I don't wanna get on a whole "thing" here, just making a point I think we Gators understand and would do well to quietly reinforce among OURSELVES this particular "first Wednesday in February":
While the "EXPERTS" have ultimately more or less come around and now (with Elam and others' making good their earlier pledges yesterday morn) put us in their list of "Top Ten Recruiting Classes", in truth they are all only "confirming" a MUCH more IMPORTANT "list"--the one Coach Dan Mullen and his guys had of "their kind of young men", by all accounts as much about character, personality, honor, and the eventual CHEMISTRY of our Head Coach's long-imagined and slowly-developed idea of the KIND of team he wanted to build down here. He got a lot of insight and practice in testing his ideas and theories trying to approximate the process under the constraints limiting him at MSU--but now he is finally able to begin truly shaping the onfield product with fewer obstacles.
I won't say that "the experts" rankings and surrounding hype are just plain wrong OR "irrelevant"; Talent is talent.
But there is ALSO "fit", and ideas like "team" and "chemistry", not to mention "CHARACTER", must also be considered--or will catch up with a program eventually.
Mullen has clearly made these (and more) part of their "winnowing process" on the front end. So that, as he once again stressed in his long and refreshingly open address to the press (and by extension, US: ALL of "Gator Nation") once the last of our openings were filled yesterday, this whole process was, is and will CONTINUE TO BE run with OUR OWN (mostly HIS AND HIS STAFF'S) ideas about what they need and who will best FIT the coming "TEAM TO BE" they have been determined to build here from the moment he took the job. The team on the field, of course, but not JUST there but EVERYWHERE IN THE PROGRAM--top to bottom, first on the staff then every nook and cranny of the eventual depth and onfield product.
It's an ongoing thing that never stops--and Mullen is one of those very few who GETS IT, came IN swingin' and hasn't stopped.
So the really great and encouraging news is this: I truly believe that this "TEAM" he and his people (and they ARE "his people"--they are tight and together in their determined, ongoing "same page/same direction" orchestrated long-term drive to see the whole thing come together in CHAMPIONSHIPS. When they talk about "family" they really mean it--and the recruits and THEIR families FEEL that when they visit. It is an enormous advantage--one that the Coach and his staff are LOOKING for in their prospective recruits... a background in and natural attraction TO a commitment to those around them--that they are and will be a part of something BIGGER than merely "the sum of the parts".
And that all has a way of "feeding on itself"--getting more and MORE that way as time goes on and the whole thing gathers its own momentum. More and more, I think we will only see it grow. Oh, there'll be set-backs...There are always trials and challenges. How we react, deal with them and support each other, adapt and rally--THESE are the MARKS of Champions. We will be tested. But I see this Head Coach, staff and kind of TEAM he is building as exactly the types who can deal with it, adapt and react to it all in positive fashion. I can't say exactly what, when, how or where--but we WILL ultimately GET there.
I can FEEL it. Feel it coming.
While the "EXPERTS" have ultimately more or less come around and now (with Elam and others' making good their earlier pledges yesterday morn) put us in their list of "Top Ten Recruiting Classes", in truth they are all only "confirming" a MUCH more IMPORTANT "list"--the one Coach Dan Mullen and his guys had of "their kind of young men", by all accounts as much about character, personality, honor, and the eventual CHEMISTRY of our Head Coach's long-imagined and slowly-developed idea of the KIND of team he wanted to build down here. He got a lot of insight and practice in testing his ideas and theories trying to approximate the process under the constraints limiting him at MSU--but now he is finally able to begin truly shaping the onfield product with fewer obstacles.
I won't say that "the experts" rankings and surrounding hype are just plain wrong OR "irrelevant"; Talent is talent.
But there is ALSO "fit", and ideas like "team" and "chemistry", not to mention "CHARACTER", must also be considered--or will catch up with a program eventually.
Mullen has clearly made these (and more) part of their "winnowing process" on the front end. So that, as he once again stressed in his long and refreshingly open address to the press (and by extension, US: ALL of "Gator Nation") once the last of our openings were filled yesterday, this whole process was, is and will CONTINUE TO BE run with OUR OWN (mostly HIS AND HIS STAFF'S) ideas about what they need and who will best FIT the coming "TEAM TO BE" they have been determined to build here from the moment he took the job. The team on the field, of course, but not JUST there but EVERYWHERE IN THE PROGRAM--top to bottom, first on the staff then every nook and cranny of the eventual depth and onfield product.
It's an ongoing thing that never stops--and Mullen is one of those very few who GETS IT, came IN swingin' and hasn't stopped.
So the really great and encouraging news is this: I truly believe that this "TEAM" he and his people (and they ARE "his people"--they are tight and together in their determined, ongoing "same page/same direction" orchestrated long-term drive to see the whole thing come together in CHAMPIONSHIPS. When they talk about "family" they really mean it--and the recruits and THEIR families FEEL that when they visit. It is an enormous advantage--one that the Coach and his staff are LOOKING for in their prospective recruits... a background in and natural attraction TO a commitment to those around them--that they are and will be a part of something BIGGER than merely "the sum of the parts".
And that all has a way of "feeding on itself"--getting more and MORE that way as time goes on and the whole thing gathers its own momentum. More and more, I think we will only see it grow. Oh, there'll be set-backs...There are always trials and challenges. How we react, deal with them and support each other, adapt and rally--THESE are the MARKS of Champions. We will be tested. But I see this Head Coach, staff and kind of TEAM he is building as exactly the types who can deal with it, adapt and react to it all in positive fashion. I can't say exactly what, when, how or where--but we WILL ultimately GET there.
I can FEEL it. Feel it coming.