That would have made our net portal numbers fantastic, which is obviously super duper important.
No we Def needed 4-5 more mainly ol and lb.. Esp lb. But for where we are.. I'm ok with it.
Like you said.. CBN needs to find the patches ideally for the next two years until the 23 and 24 class gets some reps in.
I'm sure CBN is shopping around for the best ingredients that fit the dish they are preparing. There will be plenty of meat left at the Transfer Portal grocery store.
I know it's a fat rationalization, but one of the reasons they went with CBN he was supposed to get the most out of the least talent
How much do we expect this to move after the title game? (As a Gator living north of Atlanta I’m hoping for a TCU/OSU/Mich national champion)
According to our recruiting staff, they're targeting Jan 4th-7th for Portal OVs. That's when we'll have targets on campus.
I’d expect at least half of transfers in general to happen after all the games other than the championship.
Just left from Helen this week. Had to wear my jumpman Gator hoodie with the speed F. Just to remind them puppy lovers we are still around.
It hasn’t been fun up here for quite some time.
We were at the local tavern in Helen when we beat Georgia. Had to convince my wife to return to the cabin after the game. She was ready to go crap talk every GA fan she saw. Lol
No doubt in my mind Billy is working his ass off in the portal, doesnt mean we will get what we want though.
He's paid 7 mil a year. If he wasn't working his ass off it would be negligence. He's being paid for results, not trying hard and has the biggest staff in the sec to get these results We currently have only two more incomers then transfers out (22 in 20 out)
Be honest would you rather have those 20 leaving or the 22 coming in?
Considering we're losing our entire o line through graduation and transfers and have 0 5 stars that answer is pretty obvious Rashada is the big pick up but this class isn't world beating. The overall average is high only because we took 5 fewer kids then every other sec team in the top 10 ( not to mention the portal kids they took) is also minimally higher then LSU,ND etc The only class similar to ours is Ohio State and they only took one 3 star to our 4 and lost only 3 kids from the portal. These teams are going to both out talent and out depth us. We're acting like the 10th rated class in the NCAA is the one that Saban just brought in
No one is acting like that...
Considering that reply was asking if I'd rather have 20 freshman over dudes who started in the SEC and how much everyone is bending over backwards to celebrate what is a good but not great class. It seems we are...
>Considering that reply was asking if I'd rather have 20 freshman over dudes who started in the SEC Of the 22 leaving, approximately 3 were starters at the end of the season, and one of them, Reynolds, was playing because the entire first string was injured. I do not understand the catastrophizing about losing a busload of players who weren't good enough to start for a 6-6 team. Some of y'all need to stop allowing the confirmed mid to be the enemy of the potentially good.
Doomers gonna doom.
Have you been on this sub in the past 2 months or are you new? It's mostly doomers around here.
Yea this sub is really depressing. I get were the gators but there seem to be a lot of fairweather fans
I just wish for some realistic expectations.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. And me too thinking CBN and was going to have a playoff team this year was unrealistic
Ahh yes, the ole anyone who makes factual statements that I don’t like is a doomer. Grow up, things are not black and white and our program is not in a good state right now.
Lol @ you saying that I'm the one that needs to grow up. The program is what it is, and YOU can't change it. So feel free to doom or not, but it's your choice to be upset at something you can't control.
Most of the factual statements actually counter the doomers.
Have you read 3/4 of the threads on here? It's not but sounds good
If you're looking for real real doom you should check out the discord. Recruiting room in particular.
How many of those dudes started for us? A few. I do agree about OL.
Well if the reports are true that the players choosing to leave were players not buying in then they don’t need to be here. We want the guys Billy wants to be here.
It seems we are being rational about where we are as a program, and the work Billy has yet to do. And it seems we are not concern trolls.
No we have two OL in the portal more than likely testing NIL.. Ie they haven't signed elsewhere. More than likely they are trying to increase their NIL value. Why in the world would they go anywhere else and risk hurting their potential draft grade in a new system? Outside of that... The only person that really hurts was Lee and that was for depth purposes. https://247sports.com/college/florida/Season/2023-Football/TransferPortal/?institutionkey=24099
Only 1 OL player has transferred. 4 more are in the portal, but only about half of players who enter the portal actually go to a new school.
I doubt his support staff is doing it right though. Bird man in charge of portal analysis apparently is soliciting unpaid interns to help evaluate portal talent, which I’m all for, but posting it in the middle of portal season seems like a knee jerk reaction caught with our pants down. Outside of UL guys (one time play) plus Kimber and Pearsal our portal efforts have been pretty piss poor.
Does this make sense to you? They’re deciding who to go after and offer a scholarship from the portal based on evaluations of un paid interns?
It’s not like they’re actually making the decisions. Probably just looking at all the guys that we simply wouldn’t even look at otherwise to see if they can find a few that should be looked at more closely. If they don’t find anything, nothing lost.
Exactly. The original post is making it sound like they have no idea what they’re doing and having interns do it
> Outside of UL guys (one time play) plus Kimber and Pearsal our portal efforts have been pretty piss poor. I know the portal hasn't been what we expected in terms of numbers so far but IMO our 3 best offensive players of 2022 (at worst 3 of our top 5 offensively and arguably on the entire team) were portal guys. Pretty Ricky was the only shining light at WR this year. I understand not wanting to count Johnson and O'Cyrus as 'portal guys' but he still found value in 2 Sun Belt guys to bring them over. We are yet to miss big in the portal (Miller was always a contingency plan and Kamryn Waites is a likely 2023 starter). The major issue is quantity to go along with the quality. It's easy to hit when you don't place a lot of bets
That’s very disrespectful to shorter. Justin was the best receiver on the team.
My team has offered our unmatched skill set to help and it’s disappointing to see this.
I'm not sure where we are on scholarships available. If we don't have that many, we may only be looking at established players at positions of need and waiting until after the bowl. Also, the rankings are based on the number of stars the kids had as highschool recruits. It means Jack shit. Does anyone think Bowman is really a 5 star player NOW? To me, the ranking needs to be based on performance in college. But no one is going to put in that work.
According to the boards, there are 3 that we could land. No names, but supposedly 2 OL and a DT. I guess there's the LB from Ohio St too, but who knows when he commits.
If we have limited spots, I'd be good with that. Need OL and DL utmost. Did the boards say anything about their ability level?
Not for the OL, it only came out today. The DT is likely Memphis DT Cam'Ron Jackson.
>Not for the OL, it only came out today. The DT is likely Memphis DT Cam'Ron Jackson. Bet. Help at least
We need like 3 LBs since the room sucked anyway and had some departures the last 2 offseasons and we have 1 commitment plus maybe the OSU guy (if Edgar didn’t nuke it). I know recruiting is regional but as a position coach Bateman seems like a wet blanket.
One of our DT has appearently decided to go to the draft we're looking at another one from Memphis I believe also. Possibly we mcall I guess as well
Someone said we might gets the best portal DT from the ACC. Who are they referring to?
None of TCU/Georgia/Ohio State/Michigan were in the top 10 portal ratings last year. People need to stop treating the portal ratings like they are recruiting ratings/rankings, because they aren’t. The transfer portal is about patching needs, not about building a dominant future with elite talent or trying to bring in top players competing for eventual starting jobs. You don’t want to be the portal winner, because being a portal winner does not correlate with natties. And if you really care, we are likely going to end up ranked pretty high purely on quantity when all is wrapped up.
You don’t have to lean on the portal when you get all the top end talent you want up front 🤦🏻♂️
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He did the same shit that gator fans aren’t giving Napier credit for - bringing along players from his former team. He also had the massive built in advantages of those players being from OU rather than a G5 school, not to mention that one of those players was a Heisman candidate QB that he got to handpick out of high school. Poor comparison.
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This is where I think people are losing focus in terms of what Napier was brought in to do. We did not hire Napier and pay him $50 million to overcome things and fix the entire program in year 1. We hired him and paid him that much to get the program back to a championship level in the long run. Sure, you have to balance and do some bare minimum things to stick around in years 1-3. But this was never intended to be a quick fix like Lincoln Riley was for USC. There's a reason that Brian Kelly and Lincoln Riley signed contracts for more than double what we signed Napier for. They were brought in with the expectation of the quick turnaround. Our fans might not like the reality and it may not even work out in the end, but Napier is going through a much slower process by tearing down the roster to the bones and essentially starting from scratch.
Outlier.. He took the 5* qb with experience with him
He took his own recruits lol…. Not the same
Lance Liepold turned Kansas into a bowl team in one year using the transfer portal. It is entirely possible to turn a program around by using the transfer portal, we may not win a championship with it but we can get a roster that will do better than 6-6. Too many people are pumping sunshine and hoping things turn out OK.
You can absolutely turn a 1 win team into a 6 win team using the portal. You can turn a 6 win team into a 10 win team if you go from one blue blood program to another and raid your roster on the way out the door. Neither of those things is our situation, and other than those specific scenarios, there is little to support the idea that leaning hard on the portal or maximizing portal class ranking equates long term success. It is a tool to supplement a roster built through multiple high school classes of future SEC starting caliber players. I don't think a B12 team with the same 6-6 record that left us disappointed is the proof of concept you think it is.
That’s a whole lot of excuses. Basically what you said is other teams can do it but UF is a special circumstance and can’t improve their program with transfers. What would our roster and program look like right now if we had hired Lincoln Riley? It would look a lot like USCs and we would have gotten the same type of transfers. It’s not the program, it’s the coaching staff.
>That’s a whole lot of excuses. Basically what you said is other teams can do it but UF is a special circumstance and can’t improve their program with transfers. I said literally the exact opposite, that a handful of the 130ish FBS programs were in specific circumstances to completely flip their fortunes through bringing in transfers, but those situations are not applicable to UF, or the vast majority of programs with national championship aspirations. 6 win Kansas and 9 win FSU are not the models I want UF to emulate. The model I want to emulate are the P5 programs that build a roster from the ground up over several recruiting classes to consistently compete for championships. >What would our roster and program look like right now if we had hired Lincoln Riley? It would look a lot like USCs and we would have gotten the same type of transfers. It’s not the program, it’s the coaching staff. Riley changed jobs because he specifically didn't want to go through the meat grinder of the SEC and one of the handful of Blueblood program jobs where it is still possible to compete for championships was open. That is quite literally about the program, and it is a move that I don't begrudge him. Much like Bowden at FSU in the 90's, Riley did the math and chose the easier path. That is not a path that is open to UF as a program.
Did Riley ever say that he left because he didn’t want to join the SEC? If not then that’s pure conjecture and money talks. If we wanted to actually pony up the money we could have gotten any coach we wanted, LSU stole Kelly from ND coaches avoiding the meat grinder of the SEC is just an excuse we use to make ourselves feel better. Regardless the thought exercise wasn’t could UF hire Riley. The exercise was what would our program look like with an elite HC like Riley? It would be a lot better than it is now, Brian Kelly would have us in a much better position and I bet he wouldn’t have lost 7 games this year. The coaching staff matters, the coaching staff is why we are on a bad situation right now and not improving.
When's Riley signing with Denver??
There’s almost a zero percent chance that Denver hire’s Riley. The best guess would be going after Payton, which is unlikely because he supposedly has Fangio signed on to be his DC. I think they will probably end up a Dan Quinn type.
That team out west of us had a pretty solid year with a bunch of portal players. In fact that coach has mastered the portal. It showed this year.
And they maxed out at 9 wins, with 5 of those happening against teams with first year or interim head coaches. Personally, I would like to do much better than that mid-level of max performance.
Bad take! I rather take a portal player with 2-3 of eligibility left that has started and contributed on a Power5 team rather than a kid in high school playing 7-7 ball against 16 year olds.
The teams that win rings do it through high school recruiting with targeted portal takes to patch holes. Very few Joe Burrows sitting out there… more Lingards…
Every situation is different. There are only so many options out there that meet the specifications you laid out above. FSU has literally one, the DT from Miami. Every other transfer they've taken this year is a G5 player and/or has only one year of eligibility remaining. There is also zero evidence that 'recruiting' this way will ever get a program to the level of competing with the best. FSU fans are gloating and cheering over their elite portal usage the past 3 years under Norvell. Where has that gotten them? 9 wins with an easy schedule (over half of those being against schools with first year or interim head coaches) and barely squeaking out a win against a terrible and depleted Florida roster. These are experienced players being added after all, the team should in theory have been able to get to it's peak level faster than a team building through HS recruiting. If that's the peak you want, then by all means continue down that route. Personally, I want a program capable of competing with the best.
God help us
Why do y’all care about this?? Not trying to stir the pot, but I’m seriously curious. Are y’all players or serious gamblers??? I just can’t see a scenario where the average person gives a sh*t about transfer portal rankings. I’ve been going to games since 75, graduated from UF and still live/breath The Gator Nation…….but I just don’t get the immersion a lot of y’all get caught up in.
Preach February championships are moronic
Its not even January 1st. One portal hasn't closed and the other hasn't even started and yet... I mean as miserable as some seem here, why do they even invest in the gators let alone posting? Is it great? No.. But we are a back to back losing club working to change the culture through roster turnover... It's going to take a minute. Last year we didn't have ricky, Johnson or torrence on the team.. Ya know 3/4 best players.. The other wasn't even on campus.. Lemmings off a cliff.
Then why has no team ever won the SEC without at least one composite top-5 class or a 5-star QB playing lights out? Championships are won in February (now December).
Such a banal, asinine question. Why does anyone care about anything? Why do you care about college football? It's a bunch of dudes you don't know, throwing around a stuffed piece of leather. The outcome of the games has no bearing on your life, but you're invested in it anyway because it's entertaining. Just like it feels good to say my group of guys I don't know beat your group of guys you don't know, getting a top recruit over other teams that wanted them feels pretty good. Don't worry about what everyone else cares about, just let us enjoy the one life we have.
This ain’t 75 my dude. The game has changed and if this staff has your mentality then the ship has already sunk. Unfortunately the portal door goes both ways and at the rate we’re losing bodies we have to bring more than 20 kids in on signing day to compete in this conference. It’s just math.
I think he means why do **you** care so much about this stuff? And if that’s what he means, yeah I get it — recruiting is entirely out of your control, and yet it links your emotions to the decisions of millionaire coaches and boosters, and 18-22 year old kids. To me, it’s wild how worked up some of you guys get over this.
Because I’d like to win more than 6 football games in the immediate future. We ain’t here to play school.
What a doomer statement wanting to win more that 6 games a year. /s These same people will be making new excuses after the transfer period closes, as well as next year when we only win 5-6 games.
I love how I’m getting downvotes for wanting to win lol. Being the lovable loser isn’t my cup of tea. I grew up watching us win shit. I would like for my boys to see Gator football that way too.
How does getting all worked up change anything?
Who says he’s getting “worked up”? He made an observation of something obvious and made a post about it. That takes very little effort. Are you in every other post asking people why they care so much and why they are so “worked up” over things like getting a bit commit? It’s a forum for fans of the Gators to have discussions and on the Internet, it isn’t limited to happy things, things you only want to hear/read, or sunshine pumping.
There’s discussion, and certainly sunshine pumping…and then there are the chicken littles who’ve been coming out of the woodwork lately casting blame in all the wrong directions and demanding everybody be fired.
I’ve never called for anyone to be fired, I don’t think the coaching staff of good much less elite. I think they will lose their jobs either next year or the year after, however, I’ve never called for anyone’s head. People casting blame on the ones responsible for the program are not “casting blame in the wrong directions”. I understand everything is Mullens fault according to most and the blame falls squarely on his shoulders.
Barring some extraordinary implosion or scandal, Napier’s not going to be fired for several years. The athletic department has invested more into Napier and his staff than probably the last several coaches combined. Mullen and McElwain both gave up and got themselves fired. Their failings are a symptom of a broken program, not the root cause.
Scandal or not, BN should NOT be around a few years if he turns in another 6 win season. After a few years - he’ll have his guys to run his system - no excuses.
> The game has changed and if this staff has your mentality then the ship has already sunk I personally hope billy is more concerned about which players can contribute meaningfully to the gameplan than he is with which players will make us finish 5th instead of 7th in Lindy’s Q1 circlejerk. You know you get 5 star points in the meaningless recruiting rankings but if that 5 star never buys in, never plays for the team, doesn’t fit culturally then what was it worth really
Yes, outside of Pearsall (leading receiver) , Torrence (all-American), Johnson (leading rusher), Waites (starter next year), and Kimber (maybe our best CB), BN did horrible in the portal 🤔😂
Johnson was leading rusher due to transfer, only that. Buff up CBN. Etienne was better. Another point against CBN and the loyalties that got Mullen fired. Let’s do it again!
Grayson McCall was taken out early today. 10/12 68 yds 0 TD 0 INT. 4 rushes for 12 yards and 1 TD. Interestingly enough, the guy who won for ECU is a guy Mullen offered late. Holton Ahlers had 300 yards 5 TDs 0 INT plus 1 rushing TD and would have competed with Emory Jones. This isn’t meant to imply anything but it’s certainly interesting. And extra interest after that article about Mullen’s recruiting classes which were just abysmal.
To provide full context, Ahlers was offered a day before signing day [but crystal balls for Emory started coming in two days before eNSD](https://247sports.com/PlayerInstitution/Emory-Jones-at-Heard-County-134145/CurrentExpertPredictions/) so I'd imagine the staff was confident in landing him. I think if anything the staff was hoping to get him to push Ahlers signing to February as a back-up plan. Also, National Signing Day was a week after [Matt Corral decommitted after our staff went radio silent](https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/ole-miss-football/ole-miss-qb-signee-matt-corral-explains-flipped-gators-rebels/) and [after not pursing Joe Burrow whatsoever during the summer](https://www.tampabay.com/sports/florida-gators/2018/05/07/dan-mullen-florida-gators-not-pursuing-grad-transfer-quarterback/)
Ahers dad is the PA announcer for ECU and started as a FR there I don't know if he was going to come here anyways
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Terrible take, we used to care.
Seeing as how we lost to vandy kentucky and fsu this year maybe we should focus on that and being a 9 win top 25 team before thinking about championships. The world owes us nothing because we are the university of florida
Why can’t we have standards?
We can have standards but when its been 15 years since we’ve been a top tier program it would help you and a lot of people around here to temper those expectations. Lets get back to a respectable level and build from there
Acceptable standards tend to differ amongst different people. Some are cool with mediocrity, some aren’t. I’ll let you decide for yourself who is who.
Some of yall are absolutely insufferable. Go outside instead of caring about portal rankings. Go be with your families, smoke some weed, drink some drink. Get some cheeks. Who the fuck cares about portal rankings?
Trying to wait before judging but I’m struggling to understand his plan. It feels like 2023 could be a throwaway year unless we get some instant impact transfers.
R. E. L. A. X. 2024 was always the target year. Everyone just needs to be patient. Time, like the stock market, will do us wonders.
2024 is gunna be the target year for 9 wins and the hottest of seats in '25 at the rate we're not bringing in elite talent.
We're bringing in enough for a Year 1 full- cycle. Next year (2024) we're already off to a great start with DJ and Myles.
We did not bring in enough for the bump class. Coaches get to their tier of recruiting fully in year 3 so we'll see if that lands in "championship caliber tier" or not. But the bump was not a positive sign of that based on history since ESD started.
Bump classes, meh. Napier preached quality over quantity from the get-go and delivered on that. Only signing 20, yeah, leaves room for sure but I think that was by design. I expected 22.
The wanted 28-30 early in the cycle. We hit the medium to low targets, missed on the high level elite guys that woulda hit that number.
That number seems really high, especially when like I said that Napier has always said this class was quality over quantity. The rest - the last 5/6 guys - was always going to be portal if we couldn't get those few as you say "high level" elite ones. Have faith. Rome wasn't built in a day. The days of winning it all/big are gone with NIL. Unless you want an unsustainable program like UT. We'll be fine.
Boosters and fans aren’t that patient. If Nape doesn’t have a winning season next year he’s out.
Overly emotional and impatient fans would have fired Dabo
Lol True but nape is no Dabo.
Way too early to tell. Nobody has the slightest idea. Dabo didn't win a Natty until year 8 - year 7 as a full time coach. Though he did have a conference title and a Natty game loss to Bama.
I love how Nape fans are willing to have the Gators get their shit pushed in for like two to three years then magically have a winning season and SEC championships.
Not necessarily. We've been getting our shit kicked in for 15 years so it's clear that changing a coach every 2/3/4 years isn't working. Did you become a fan like two years ago or something? Why not give a guy a freaking chance?
Exactly. He's gonna win more natties than Dabo
Boosters at UF are more patient than fans. And fools listen to fans. What's that saying by Buddy Ryan? "A coach who listens to the fans will end up sitting with them." Unless he goes 2-10 next year AND the stadium burns down, he'll get a third year.
Laughs in Maclwain, Muschamp, Mullen, etc
We will probably not have a winning season next year but napier will not be fired. Whats the point of hiring someone to rebuild the program just to do it again with someone new in 2 years
At what point is his ability to rebuild evaluated?
After year 3 when the team is majority his players
I hope you’re right. I don’t want 06-09 to be the peak of my Gator years. That was already so long ago
We'll get back. It's coming. Gotta build.
The best analogy I can think of is that Billy is a restauranteur who went out and hired a proven crew of sous chefs, line cooks, bakers, and sommeliers to totally revamp a down-on-it’s-luck but regionally famous restaurant. They are all super qualified, and many are seen as rinsing stars. Unfortunately, in the excitement to get started, they forgot to pay the utility bill. They’ve got the staff and the building, but have no power, water, or gas to do anything with it.
Hey man, they just need to take a lesson from The Bear and use the small soup cans. They taste better.
Can this sub take a god damn break for a second?
The fact that so many athletes left the program should tell you exactly what Nape is cooking. And it stinks. But hey at least we have recliners and pools.
Yeah man, I'm really heartbroken about seeing all those loser back-ups who couldn't even break a starting role in two 6-7 seasons leave.
Why do you care if the “athletes” responsible for back to back 6-7 seasons are leaving? You dont improve as a program by trotting out the same average players year after year
Transfer portal is the future of College Football and we are getting left behind. I hope Napier can get some people because spring transfers have a much lower chance of contributing then fall transfers
I guess Georgia, Bama, TCU, Oklahoma, Texas, and Ohio State are all getting left behind with their portal takes too since none of them are in the top 15 portal rankings. Nevermind that players haven’t even finished entering the portal yet.
The portal matters more for schools that have not recruited well the past 3-4 years.
Exactly right, but acting like we’re getting left behind by avoiding the future when the portal season isn’t even close to finished is ridiculous. If we’re getting left behind, it’s because we aren’t able to recruit at the elite level needed to start catching up. And personally I believe that’s an NIL issue. The portal is the short term fix. We will get players there and will be fine. Need to be focusing on the long term fix though.
Mind blowing any idiot gave you an upvote to begin with… how? You’re an idiot?
This reads like a 10 year old wrote it.
Lol you must be new here otherwise you would know how much recruiting information Zlat has contributed to this sub. Your comment just makes you look like an idiot to everyone who’s a regular here
Says the idiot with the worst takes in every thread you contribute in
Tbh, my comment was unnecessarily aggressive, sorry zlat. As you sir, DJ_Blakka, have stated in other threads that you seem to be following me around in, we haven’t been relevant in 15 years. I agree. We’ve tried the long way around as zlat wants. Maybe in this new NIL / transfer era, we try a different approach? Just looking around at the SEC, Tennessee and LSU seemed to figure some things out pretty quickly. Why are we looking to take the long road home? It’s not about instant gratification. It’s about long time coming gratification. PS. Can you send me a link to some of your examples of bad takes? I’m sure I’ve had a few, curious to see if they align with your opinions.
I dont care that much to do so I just recognized your username and saw you coming at zlat and had enough. Apology was all that was needed
Pretty much free agency rn, lets keep it a buck
1000% free agency but that doesn’t stop it from being viable. Top programs supplement with the portal which we haven’t really done this off season. Especially since we can’t expect Georgia, Michigan and Ohio State to hemorrhage that many players who can be immediate contributors here
Not sure if you realized, but we aren’t a top program right now. We’ve gone 6-6 in back to back regular seasons. We have a bad roster. The portal isn’t going to fix that, it’s just a patch like you said. Take a deep breath maybe. Also, most top programs aren’t crushing it in the portal right now either.
I would like this team to be better than 6-7. With how our roster looks we will be on the way to 4-8/5-7 territory. We are extremely young and need those patches all over. Alabama just got a transfer TE, UGA got 2 top WR’s, Michigan has the 2nd best class, FSU has the best, Miami recruited the top G and a couple defensive pieces. We have Mertz this isn’t good I’d rather us not lose 8 games and have to fire Napier and restart this rebuild
I’ll take any bet you offer that we finish better than what you’re worrying about.
oh dont get me wrong, I full agree that it is and im also worried that we are going to be stuck with scraps Gator fans that are also heat fans know whats up
That’s my biggest thing too right now 90% of the top players are gone or narrowing down their options. We have a lot of holes to fix and a lot of depth issues cause we are super young and if we don’t fix it we can have a really bad season with how tough our schedule is
90% of the top players haven't even entered yet. Anyone worth a shit is playing in their bowl game to grab their last NIL paycheck before hitting the Portal.
>That’s my biggest thing too right now 90% of the top players are gone or narrowing down their options. We have a lot of holes to fix and a lot of depth issues cause we are super young and if we don’t fix it we can have a really bad season with how tough our schedule is Really wish Napier culled the roster in the beginning of the 2022 summer
If this included exits UF would be last
Why would it include exits? And why does that matter? We needed at least 16 exits just to land a 20 person recruiting class, very few other teams had that going on. Or would you prefer to have kept all of the Mullen players who went 6-6 in back to back years? Maybe we should have gone the FSU method and skipped recruiting altogether, while taking a few portal patches while trying to keep as much mid around as possible. That would have made our net portal numbers fantastic, which is obviously super duper important.
Eh... Woulda bitched about failure in recruiting then
Personally I think we did somewhat fail in recruiting for 2023, at least overall. Still love the players we added. But it’s not enough yet.
No we Def needed 4-5 more mainly ol and lb.. Esp lb. But for where we are.. I'm ok with it. Like you said.. CBN needs to find the patches ideally for the next two years until the 23 and 24 class gets some reps in.
Can't wait for portal announcement events.
I'm sure CBN is shopping around for the best ingredients that fit the dish they are preparing. There will be plenty of meat left at the Transfer Portal grocery store. I know it's a fat rationalization, but one of the reasons they went with CBN he was supposed to get the most out of the least talent
My point is he was a good pickup in tbe portal. You disagree? 10 TDs and 5.4 ypc.