Chris Hays:
Recruits caught up in UF coaching change.
No matter how anyone spins it, the Florida Gators football program is facing a dire situation. There is no greater way to illustrate the high stakes than to take a closer look at the upcoming early National Signing Day, the first at the Football Bowl Subdivision level. Schools are 50 days away from being allowed to sign high school seniors to National Letters of Intent. Florida currently has no head coach, no timetable within which to hire one and no “official” candidates on the docket.
Seventeen players who have committed to become Florida Gators are in limbo. That number is down one from Sunday when Delray Beach Atlantic receiver Corey
Gammage pulled his pledge as news started to circulate that UF coach
Jim McElwain would depart. The Gammage decommitment was posted to his Twitter account, but then deleted, so his status is still unclear.
The number of committed players, however, will most assuredly dwindle as we draw closer to the new early signing period, which begins Dec. 20 and ends at midnight Dec. 22. Talented recruits play a critical role in turning around a struggling college football program, and you certainly can’t win in the SEC.
Merry Christmas, for some. For Gators fans, perhaps Ebenezer Scrooge said it best: “Bah, humbug.”
At least the UF faithful can possibly find some solace in the fact that even the Grinch had his Cindy Lou Who.
For now, however, there is no joy in Whoville and until athletics director
Scott Stricklin finds the right candidate for the job, the Gators’ rivals from the SEC, and more important, the state of Florida, will sit atop Mount Crumpit and pile on, trying to make sure UF has little to celebrate.
While there are advantages to the new early signing period, Florida will definitely get hit by the full effect of one of the biggest disadvantages. Firing a coach, even when doing so at mid-season, opens the door for too much doubt for kids trying to make a decision about where to spend the next four or five years of their lives.
To the credit of most of the Gators’ 2018 commitments, they seem to have created a bit of camaraderie and togetherness with a Twitter hashtag of #AllBite18. They have also formed somewhat of a uniform reaction after the McElwain firing, similar to that of top recruit Matt
Corral, the nation’s No. 3-ranked pro-style quarterback out of Long Beach (Calif.) Poly.
Corral, who has said he intends to sign with UF Dec. 20 and will be an early enrollee, tweeted Sunday morning:
“Im not answering any interview questions about whats going on, that isnt my place to speak about. Nothing is changing this class. #AllBite18” He wasn’t the only one.
Randy Russell of Miami Carol City tweeted, “We are sticking together! #AllBite18.”
Yet others had more veiled reactions, like Jacob
Copeland, a wide receiver commit from Pensacola. Copeland tweeted, “Don't text my phone or hit my DMs for no interview.”
Current UF players also took to the Twitter, including starting center T.J.
McCoy, a South Lake alum who is held in high regard by his current Gators teammates. McCoy tweeted: “For all the recruits who are committed. Stay committed we are gonna fight the rest of year and regroup. You guys are the next piece.”
The best scenario for UF is to be able to lock in those committed players by hiring a coach quickly, but it will have to be the right coach, a coach the players believe in as they look to the future. That sales pitch will not be easy to make, and for now no one can really make that pitch.
The current staff will remain intact enough to the point that it will try to usher in some sort of seamless transition to the new guy. They can throw out the first pitch, which is that being a Gator is far more important than who is coaching the Gators. That’s an admirable approach, of course, but kids these days are not likely buying into that simplicity unless they were wholeheartedly sold from the beginning. As UCF coach Scott
Frost said Monday, there is no greater recruiting tool than winning. Sure, you can sell tradition and academics and fan support and facilities and all that other stuff, but it all comes down to winning. All recruits are told they will be a difference-maker, but can a recruit truly believe those words when they are coming from a lame-duck coaching staff at a school that is mired in an unacceptable 3-4 season?
All arrogance aside, even Gators fans know that’s a tough sell. I’ve heard radio talk-show callers during the past two days say in essence that if recruits don’t want to be Gators, even considering what has transpired this season, then the Gators don’t want them. Yeah, right. At this point, UF will take any high-profile prospects it can talk into coming.
Recruiting is all about selling. Even a used-car salesman can come up with some kind of pitch to get rid of a lemon. The Gators just have to figure out what it is they have to sell until they actually have someone in place to do it.