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Florida Gators 2025 Recruiting Class

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Class ranking:
#17 - 1/20/2024
#62 - 7/22/2024
#23 - 8/25/2024
#51 - 9/25/2024
#38 - 11/20/2024
#18 - 11/25/2024
#15 - 11/29/2024
#12 - 12/01/2024
#10 - 12/04/2024

PlayerPosRating
Vernell Brown III
WR
0.9843
Hylton Stubbs
S
0.9714
Lagonza Hayward
S
0.9587
Ben Hanks Jr
CB
0.9554
Ty Jackson
LB
0.9437
Jayden Woods
EDGE
0.9413
Jalen Wiggins
EDGE
0.9378
Naeshun Montgomery
WR
0.9254
Tavaris Dice
OL
0.9252
Byron Louis
RB
0.9168
Tramell Jones Jr
QB
0.9152
Joseph Mbatchou
DL
0.9062
Waltez Clark
RB
0.9039
Tae’shaun Gelsey
TE
0.9014
Jeramiah McCloud
DL
0.8982
Stephon Shivers
DL
0.8869
Myles Johnson
LB
0.8814
Micah Jones
TE
0.8794
Jahari Medlock
OL
0.8744
Chad Gasper
RB
0.8744
Daniel Pierre Louis
OL
0.8728
Muizz Tounkara
WR
0.8714
Evan Noel
PK
0.8104
Hayden Craig
PT
0.8037
 
Last edited:

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Class ranking:
#17 - 1/20/2024
  • Jalen Wiggins James Rickards (Tallahassee, FL)
    6-4.5 / 245 Commit 1/15/2024 DL

  • Waltez Clark Plant (Tampa, FL)
    6-1 / 194 Commit 9/16/2023 RB

  • Josiah Abdullah Woodward Academy (Atlanta, GA)
    5-10 / 175 Commit 1/14/2024 WR
ADD "VB3"!!!
We'd been (in numbingly slow-but-steady fashion) adding to this class, while admittedly for the most part still focusing on 2024...But with this big "must have" (for a LOT of reasons) we have begun to fully transition to 2025 on the recruiting trail. All the MORE reason we must somehow at least do well enough in the season at hand to get Billy off that "hot seat" so that the building resurgence can go on.
(I put that as "low key quietly" as I could; of course, what I'd LOVE to see is the kind of "shock the WORLD" turn-around against this "killer schedule" everyone is so sure is beyond our inept grasp that ERASES all that "Napier is GONE" stuff once and for all.)
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
As of July 2022, the class is ranked a paltry #62 and would need to add its top 6 uncommitted recruits who have visited just to break into the top 10. If the Gators added all uncommitted recruits, the class would be around #8. This means that Florida would need to flip a few recruits in order to finish in the top 10. They would also need to flip 3 five-stars just to break into the top 5, or 10 blue chips to top Ohio State.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Well, at least we just got back our ace-recruiter to maybe give us a chance at creeping back into the race. Even with a relatively strong 2024 season, it will be steadily improving TALENT AND DEPTH that gets us to "The Promised Land".
I don't know when we'll get there--but of course THAT'S THE PLAN: The dream, the goal...always is, always has been. It really appears in retrospect that until Napier, none of the Coaches since Meyer really grasped that upon taking the job. It's just that things were in such progressively deeper disarray as the years went by that by the time Dan ("We'll worry about recruiting after the season") Mullen had been given HIS walking papers, talent wise this program had fallen to 2nd-tier-in-the-SEC status, and is only NOW really beginning to heave itself up out of the muck.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Since beating LSU the Gators have gained the following commitments:

- QB Tramell Jones (Former FSU commit)
- DL Stephon Shivers (Former UGA commit)
- OL Daniel Pierre Louis (Former FSU commit)

Class ranking has risen from #51 to #38. Still not good enough, but it is progress.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Signs are relatively good compared to where we started here, though. Lot of buzz stirring out there. If we can flip a couple more of these 5-star kids xhosinv belated interest after Saturday, we MIGHT get ourselves reasonably close to that mythical "Top Ten".
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Billy Napier in the last 3 weeks:

Four-Star DL Joseph Mbatchou flipped from Texas
Four-Star OL Tavaris Dice flipped from Auburn
Four-Star EDGE Jayden Woods flipped from Penn State
Four-Star RB Bryon Louis flipped from FSU
Four-Star QB Tramell Jones flipped from FSU
Four-Star LB Ty Jackson flipped from USC
Three-Star WR Muizz Tounkara flipped from Arizona
Three-Star OL Jahari Medlock flipped from Cincinnati
Three-Star DL Stephon Shivers former Georgia commit
Three-Star IOL Daniel Pierre Louis flipped from FSU

The class ranking has risen from #51 to #12.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
We are on the right track...For whatever it's worth, it appears that we may "land-on-our-feet" recruitingwise for 2025 after all. By all accounts the Portal may similarly help us make 2025 "the year the GATORS were COOL again" after all...
But there is al larger issue, SET of issues, still sitting out there:
To get "back" to matching a certain "standard of excellence" that Billy Napier was supposed to be bringing with him when we raised him from a "budding unknown" who'd only JUST begun to raise his national profile (that of himself, his players at a relatively obscure "outlying Louisiana school", and his own ability to find and develop them), we were counting on the young Coach to somehow work that magic on a program that had wandered far astray from the exciting path of talent and innovation that had marked our best days, by then seemingly buried in subsequent years, a full GENERATION of missteps in well-meaning but nonetheless ill-timed hires that had only led us further astray.
In retrospect, this hire HAD to work if we were to avoid ANOTHER generation of life in the CFB Wasteland...and early on it sure LOOKED as if it certainly had NOT.
I don't know that we had any real grasp of how bad things really were, how FAR BACK to that "Main Road", how much hard work and CHANGE this program would have to go through in order to be what we expected ourselves to BE--or how huge the changes in the rules and culture of modern college football were going to pose, CONTINUE to pose, in terms of achieving those goals.
Maybe WE THOUGHT that it would simply be a matter of getting in a guy who took RECRUITING a little more seriously than Dan Mullen obviously DIDN'T. Um, wrong.
It was, and IS, a whole lot more complicated than that...It is, and continues to BE, a long, hard and twisted road, with both rules and fundamental LANDSCAPE changing around us from year to year. NO ONE was going to simply come in and be the "perfect fit", know JUST what to do before these things even happened.
BUT, it is beginning to LOOK like maybe we got as close to "the right man for the job", THIS job, as we could have hoped for, given the times and circumstances.
It might have been somewhat of a fluke, if it turns out indeed to be the case; if so, so be it.
That IS how these things go, if and when they do.
I don't know that we aren't still only halfway THROUGH an even LONGER "era in purgatory". All of CFB may still just be in the early stages of its OWN "Toral Rebuild" that it may or may NOT EVER fully recover from--not in any recognizable form that old-school fans and alumni long for or will ultimately recognize.
We can only hope--and I continue to believe--that not only is that the aim of these changes, but that we are now within reasonable striking distance of reestablishing the sport's strong and exciting identity once more.
But there remain enormous pitfalls, the largest having to do with the whole idea of what is currently lumped together under the general rubric, "Pay For Play".
Personally, I would much prefer they "re-identify" this as "revenue-sharing"...At least TRY and distance Learning Institutions from becoming "The NFL Developmental League"...And THAT is as far into "politics" and/or "philosophical semantics" as I ever hope to GO here!
Let us get back to PLAYING FOOTBALL:
CHANGE that GODAWFUL overtime setup to START with, for example! Simply "APPLY LOGIC" in dealing with that and a host of other topics, large and small: LET FOOTBALL PEOPLE, former Coaches, players and longtime COLLEGE FOOTBALL folks get together to work on these issues--I ASSURE y'all they will come up with better, more satisfactorily workable solutions than the ones we've been getting foisted upon us of late.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Who has Napier flipped in the last 3 weeks and from where:
5⭐ S Hylton Stubbs #Miami
4⭐ DL Joseph Mbatchou #Texas
4⭐ OL Tavaris Dice #Auburn
4⭐ EDGE Jayden Woods #PennState
4⭐ RB Bryon Louis #FSU
4⭐ QB Tramell Jones #FSU
4⭐ LB Ty Jackson #USC
3⭐ WR Muizz Tounkara #Arizona
3⭐ OL Jahari Medlock #Cincinnati
3⭐ DL Stephon Shivers #Georgia
3⭐ IOL Daniel Pierre Louis #FSU

The Gators actually have a top 10 class at the moment!
IMG_0757.jpeg
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
On AND off the field, this program has so dramatically turned things around late in the season. It is as if one side has fed on the other, and vice versa!
I've never seen anything quite LIKE it.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Here is a snapshot of how this class came together.
- 5 de-commitments, or 4 when you count a re-commitment
- 8 players committed before the Gators went on a winning streak
- 11 players committed within the last two weeks
Screenshot from 2024-12-04 16-01-00.png
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Yup--the story is there.
We missed out on a couple of 5-Star gets that slipped from our apparent grasp on early NSD--but (especially in how Oregon blocked one of these literally last-moment with an outrageously high offer for Dallas that we were never given a chance to match), but there remain promising, highly-talented alternatives still pending out there (some who may more honestly want to be GATORS) whom have simply postponed their actual "official commitments" for a time (remember: actual "signing day deadline" is still some weeks off), and there remain of course myriad opportunities to shore up these and other needs (eg. at WR and Edge) in the portal--and with our NIL pockets still bulging as a result of what we HAVEN'T signed yet, I suspect some fast further moves in coming days.
It won't be official ramked a Top 5 Class this time after all, but given its relative recent improvement AND Billy's demonstrated penchant for judging and landing developable talent and fitting it to the greater whole, I remain wholly more positve regarding our chances in facing 2025's difficult schedule, as opposed to how we all were feeling one year ago regarding 2024's!
Now BIlly and Co. Must PROVE IT ON THE FIELD:
This of course begins NOW, in the practices for and IN whatever Bowl Game lies ahead, in finishing up and CLOSING this recruiting and portal cycles--on into the Spring and beyond.
If ever the expression, "The future is NOW!" were applicable, now is certainly the time.
But we do at least have every reason currently to BE relatively "thankful AND hopeful": The whole aura surrounding this team and program has improved dramatically just in the last few weeks. We'd have to be blind FOOLS not to see and appreciate it!
That could change, sure--but let's not BORROW trouble...We've had more than our share of bad luck AND bad news just in the last few months and YEARS. It's about time things began to swing our way--and up to US to make the most of it!
Lets see what this Coach, staff and team do with it, how they build on and make the most of whatever further comes our way.
 

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