Fair enough. Missing out on Sharpe has to be a bitter pill for the recruitniks to swallow. But if you compare the Gators' ability to land the "elite" in-state offensive line talent in recent years with the other in-state programs, they've done a fairly good job. Going back to 2010, these are the prospects who were generally considered to be among the best in the state. These were the All-American-types who were highly-coveted by programs around the Southeast and beyond:
2010
Brent Benedict (Georgia)
Chaz Green (Florida)
Brandon Linder (Miami)
Ian Silberman (Florida)
2011
Bobby Hart (Florida State)
Tyler Moore (Nebraska/Florida)
2012
Jessamen Dunker (Florida)
Ereck Flowers (Miami)
Patrick Miller (Auburn)
John Theus (Georgia)
Avery Young (Auburn)
2013
Ira Denson (Florida State)
Laremy Tunsil (Ole Miss)
2014
Kc McDermott (Miami)
David Sharpe (Undecided)
So, the breakdown of these players signing with colleges are as follows:
Florida: 4
Miami: 3
Georgia: 2 (will be 3 if they add Sharpe)
Auburn: 2
Florida State: 2
Ole Miss: 1
So, what can we take away from all of this based on the past five years?
– Getting the transfer of Moore obviously boosted the numbers, but Florida has fared well in being able to keep in-state offensive line talent home in recent years. Miami has generally been able to keep the South Florida talent at home, with the pairing of Miller and Young leaving for Auburn in 2012 being the major exception.
– Georgia has obviously done well in the state of Florida. A lot of that owes to the fact they have been able to get guys from Jacksonville (Benedict and Theus were from Bolles, Sharpe is from Jacksonville), as well as the fact that Stacy Searles and Will Friend (past and present OL coaches) have sterling reputations as talent developers and as recruiters.
– Does getting the elite talent even matter? Yes and no. Like recruiting in general, it's a bit of a crapshoot. Benedict was an excellent prep lineman, but he never fully recovered from a freak injury suffered during his senior season at Bolles and has never been the same. Green and Silberman have been largely quiet during their careers at Florida, while Linder has been solid at Miami and Flowers made a quick impact in Coral Gables as well. Dunker has already been dismissed at UF. It's a little early to say anything definitive on most of the other prospects at this time.
Just some things to consider. Sharpe will be considered a major loss in UF recruiting circles when he eventually decides to head elsewhere (likely UGA), but the numbers suggest Florida has generally done well in landing top in-state talent in recent years, although some will try to argue otherwise.
Your analysis stretches back to a previous coaching staff in 2010 and also includes a transfer who didn't choose UF out of high school, but only came to UF after some personal issues led him back to his home state. If you remove 2010's results, and also remove Moore from the equation, the results are very different and much more damning for the current staff.
ReplyDeleteYou can go a lot of directions on this subject, and I might have tried to stretch myself too thin while trying to keep it brief. Might not have explained myself very thoroughly as a result. The purpose of this post was to point out the fact that the past recruiting successes of Addazio and even Verducci (amazingly enough) have very possibly hampered the efforts of Davis in his first 18-plus months on the job.
ReplyDeleteObviously, you can go much more in-depth on this subject, as many very good offensive linemen aren't highly-rated coming out of high school, since it is such a difficult position to evaluate. However, my point was more just to highlight Florida's recent performance in landing the "elite" offensive linemen from in-state, since the decisions of those prospects are the ones that draw the most scrutiny from fans. The results seem to indicate that they've done just fine in that regard.
The reason I went back to 2010 (and two OL coaches) was simply the fact the players recruited in that year are still on the team. Their presence on the roster can have an impact on prospects making a decision this year, since both Green and Silberman have a year of eligibility remaining (possibly two, in the case of Green, if he takes a medical redshirt).
In terms of the recruiting performance of Davis and the rest of the UF staff, there are a lot of circumstances that played into some of the recruiting misses. The opportunity to play alongside his brother led Theus to pick UGA, Miller liked UF early but apparently wasn't crazy about Verducci, Tunsil was very high on Florida early but led elsewhere by the people around his recruitment. Even still, while I wouldn't consider the Florida offensive line dominant by any means, they have performed well since the beginning of the 2012 season, and the numbers are there in looking ahead to next year as well. That unit has been on the rise since the beginning of last season, and the components are there for the Gators to have their best offensive line in five years when 2014 rolls around.
Yes, Moore signed elsewhere originally. But he ended up at Florida and if you're going to give Davis strikes for guys like Tunsil and Sharpe, I feel like you also have to credit him for landing Moore. Transfers have played a critical part on the UF line dating back to the Spurrier days, where both Zach Piller and Leon Hires found significant roles on the Florida offensive line after signing elsewhere out of high school (Piller to Georgia Tech and Hires to Notre Dame).
In terms of Davis' performance on the trail moving forward, 2015 is going to be a critical class for him. Lots of upperclassmen on this team, and Florida is going to have to land both quantity and quality in the next cycle. Luckily for the Gators, that cycle appears to be shaping up as a really good one, with lots of big-time prospects talking up Florida early on. As long as UF does well in 2015, and I think they will, the offensive line is set to be in good hands for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for the feedback.