Building a college football team nowadays requires traditional recruiting mixed with the comings and goings of the transfer portal. In the beginning of Year Two of the Billy Napier era, the Gators like how things are shaping up.

by Pat Dooley (BSJ ’76)

When I was a boy, I sold hotdogs at Florida football games. Sell all but one to break even, eat the last one and find a seat to watch the Gators. There were plenty places to sit back then.

Yes, we know those were the old days — really old — but so much has changed in the new world that is college football on steroids that, as much as the girls liked the hotdog hat, I’d sell programs today.

You’re going to need one.

Billy Napier is still in the process of reshaping his roster. That will continue until well after spring football, with players coming and going from the transfer portal, which closes Jan. 18 and re-opens May 1.

The portal is as important as the other recruiting process: getting players to at least start their college careers at your school. In Napier’s case, he said on Early Signing Day that he and his staff were “light years” ahead of where they were a year ago when he was fresh on the job. Last time, he went soft on the portal — although the three players he took were outstanding — and had a small recruiting class. He wanted to evaluate players who were already on campus.

That evaluation included what was shown in the locker room and on the practice field, what kind of teammate you are. Because of those evaluations, there was a purge. UF’s roster was down to 57 scholarship players (out of a possible 85) for December’s bowl game, and not all of those 57 will see the 2023 season in a Gator uniform. Some of the departed were dismissed, others encouraged to leave, and a few simply saw the handwriting on Napier’s face.

Now, in Napier’s first full season recruiting, the Gators have landed 21 players, almost all four-star recruits. He also started adding through the portal. That includes a pair of quarterbacks in Wisconsin transfer Graham Mertz and freshman Jaden Rashada, who the Gators flipped from Miami.

For Florida fans, the opener against Utah will have the fourth starting quarterback in the last three years. This is the world we live in now. Before you yell at the kids to get off your lawn and to pull up their sagging pants, know that it’s only going to get more confusing. College players now can transfer as often as they want without sitting out a year to jump from school to school chasing NIL money.

As Jerry Seinfeld said: “You’re just cheering for the laundry.” These days, you barely get to know how to pronounce a player’s name and he’s suddenly posting Twitter graphics of his commitment to Nebraska.

“Every college football coach will tell you it just adds a variable to the game,” Napier said. “It’s another part of your product.”

For the Gators, that product was less than outstanding in 2022. And with a schedule in 2023 that’s no easier (road games at Utah, LSU, Kentucky, South Carolina) it’s going to be a struggle again.

That’s why it’s important to get it right on so many levels. The Gators have a lot of work to do in the portal to fill spots where they fell short recruiting.

The portal doesn’t work all the time. It did for LSU, which took 16 players in the portal and played for the SEC title. It did for Ole Miss (17 players) and USC (20) and UCLA (13). Not so much for three teams that didn’t finish above .500: Oklahoma (6-6, 14 players from portal), Nebraska (4-8, 16) and Miami (5-7, 11).

Add into this three-pronged monster (NIL, portal, recruiting) the news in December that the state of California’s Labor Relations Board is suing Southern Cal, the NCAA and the Pac-12 because the state considers players employees, and there’s no telling what college football is going to look like in five years.

It used to be a cry from the have-nots that any time a school has success “they’re paying their players.” Now everybody is. You have to evolve or get left behind in college football.

We can all have fun with the fact that former Georgia quarterback J.T. Daniels is on his fourth team and one-time Gator Emory Jones is on his third. It was Bruce Hornsby who sang, “That’s Just the Way It Is.” You have to deal with it or give up. Because this is where we are, sliding down a slippery slope that’s only going to get faster. The Gator Nation hopes Napier is concocting a potion that’s the right mix of high school recruits and transfer portal guys.

At least he has plenty to choose from in the portal. More than 2,000 players jumped into it this season, knowing — absolutely knowing — the grass is greener. Unfortunately, if it’s like last year, half won’t land at a new school. That’s the story nobody fighting for players’ rights talks about.

For Napier and other coaches, the key is to build with solid recruiting supplemented with the portal. To that end, Napier’s just getting started.

“Time will tell if our evaluations were spot on,” he said.

Oh yeah, and then you have to make sure players you want to stick around are happy enough to give everything they have when they’re running down field to cover a kickoff.

Maybe coaches aren’t overpaid after all. I know this much, Napier and his staff have a blueprint for what they need to do to fill the roster. The good news is all but four of December’s early signees have already enrolled and will be ready for spring football practice. Eventually, Napier will be above the 85 player limit, so the purge isn’t completely over.

Just let all this wash over you. Don’t overreact to kids signing with another school. They might be on your team in a year. It can be overwhelming and confusing.

Just make sure to buy a program.

Sportswriter Pat Dooley (BSJ ’76) covered the Gators for The Gainesville Sun for 33 years until his retirement in 2020. He still shares his love for Gator sports through his podcast, “Another Dooley Noted,” and WRUF radio program, “Dooley’s Back 9.” His Gator Nation News column does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Florida.