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Florida Football: Transfer portal will speed up urgency of Gators rebuild

By Benjamin Henderson

Nov 12, 2022; Gainesville, Florida, USA; Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier looks on against the South Carolina Gamecocks at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 12, 2022; Gainesville, Florida, USA; Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier looks on against the South Carolina Gamecocks at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /
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Life moves fast in the modern world of college football. It is easier to post who is staying with a team rather than post a list of players who entered the transfer portal. This is certainly the case for Florida football, who have seemingly had every non-starter enter the portal since the FSU game.

In some ways, it’s a good thing for Billy Napier because he can weed out Dan Mullen’s guys even quicker and bring in his own. It also means that the old rules for giving a coach time to complete a rebuild have gone out the window.

Florida Football: Open season in the portal

Prior to the transfer portal coming into existence, a new coach needed at least 3-4 years to recruit and develop his own guys vs the guys he inherited when he took the job. With guys having to sit out if they transferred, overhauling rosters took time.

But now with the chaos created by the portal, a savvy coach can snatch up juniors and seniors to plug immediate holes. Dan Mullen, to his credit, was very aggressive in the portal and fielded rosters far better than what he recruited. His 2021 squad was ranked 7th in the 247 Talent Composite once you factored in transfers.

If Napier wants to claim that part of the reason Florida football went 6-6 this season and lost to every major rival due to a depleted roster that was left behind by Mullen, then he needs to hit the portal to find the guys he needs to flip the script.

Based on Napier’s recruiting and the guys he brought in from the portal for his first season (O’cyrus Torrence, Montrell Johnson, and Ricky Pearsall), Napier has a good eye for who to bring in and who will buy into the process. It’s not an accident that over half of Mullen’s 2021 recruiting class has already hit the portal. Mullen brought in guys that had talent physically, but struggled with the mental buy-in.

While Napier won’t want to permanently grab guys from the portal vs recruiting his own, the Gators have a lot of holes to fill heading into 2023. Florida football needs a new QB, a new guard, new defensive lineman and new linebackers, just for starters. If he can plug those holes for 2023 while developing his own, the Florida Gators will be in a good place.

And if he can’t plug those holes for 2023, he doesn’t get to claim he didn’t have the chance to.

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