GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida didn't take many prospects in the Early Signing Period, inking just nine players to National Letters of Intent. That was mostly by design.
If there's one thing new coach Billy Napier doesn't want to do, it's make a mistake early on by moving too quickly. So each of the nine players that signed on Wednesday were thoroughly vetted by Napier and his fledgling personnel department at UF.
"I think they fit the critical factors at each position," Napier said. "If you look at the group, there's a lot of height and length. I think there's verified speed, there's functional movement. Certainly we have been through our process from beginning to end. I think we're about as thorough as we can be."
Translation: We really like each of those nine players we signed and deemed them to be both necessary to fill the roster out, while also fitting the kind of culture we want to build.
Napier has made one thing abundantly clear since arriving at Florida. He loves solving the yearly question of what it takes to build a competent and successful roster. In some ways, it's what makes college football unique.
Not only do you get to recruit your own roster from start to finish, but you get to do so without some of the limits and constraints in sports leagues like the NFL. The resources provided to get you there in developing a roster are completely up to the program you're at.
"We love to do it, and I think it's a big part," Napier said. "You go back to the analogy of growing up watching my dad as a high school coach, right? He didn't get to decide who was on his team. He just had to coach the players in the community.
"I think it's part of the competition to me is you get to build your roster. You get to hand-select the individual players that you want to be a part of your team, not only from a talent perspective but I think all these intangibles that really separate the good player from the great player, and I think that all these young men fit what we're looking for."
That's not to say that the process simply ends at landing a good set of players to form a roster. In fact, that's only the beginning.
Once on campus, players have to begin buying in even further to the team-oriented concept. They have to start to understand the process, or "the Journey," as Napier calls it, to becoming the best players they can be.
Nutrition, strength and conditioning, classwork... all that is part of it.
No one is above improving themselves in every aspect of the program. Discipline, accountability, those are factors to making Napier's vision for the program turn into reality.
"Now the real work begins," Napier said. "Take the stars off, start at the bottom, earn your way, and we'll begin that process. A lot of these guys are mid-year players and they're going to have a chance to show up here on January 4th and contribute to the team."
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