By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Friday morning:
PUTTING AN ARMY TOGETHER
The “army” of recruiting specialists, analysts and other support staff promised by Billy Napier got a new leader Thursday when Katie Turner was hired from the University of Georgia as associate athletic director of recruiting strategy. Turner is an Alabama grad (2016) who worked with Napier at Louisiana as the director of on-campus recruiting in 2018-19. During those two years, the Ragin Cajuns had the top recruiting classes in the Sun Belt Conference.
At Georgia in 2020-21, Turner was the director of recruiting operations, helping the Bulldogs earn the No. 5 ranking for the 2021 class, the No. 3 for 2022. Napier arrived at Florida on December 5 yet still landed two 5-star and two 4-star recruits in its small, 9-man early signing day class. Turner joins a staff that already includes director of recruiting and football logistics Kyle Kazakevicius, director of player personnel Jacob LaFrance and personnel analyst Joe Hamilton. Kazakevicius, LaFrance and Hamilton followed Napier to Gainesville from Louisiana.
Napier plans to have his entire coaching staff in place before or soon after January 1, plus the majority of a recruiting/personnel department that will rival Alabama and Georgia (more than 30 each) in number. This is breaking new ground for Florida, which has fallen far behind the schools at the top of the SEC (and nation) in recruiting, in large part due to the lack of staff working full time to evaluate talent and bring it home to UF.
“I think it's the most important part of what we do as leaders is get the right people in the right positions, and there's a lot that goes into that, right,” Napier said Wednesday. “… the integrity and character of each individual, their competence, their expertise in the job that we're asking them to do, how they fit into our recruiting footprint, and it changes every time you add a person.”
GATORS TRY TO GET BACK ON WINNING TRACK SATURDAY VS. USF
Having lost three of their last four games, the Gators (7-3) will try to get back on track Saturday when they play host to South Florida (4-4) in the annual Orange Bowl Classic at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise. It marks the first time in 19 years the Gators and Bulls have met in basketball.
After starting the season at 6-0 while ascending to the No. 12 national ranking, the Gators have gone into a slump that has its roots in poor shooting. The Gators have hit just 25 of their last 98 3-pointers (25.5 percent) and for the season they’re a very poor 30.9 percent. With just one more out-of-conference game (December 22 vs. Stony Brook) remaining before the first SEC game (December 29 at Ole Miss), the Gators need to figure things out in a hurry because the SEC should be tougher from top to bottom of the league than any time in history.
The shooting might improve if the Gators passed the basketball better. Their assist-to-turnover ratio is 125-to-123, a sure sign that they’re sloppy with the ball and they don’t pass it well.
SEC Basketball
Friday’s game: Furman (7-4) at Mississippi State (7-3)
Saturday’s games: South Florida (4-4) vs. FLORIDA (7-3) in Sunrise, FL; No. 18 Tennessee (8-2) at Memphis (6-4); Austin Peay (4-5) at Vanderbilt (5-4); Utah (7-3) at Missouri (5-5); No. 15 Ohio State (8-2) at No. 21 Kentucky (7-2) Postponed COVID; Dayton (7-4) at Ole Miss (7-3); No. 19 LSU (9-0) at Louisiana Tech (8-2); George Mason (5-5) at Georgia (4-5); Hofstra (6-5) at No. 24 Arkansas (9-1); Texas A&M (7-2) at Oregon State (1-9); South Carolina (8-2) at Clemson (7-4); Jacksonville State (5-5) at No. 6 Alabama (8-2); No. 13 Auburn (9-1) at Saint Louis (8-3)
OVER, UNDER, AROUND AND THROUGH THE SEC
Alabama: Ty Simpson, Alabama’s 5-star quarterback signee, will be joining the Crimson Tide at football practice beginning this week. He will enroll early and will be practicing with the team throughout its run in the College Football Playoff. Describing Simpson to the media Wednesday, Nick Saban called his new QB a “football junkie.”
Arkansas: Former 4-star wide receiver Darin Turner is in the transfer portal. He spent two years at Arkansas without making a single catch.
Auburn: Three Auburn players including All-America corner Roger McCreary are opting out of the Birmingham Bowl matchup with Houston. In addition to McCreary, starting right tackle Brodarius Hamm and linebacker Zakoby McClain will not play. McClain led the team with 95 tackles in 2021.
Georgia: In a sign that he might return to Georgia in 2022 even though he is draft eligible, wide receiver George Pickens has signed an NIL deal with BRADY, the apparel company that was begun by Tom Brady.
Kentucky: Wide receiver Devonte Ross, who signed with Kentucky in 2021 but didn’t make it to school, has signed with former Kentucky assistant Jon Sumrall, the new HBC at Troy.
LSU: The big news at LSU was quarterback Myles Brennan has removed his name from the transfer portal and will return for the 2022 season. Brennan was injured in the third game of 2021 after throwing 11 touchdown passes, then was injured in August of 2022 and never saw the field … Former Florida International O-lineman Miles Frazier is transferring to LSU, choosing the Tigers over offers from Florida State and Ohio State … Wide receiver Trey Palmer, who caught 30 passes for 344 yards and three touchdowns in 2021, is in the transfer portal.
Mississippi State: The NCAA has granted offensive lineman LaQuinston Sharp, who made five starts at right guard, an extra year of eligibility. He had his sophomore year at East Mississippi Community College cut short because of injury and the 2020 COVID season doesn’t count, so this will be his sixth year of college football.
Missouri: Trajan Jeffcoat, an All-SEC edge rusher in 2020 who slumped badly in 2021, will return to Mizzou for the 2022 season.
Ole Miss: Former Auburn corner Ladarius Tennison, who played in 20 games over two seasons, is transferring to Ole Miss. He was a 4-star recruit out of Rockledge High School in Brevard County.
South Carolina: After an official visit to South Carolina, where he transferred, former Oklahoma tight end Austin Stogner began talking quarterback transfer Spencer Rattler about being a package deal. Now South Carolina has a serious upgrade both at the tight end and quarterback positions.
Tennessee: Tennessee has added UTEP of Conference USA to its 2024 schedule. UTEP will get a $1.6 million to visit Neyland Stadium.
Texas A&M: Texas A&M associate athletic director for football Marshall Malchow has been hired as Dan Lanning’s chief of staff at Oregon. Malchow and Lanning worked together at Georgia in 2018-19.
Vanderbilt: Vanderbilt is expected to lose defensive line coach Inoke Breckterfield to Washington.
THE PORTAL GIVETH AND THE PORTAL TAKETH AWAY
Former UCF quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who threw for 70 touchdowns in a little more than two seasons, is transferring to UCLA.
Former Indiana quarterback Michael Penix, a Tampa native, is transferring to Washington, which seems strange since the new UDub coach came from Fresno State and he’s being followed by QB Jake Haener, who threw for 3,810 yards and 32 touchdowns last season at Fresno State. Penix, who has never made it through an entire season healthy, has thrown for 25 touchdown passes in his collegiate career.
Former Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez is transferring to Kansas State. At Nebraska, Martinez threw for 8,495 yards and 45 touchdowns, while running for 2,288 yards and 35 TDs.
Jayson Jones, a former 4-star recruit whose home is Calera, Alabama, is transferring out of Oregon. He had 19 tackles and 1.5 sacks as a freshman in 2021.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Back in July, while talking to the Texas Coaches Association, Nick Saban said quarterback Bryce Young had already secured an outrageous amount of NIL money. “Our QB has already approached ungodly numbers and he hasn’t even played yet,” Saban said. “If I told you what it is … it’s almost 7-figures.” Here we are five months later, Young’s NIL money tops $1 million and he’s won a Heisman Trophy. He’s got another year to play at Alabama and it’s not unfathomable that Young could get several million dollars more in NIL money.
At the time he made those remarks, Saban was quick to point out that the big bucks for Young were possible because of Alabama’s brand. When you think of college football and winning championships, your first thought is Alabama since the Crimson Tide have won six of them since 2009 and they’re the number one seed in this year’s College Football Playoff.
The toothpaste is out of the tube and it’s not going back in so NIL is here to stay, but something needs to be done to regulate it. It’s one thing for a company like Dr. Pepper can give a QB like Clemson’s D.J. Uiagalelei money to appear in a commercial but when an organization such as Horns with a Heart is willing to pay every Texas O-lineman $50,000 a year for their participation in “charity work” the system has gone completely haywire.
Do you think for even one second that offensive linemen everywhere are going to practically beg Texas for an offer? Do you think for even one more second that Aggie boosters are going to let their Texas brethren offer that kind of money without countering with even more. There is that old saying in Texas that only God and the Longhorns have more money than the Aggies, but the Aggies make everyone else in college sports seem like paupers.
Why are we engaging in what amounts to bidding wars for 18-year-old kids who are in a developmental sport of which maybe 1.5 percent will ever make it on to professional football? What can we do to bring some common sense back into the sport before it destroys itself?
The one thing that seems more obvious by the day to me is that it’s time for college football to break completely away from the NCAA and hire a commissioner. Greg Sankey comes to mind immediately. The new organization needs to completely scrap the NCAA model and set up new, enforceable standards for membership, recruiting and yes, even NIL deals.
As I see it, it’s either do away with the NCAA’s thumb on college football altogether by forming a new organization with its own commissioner instead of the inept Mark Emmert or face the possibility of Congress stepping in to regulate. I’m not trying to sound political here, but I do recall the words of Ronald Reagan, who once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
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