Florida Football Recruiting: ESD filled with highs and lows for Gator fans

Early Signing Day for Florida Football has come and mostly gone, and for the most part, it was a quiet day for the Gators. Unlike the days of old when people went into signing day under the shade of mystery of which players would actually go where most players were locked in prior to Wednesday.

As the dust is settling, the following are three high points from the day and three low points from Early Signing Day 2024

High: Florida only had one player flip away

Last year, as Florida's recruiting class fell apart, the Gators had players flip away from the program left and right all the way up to signing day.

This year, the only surprise for the Gators was tight end Tae'shaun Gelsey not signing, apparently because he really wants to play wide receiver. But Jeramiah McCloud, who had been long rumored to be a flip to Georgia, did wind up putting pen to paper along with everyone else who was a verbal commit prior to Wednesday.

Low: Dallas Wilson didn't actually flip

The biggest letdown of the day was that five-star wide receiver Dallas Wilson didn't actually flip to the Gators. Wilson has been a longtime Oregon commit, but in the last month there seemed to be smoke he might actually flip to Florida.

On Wednesday morning, multiple insiders logged predictions that Wilson was, in fact, going to flip but apparently had a last-second change of heart and will be off to Eugene in 2025.

High: Florida loaded up at defensive back

While Florida missed out on Wilson, they did formally flip Lagonza Hayward and Hylton Stubbs. Both were players the Gators have been pursuing for a while and Florida was able to flip Hayward from Tennessee and Stubs from Miami.

Along with Ben Hanks Jr. the Gators have three defensive backs coming to Gainesville ranked in the top 100 overall in the 247 Composite.

Low: The offensive line added just one four-star

Tavaris Dice is another flip the Gators gained from Auburn, and as we wrote about over the weekend, he is a physical menace with a mean streak to him.

But the Gators didn't flip five-star offensive tackle Solomon Thomas, and the reality is that Florida has just one offensive lineman ranked in the top 700 overall and/or the top 50 among linemen.

High: Florida finished strong

Florida's recruiting class was dead in the water a month ago, and the idea Florida would get a top-ten class seemed far-fetched.

But alas, with three wins to close out the season and a claimed emphasis on NIL spending, the Gators were able to surge from outside the top 50 into the top ten for a brief moment before settling into 11th, ahead of teams like Miami, Notre Dame, USC, Penn State, FSU, and Clemson.

And if Billy Napier's evaluations pan out, this could be a great class down the road.

Low: Florida's class is solid, not "elite"

This is always a nuanced discussion to have. If one were to give this class a letter grade, it would probably get a B. Florida's class of 2025 has a number of players we have chronicled on this site that we do like; we just wish there were more of them.

The difference between a "B" class and an "A" class is that in a "B" class, you have to hit on some of the lower-rated guys for the class to pan out, whereas in an "A" class, you have a greater margin for error if a couple of guys don't work out.

And what makes a conversation like this impossible is that we won't know the answer as to whether certain guys pan out until further down the road.