Florida Gators on track to draw top-5 football recruiting class

January 15th, 2012

Stephen Rhodes

Posted in Florida, NCAA Gridiron Gab Exclusive, Recruiting

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Despite coming off the program’s worst season in more than 20 years, Florida coach Will Muschamp keeps saying that the Gators’ recruiting is going great.

“Players can very easily see where we’re headed with this,” he’s said a few times .

There is some credence to it. All three of the major recruiting websites – ESPN, Rivals and Scout – rank the Gators’ current group of commitments as a top-five class nationally. There is consensus among the three sites that national champion Alabama is No. 1 and Texas is No. 2.

No player’s commitment is concrete until he signs a letter of intent or enrolls on a football scholarship. Florida has six early enrollees, including Boynton Beach offensive lineman Jessamen Dunker and junior college transfer Damien Jacobs. The rest cannot sign until Feb. 1.

The Florida staff assembled that group of recruits and held it together even though the Gators went about a month without an offensive coordinator. Charlie Weis left for Kansas in early December, and Muschamp replaced him with Boise State’s Brent Pease last week.

Pease is relatively unknown compared to Weis, who flashed Super Bowl rings on recruiting trips, but as prospects learn more about him they might like what he did at Boise State the past six years. The Broncos finished in the Associated Press’ top eight in four of those seasons.

“Anytime you’re in this late stage of recruiting, any question marks or any issues you need to address … now we’ve addressed it,” Muschamp said. “I think any recruit and any player at the University of Florida ought to be excited about who we hired and where we’re headed with this thing.”

The day he took this job, Muschamp called the SEC “a line-of-scrimmage league” and believes the Gators must be strong on the lines to be viable. Florida had one smallest offensive lines in the conference last year and was near the middle of the SEC in run defense and sacks.

North Carolina recruits a huge boost

Muschamp said all season the Gators lacked quality depth on either side and he is trying to fix that problem through recruiting, with five defensive linemen and two offensive linemen committed.

His top two prospects overall, according to Rivals, are on the lines. D.J. Humphries, an offensive tackle from North Carolina, is rated the No. 3 recruit in America among all positions. He enrolled at Florida last week and will try to earn a starting job in spring practices.

Defensive end Jonathan Bullard, also from North Carolina, committed to the Gators earlier this month. Rivals ranked him the third-best defensive end and No. 20 overall prospect nationally, and he had offers from Alabama and Ohio State.

Dunker, a two-way player at Boynton Beach, also is expected to contend for a starting job this spring. At 6-feet -6 and 315 pounds, he is as big or bigger than any offensive lineman on last year’s team.

Of Florida’s 18 commitments, it has only six on offense, but that group is impressive. Scout ranked Kent Taylor and Colin Thompson the top two tight ends in the country, and the Gators got commitments from both.

With Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps gone and the team transitioning to a power running game, Florida badly needs help at running back. The Gators have missed on big backs who committed to their enemies – including Mike Davis, who de-committed in favor of South Carolina, and Keith Marshall, who picked Georgia over Florida – but has a pledge from Seffner-Armwood ‘s Matt Jones.

Jones is 6-feet -2, 200 pounds, and projects as the type of running back who can operate between the tackles in a pro-style offense. Rivals ranked him second at his position in the state and No. 12 nationally.

This will be Muschamp’s first full signing class, after coming in partway through the process in 2010. He signed 19 last year, though 14 of those committed under former coach Urban Meyer.

This year, Muschamp hopes to sign close to the SEC’s 25-man maximum. He has been fairly wide-ranging in his talent search. Of the 18 commits, only half are from this state. He has three commitments each from Georgia and North Carolina and has them from as far away as Warminster, Pa., and Bolingbrook, Ill.

In the previous three signing classes, more than 60 percent of the signees were from Florida.

FLORIDA’S RANKING AMONG RECRUITING SERVICES

ESPN/4; Rivals/3; Scout/5; Tom Lemming/4

FIVE-STAR RECRUITS

Jonathan Bullard/DE/6-4/250/Shelby, N.C.

*D.J. Humphries/OL/6-5/265/Charlotte, N.C.

FOUR-STAR RECRUITS

*Jessamen Dunker/OL/6-6/315/Boynton Beach

*Damien Jacobs/DT/6-4/290/Scooba, Miss.

Matt Jones/RB/6-2/200/Seffner

Marcus Maye/DB/6-1/200/Melbourne

*Antonio Morrison/LB/6-3/225/Bolingbrook, Ill.