Florida loses four-star commits Brown, Jones

By Adam Silverstein
December 6, 2014

Florida Gators football’s already-depleted 2015 class became even worse off on Saturday when its top two commitments – four stars offensive lineman George Brown (Cincinnati, OH) and quarterback Sheriron Jones (Moreno Valley, CA) – decommitted from the program, according to 247Sports.com’s Ryan Bartow.

Respectively rated the No. 183 and No. 218 overall players in the nation by Rivals, Brown and Jones were Florida’s only remaining consensus four-star commitments. Their decommitments came on the same day UF head coach Jim McElwain held his introductory press conference, with Brown flipping to LSU.

In late October, the Gators lost a pair of four-star linebackers – Jerome Baker (Cleveland, OH) and Adonis Thomas (Lawrenceville, GA) – in a three-day span. Baker was the No. 36 overall player in the country as rated by Rivals, and Thomas was ranked No. 68 overall by ESPN.

Florida’s recruiting class stood at 11 members in mid-October; the Gators have since lost their four highest-rated pledges and no longer have a single consensus four-star-rated prospect on their commitment list.

UF only has seven commitments with two months until National Signing Day. The Gators have the lowest-rated signing class of any team either in the Southeastern Conference or their own state.

In fact, Florida’s three biggest rivals – Florida State, Georgia and Tennessee – have the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 5-ranked recruiting classes, respectively, each with 20-26 commitments.

20 Comments

  1. SB says:

    Not a surprise.

    • g8ter27 says:

      Nope Jones is not the type of qb that McElwain normally has. I bet Grier is excited about the hire. Time to start over with recruiting for this season.

  2. Bill says:

    Everyone who wanted Muschamp back for another year. This is your fault

    • Frank says:

      Perspective is an interesting thing Bill…I was thinking the same thing. Except I was focused instead on the fans and media who made this season look sooo much worse than it actually was and painted Coach Muschamp as such a bad fellow. My point is we shouldn’t blame fellow fans for the choices made by often immature young athletes who can’t decide between a #1 meal or a #5 meal at Burger King. The sad thing for these and others who have de-committed is they’re going to miss out on a really great experience with Coach Mac…and probably a national championship very soon! GO Gators!!!

  3. Daniel M. says:

    Jones? Meh.

    Brown? The Gators don’t have much wiggle room there.

  4. Sharon M says:

    With all the changes and a poor performance the last two years this can be expected.

    May take a few years to build the program back up.

  5. BIGGATOR says:

    Let them go somewhere else,trust me they are making a HUGE MISTAKE not playing for McElwain! in two years time,players will be begging to play for this man! GO GATORS!

    • 1974Gator says:

      This makes no sense. They should be begging to play for him now! Give me 5 minutes on the phone with either of these baby ducks and I can sell them on why they should reconsider. Coach Mac should be able to do the same tomorrow AM when he starts making contacts with those on the list and that have de-committed.
      We have to remember that these are 18-19 year old Boys (underline Boys). Their hormones are raging and they are being told lots of malicious stuff about our program nowadays.
      Brown is the one screwing himself. If he ever thought he wanted to play in an offensive mastermind’s system and start as a freshman this is his chance!
      Let’s give Mac a week or two before we start maligning the poor state of affairs our recruiting class is in.

  6. Dpett98 says:

    Call it what you want, but even people with orange & blue glasses can see that this is bad news. The expectation was that Foley would hire a coach that would not only impress and retain the currently committed recruits, but also flip some other. No matter how you look at it this is bad. Coach Mac probably not get the 2- 3 years needed to rebuild if he doesn’t show immediate improvement. That won’t happen without recruiting (offensive and defensive lineman in particular).

    • Ken (CA) says:

      This is just silly. The new coach hasn’t even had a chance to contact the recruits yet and have good discussions with them and their parents. He hasn’t even met the team yet. He was announced and with little information they quit. If they want to come back and if he wants them to come back there is plenty of time to get to know them and build relationships. There are also an amazing number of 5 star recruits who are waiting to hear from him and find out his philosophy before they make any decision.

      Disappointing? Not really, as immediate defections typically happen on a coaching change. Likely to be some transfers from current players as well. If we are sitting on 7 2 and 3 star recruits in Feb, then I will be concerned, but until then it is a very flexible situation. Even with the dead period looming, there is still a lot of time to do a lot of recruiting, especially once we secures who will remain on the staff and what the full staff will be.

  7. Gatorgrad79 says:

    Kids want to win a NC now – not in 2-4 years. That said, you might think a recruit would look for where he could start as a freshman or after a red-shirt year so he could go the NFl asap, not sit for 2 -3 years and then play as a Jr. Whatever the case, we need lineman BAD! If that means recruiting some grown men from some 2 yr colleges to start immediately while high school recruiting gets turned around, I trust Coach Mac to figure it out…

  8. Dpett98 says:

    I’m Not saying that we’re doomed yet. It’s just not the news that you want to here right after your new coach’s introduction presser. Hopefully Coach Mac can work some magic, but it won’t be easy.

  9. 1974Gator says:

    Get a grip and take some deep breathes people!

  10. Oldflyer says:

    I live in the “Inland Empire” (pretentious? yes, but it is Ca.) of SoCal and can’t say that I have heard of Jones before he committed to UF. Maybe I just missed him.

    So, if USC, UCLA, SDSU, Arizona, and Arizona State,even Fresno State, were letting him get away, is there a message there?

    Losing an Olineman is more serious, but how many are you gonna steal from Ohio even when things are calm?

    I understand from other sources that a number of good Florida boys are perking up their ears now.

  11. Alex says:

    Don’t care about the QB but we need as many OL as possible

  12. Cavan says:

    Some good points made. I don’t think we should worry too much about recruiting just yet. We have a proven coach now and he has turned 2 stars into 1st round picks. And we have some talent already. I feel a lot better already with just the coaching change. After the 2013 season we all endured. This should have already happen. Late February is when we can really talk about the recruiting anyway. I looking at a glass half full now even if it takes another 7-8 win season… Until we get back to SEC championship contention, maybe even a BCS bowl. Go Gators!

Join The
Discussion

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Top
WordPress Appliance - Powered by TurnKey Linux