Hey y'all,

Great article on Read and Reaction evaluating Billy's bump class at this point and what it means for Gators recruiting going forward. Encourage you to read it here, but high points below.

Also, u/zlatandiego, would love your thoughts on how this stacks class stacks up against your metrics as well, and also your thoughts on V., below, because I think the issue I had with that metric is what's really covered well by yours.

GDE.
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So, this article basically looks at our class along 5 metrics that Bill Sikes put together. For this article to work you need to accept as true 2 premises:
1. The metrics used are valid. They are based on the bump classes of future SEC Championship coaches hired since 2005.
2. There is little change in the average player rating for a class once the season starts (Will includes a nice chart on this).

Okay, so on to the metrics.

I. 8.2 Spot Increase in National Rankings

This one would require us to be around 8th or 9th. Possible, but not a lock according to Miles and I don't know how likely it is. Miles gives us a 60% chance of hitting this benchmark. Of interest, he notes: "The reason I say that is because Napier’s class currently has an average player rating of 91.14, which ranks 14th in the country. However, Oregon ranks 8th in the country with an average player rating of 92.02. That’s close enough that with the right signings (cough….Cormani McClain….cough), Florida can catch up." I'd probably say more like.

II. 3 Spot Increase in Conference Rankings

This would require us to come in at least 4th in the conference. Miles notes that Alabama and Georgia are too far ahead to catch and TAMU likely is as well. So essentially this will come down to a battle between Florida and LSU for 4th. Miles gives us a 20% chance here. Would need [1] Cormani and [2] to out-recruit LSU pretty much across the board from here on out.

I'll add to that that UF currently has 16 commits (14 4 stars, 2 3 stars) with an avg of 91.14. LSU Currently has 17 commits (12 4 stars, 5 3 stars) with an avg of 91.73. As Miles notes, even adding Cormani only gets us to 91.65. That being said, I think Florida will go up if/when Tyree leaves the class. Moreover, while both schools have a lot of names left, it is worth noting that LSU has already hit on most of its top prospects per 247, whereas UF has (just a couple, even taking out Baxter) names on the board in that category. I don't know what LSU is looking like for potential flips, either. Point being, this would require a deep dive to really get at the nitty gritty of how this would look. I'm slightly more bullish than Miles on likelihood of pulling this off, but not by a ton.

III. 3 Five-Star Recruits

Miles gives us a 1% chance of this happening. I agree that is not going to happen so let us move past it.

My ONLY caveat would be Cormani Keeley the very unlikely chance that Mizell gets a bump up to 5 star hits here. But that is asking for a big bump for him.

IV. Average National Ranking of 4.7

This would mean landing a top 5 class this cycle, which I'm pretty sure is actually impossible but even if it's technically possible it's not going to happen.

V. Average of 16.8 blue chip recruits

We will hit this. We currently have 14 of them. But caveat.

Now, Miles admits that this is kind of not the right metric anymore and really we want to focus on Top 300 guys. I was going to flag that I think Top-X is more useful than just counting blue chips, but Miles covered that. One note, though: "If [Napier brings in enough Top 300 guys to hit on this metric in the way we care about], then he’s going to get up to that 7th or 8th national ranking that I said is a long shot currently. It also means he’ll fly in front of LSU to get to 4th in the SEC. But that’s a tall order to ask for a coach who has thus far only brought in 56 percent of his players in that top-300 tier."

Takeaways
You can see how we're doing on the above metrics, but Miles makes a point to discuss his feeling that Napier can have more of a Jimbo like turnaround. Jimbo did not have a class rankedabove where we currently are (in terms of player rating) for his first 3 seasons and instead had incremental increases until blowing the doors open in 2022. I think we all know that was attributable to NIL.

" That’s the thing that has me holding out hope for Florida to turn things around under Napier. There’s no doubt that he believes in systems and processes. Anybody around the program will tell you that it is night and day when it comes to their football operations and how they’re reaching out and maintaining relationships with recruits compared to the previous regime." Miles finally sums it all up which I think really hits the nail on the head:

" I would prefer that Napier’s bump class answer those questions, but the reality is that it just isn’t going to. I’m not left where I was with Mullen: with no hope that things would ever improve. But I’m also not where I want to be: knowing that Napier is going to build a behemoth the likes of which only exist in Tuscaloosa and Athens.

The Mullen era was about answering the question of whether a team with sub-elite recruiting could be developed to consistently beat teams with elite recruiting pipelines. The answer to that question was a resounding no.

It looks like the Napier era is going to be about answering a different question. Can he take advantage of NIL to help position the Gators for elite recruiting beyond just a massive bump class?"