NEW YORK — This much is certain at Florida: Any doubts about coach Urban Meyer’s future with the Gators didn’t hurt their football recruiting one bit this year.
Florida landed the top-rated recruiting class in the country Wednesday, the first and by far the busiest day of the national letter of intent signing period for high school players.
“The key to recruiting is a lot like the keys to making a great sale,” said Meyer, who has won two national championships in five seasons with the Gators. “The first one is having a great product and we obviously have that here at the University of Florida.”
As usual, national signing day was mostly about the rich getting richer.
While Florida took the mythical recruiting national title — all the notable ranking services had the Gators on top — Alabama and Texas, the teams that played for the BCS title last month, also loaded up for future title runs.
Southern California and Tennessee withstood late coaching changes to land highly regarded classes. And Auburn showed it’s not about to concede the state of Alabama to coach Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide.
But the big winner was Florida, a program that seemed on the verge of disarray six weeks ago. A day after Christmas, Meyer resigned to deal with health problems. The next day he decided instead to take a leave of absence — but not until he had locked up a recruiting class loaded with many of the bluest blue-chippers in the land.
At the top of Florida’s class is Ronald Powell, a 240-pound defensive end rated the No. 1 prospect in the country by .
Residing in maybe the most fertile football state in the U.S., the Gators always stock up on homegrown talent. Sixteen of Florida’s 28 signees are from the Sunshine State. But Meyer and his staff showed off their range too.
“They do have that reach. They do have that appeal,” said Jeremy Crabtree, the national recruiting editor at . “If you’re a hot recruit, you’re going to have Florida at the top of your list.”
Powell is from Moreno Valley, Calif., near Riverside, and highly rated defensive back Joshua Shaw came to Florida from Palmdale, Calif., 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
The Gators went into the Northeast for two top defensive linemen, Sharrif Floyd of Philadelphia and Dominique Easley of New York.
“I think that’s a class that people are going to look back a couple of years from now and say, ‘Wow, this is once in a lifetime type of class,’ ” Crabtree said of the Gators’ group.
ESPNU, , SuperPrep Magazine and MaxPreps all ranked Florida at No. 1.
Texas made a strong case to be No. 2. The Longhorns’ stellar class included two of the nation’s highest-rated players in defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat of Plano, Texas, and linebacker Jordan Hicks of West Chester, Ohio.
Saban, meanwhile, restocked Alabama with another class the recruiting gurus loved. But Auburn and second-year coach Gene Chizik made the biggest splash, securing a class rated in the top 10 nationally. Auburn’s headliner came from a junior college. Former Florida quarterback Cameron Newton, who left the Gators after getting into trouble off the field, could start for the Tigers this fall.
National rankings
A look at how several recruiting websites ranked this year’s classes nationally:
RIVALS.COM
1. Florida
2. USC
3. Texas
4. Auburn
5. Alabama
6. LSU
7. Oklahoma
8. UCLA
9. Tennessee
10. Florida State
SCOUT.COM
1. Florida
2. Oklahoma
3. Texas
4. Alabama
5. Auburn
6. UCLA
7. USC
8. LSU
9. Penn State
10. Florida State
MAXPREPS.COM
1. Florida
2. Texas
3. USC
4. Oklahoma
5. LSU
6. Penn State
7. Notre Dame
8. UCLA
9. Alabama
10. Michigan
