State at center of push to land top 2019 talent

When the 2018 football recruiting cycle came to an end in February, Miami, Florida and Florida State all finished with top-15 classes nationally for a second straight year.

Considering UF and FSU accomplished this while transitioning to new coaching staffs, the possibility of all three programs having top-10 classes at the end of the 2019 cycle — something that hasn’t happened since 2012 — is a development to watch.

There are new yet familiar faces in the game now, with Dan Mullen taking over at Florida and Willie Taggart leading FSU. Both are hoping to bring their programs back to the national championship-caliber level they were at in the past. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes head into Year 3 under Mark Richt coming off a 10-3 season that culminated with an Orange Bowl berth.

“I think the most fascinating aspect of those three programs is not just the battles on the field, but the recruiting battles,” ESPN college football

analyst Greg McElroy told the Miami Herald.

While commitments are non-binding until players sign a national letter of intent, Miami and FSU have gotten off to hot starts on the trail with top-10 classes as of Sunday. UF is barely in the top 30 heading into the summer’s month-long dead period — defined by the NCAA as a time during which a college coach “may not have face-to-face contact with college-bound student-athletes or their parents, and may not watch student-athletes compete or visit their high schools.”

Once things pick back up on July 24, one of the key factors in those recruiting battles will happen right here in the state of Florida. As the top programs from the country make their annual trek to the Sunshine State to scout some of the top prep stars in the country, the in-state schools will once again attempt to stave off the Alabamas, Clemsons, Georgias and Ohio States of the college football world.

After all, Florida has a nation-high 64 of the top 500 prospects from this recruiting cycle, according to the 247Sports composite rankings. California (61) and Texas (57) are close behind.

“As far as just sheer quantity of Division I players, especially at the skill positions, there’s nobody like the state of Florida,” McElroy said. “If you want to go get some of the best wide receivers, some of the best corners, some of the best secondary players, linebackers, you name it, at every position the box is checked (in) the state of Florida.”

That’s especially true when looking specifically at South Florida, that three-county cluster of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade.

Of the state’s top-100 players in the Class of 2019, 38 play high school football in one of those three counties, with 16 ranked among the top 250 players nationally.

And while it would seem natural that the University of Miami would have an inherent advantage at recruiting the players in its own backyard, it has another leg up on the competition thanks to defensive coordinator Manny Diaz.

“He knows Miami like the back of his hand and can navigate the landscape down there blindfolded and never get lost,” McElroy said of Diaz. “I mean, he is as in tune with Miami as anybody in the college football profession.”

That helped the Hurricanes secure the No. 8 overall class in the country last year — Miami’s first top-10 class since 2012 — and is a major reason Miami’s 2019 class sits at No. 10 nationally. All of Miami’s 16 commitments so far are from the Sunshine State. Ten are from South Florida.

FSU and UF showed last cycle they won’t hold back on the recruiting front, either. Both made 11th-hour pushes on National Signing Day to catapult their classes to rank among the nation’s best.

Another late push is still possible, especially with six months left until the early signing period and more than half of the state’s top-100 players still uncommitted.

“From a talent standpoint,” McElroy said, “there’s no state that rivals Florida.”