Florida football: Can Billy Napier salvage 2022 offensive recruit class?

The Florida football program lost their two biggest offensive commits in the 2022 class in the backlash of Dan Mullen’s firing. 4-star quarterback ,Nick Evers, bolted from the Gators recruiting class and signed with the Oklahoma Sooners. If that didn’t hurt enough, 4-star wide receiver commit, Jayden Gibson, followed Evers and also signed with the Sooners. Florida had one 4-star player sign with them on signing day, Tony Livingston who is technically a tight end but likely will be transitioned into an offensive lineman.

Relief arrived in the pre-game of the 2022 All-America Bowl, as Billy Napier picked up a huge commitment from a big name commit. Trevor Etienne -brother of Travis Etienne of the Jacksonville Jaguars- committed to Florida football just before the start of the game live on NBC. Etienne is a 4-star running back and the Gators had yet to receive a commit from a RB in the 2022 class. Etienne is a player who can potentially make an impact in the Florida backfield as a true-freshman. So this is a big signing for Napier, no doubt about it. We still have a few weeks to go before he makes it official, so it could still all be for not, hopefully the Gators will lock it down.

So with that big signing it would appear that Napier might be able to salvage things on the offensive side of the ball, right? Unfortunately, this is a big no. Despite the Etienne signing, their is not much more Billy can do to bring high-level talent to Gainesville in this class. There are very few 4-star players left who haven’t already signed, the one’s that are left have zero interest in the Gators at the time being.

This is not the fault of Napier, or his new massive staff, there is just not much he can do about the situation. A lot of this blame must fall on Dan Mullen. Mullen’s recruiting class, even before his firing, was shaping up to be one of the worst Gator classes in recent memory. Yes, he had Evers and Gibson, and yes they did not want to commit to Billy Napier, but that was about it on offense. It’s not like dozens of recruits went missing after Mullen was fired, he didn’t have that many relationships to spare. So what can you really expect from Napier when he starts the job less than two weeks before early signing day?

Now it is premature to say the 2022 Florida football offensive recruiting class will be a total dud. You may remember that Kyle Trask was a 2-star high school recruit, he of course became a Heisman finalist in 2020. So there is a possibility of finding a few diamonds in the rough, probably unlikely though.

The new free agency portal looks to be the key to Napier adding some firepower to the Gators offense. Almost daily former 4 and 5-star recruits enter the portal looking for a new home. The Florida football program is currently in need of offensive line help, as well as a need for pass catchers. The Gators pieced together their O-line all year, and some games it was horrifically bad. Florida also lost their number one wideout, Jacob Copeland, he transferred to Maryland. They desperately need to add at least one more playmaker for their 2022 campaign.