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Florida Football: No news is good news for Gators on Early Signing Day

By Benjamin Henderson

GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 05: Head Coach Billy Napier of the Florida Gators speaks during a press conference introducing him to the Media at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on December 05, 2021 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 05: Head Coach Billy Napier of the Florida Gators speaks during a press conference introducing him to the Media at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on December 05, 2021 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images) /
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In the not-too-distant past, Signing Day was a reason to take the day off from work and follow all the top recruits making their announcements in rapid succession. Then Early Signing Day came along, and it simply moved the rapid-fire nature to December. Now with the majority of players making their commitments in the summer, yesterday’s Early Signing Day was merely an exercise in getting all the Florida football commits to putting their names on the dotted line.

In the end, it was a quiet day for the Gators and Billy Napier. And that’s just fine.

Florida Football: Times have changed

The only mild drama that Florida football fans seemed to have to worry about yesterday was whether or not Jaden Rashada was going to sign his National Letter of Intent. It was mild because there were Twitter rumors he could flip to Oregon but beyond speculation, there was no concrete evidence he would do so.

When Rashada did sign his letter, all 20 commits that were expected to sign with Florida had in fact signed. The only other real question mark was WR Andy Jean, who stuck with the Gators rather than signing with FSU.

Of course, there were those on Twitter trying to act like losing out on Isaiah Nixon was a big deal for Florida football. The Gators signed a bevy of highly-rated defensive linemen, so it is a loss they could afford to have.

And compared to what happened to Miami, losing Nixon was child’s play. Top-rated corner back Cormani McClain committed to Miami over Florida in October, but when it came time for McClain to sign yesterday, he was notably absent and the belief is that he could flip to Colorado to play for Dieon Sanders. One also can’t rule out Alabama or even if flip back to Florida.

Baylor, Notre Dame, and LSU also all had players flip yesterday to sign with Oregon, giving the Ducks a top-10 class out of nowhere.

There are still players Florida could land and right now Florida sits 12th in the 247 rankings. The main reason for the drop in ranking is having 20 players signed compared to every school ahead of Florida (minus Ohio State and Texas) having at least 24 players signed. The Gators are tied for 6th in the country with the most blue-chip recruits signed and are only one of three schools in the top 100 that have no more than two three-star guys committed (Alabama and Ohio State being the other two).

Billy Napier in time will need to start landing the elite talent if he wants to consistently compete against Alabama and Georgia. But his class of 2023 is filled with quality players without the filler. And the most important thing on Wednesday is that all of those players are signed.

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