{"id":11287,"date":"2017-12-12T08:00:49","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T13:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosoncfb.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=11287"},"modified":"2018-01-03T22:00:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T03:00:44","slug":"three-things-florida-needs-early-signing-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2017\/12\/12\/three-things-florida-needs-early-signing-period\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Things Florida Needs to do Before Early Signing Period"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the early signing period approaching, the Gators still have things to do with recruits and their coaching staff. The Gators have to move quickly and make some moves before the early signing period, and there are still a few questions marks going around the football program. New head coach\u00a0Dan Mullen<\/strong><\/a> and the Florida Gators still need to secure or land recruits and hire another coach. Here are three things the Florida Gators must do before the early signing period.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
    Lock up Matt Corral<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In the past few weeks, the Florida Gators QB commit Matt Corral has taken official visits to Alabama and Ole Miss. Florida fans are starting to get worried about their QB commit leaving the class to another SEC school. Dan Mullen and his staff will host their top commit as he will be taking an official visit to Florida this weekend. Mullen will also fly to California for an in-home visit with Corral and his family. Mullen has also hired Houston offensive coordinator Brian Johnson<\/strong><\/a> to be his QB coach at Florida. If everything goes as planned, Corral will sign with the Gators and enroll early. Corral will compete with Feleipe Franks<\/strong><\/a> and Kyle Trask<\/strong> for the starting quarterback job in the upcoming spring and fall camp.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \n
      Hire a DB Coach<\/h5>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Dan Mullen has done a great job of retaining and hiring coaches to his staff. There are still a few positions open for the Gators, but the biggest position they need to hire the defensive back coach. The Florida Gators secondary has a reputation of being \u201cDBU\u201d with all of the great defensive back that have come out of Florida. Corey Bell<\/strong> was not retained by\u00a0Dan Mullen, but they are a few big names out there for the Gators. Florida\u2019s top choice for the defensive back coaching position is Patrick Surtain Sr.<\/strong> He was a Pro Bowl corner in the NFL for ten seasons but now coaches at American Heritage. Surtain would be\u00a0a slam dunk\u00a0hire with his ties to South Florida. His son his son, Patrick Surtain Jr.<\/strong>, could end\u00a0signing with Florida.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \n
        Sign most of their class<\/h5>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        The Florida Gators currently have 14 commits in their class and at least half are expected to enroll early. Players like Matt Corral, Dameon<\/strong> Pierce,<\/strong> and Randy Russell<\/strong> are expected to sign on December 20th<\/sup>. Even those who aren\u2019t enrolling early should sign with the Gators on the early signing period. Having recruits committed but not signing shows that they\u2019re still looking at other schools. Dan Mullen needs to secure the majority of his class so he can focus on the remaining targets who\u2019ll sign on National Signing Day. This is a huge class for the Gators as they could finish inside the top ten if they land a few top-ranked recruits.<\/p>\n

        Main Photo Credit:<\/p>\n

        \"\"
        GAINESVILLE, FL – NOVEMBER 27: A detailed view of a National Championship ring worn by Florida Gators head football coach Dan Mullen as he speaks during an introductory press conference at the Bill Heavener football complex on November 27, 2017 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by Rob Foldy\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        With the early signing period approaching, the Gators still have things to do with recruits and their coaching staff. The Gators have to move quickly and make some moves before the early signing period, and there are still a few questions marks going around the football program. New head coach\u00a0Dan Mullen and the Florida Gators […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2113,"featured_media":11299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[79,1407,2659,1197,244,1954,126,2658,20],"class_list":["post-11287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sec","category-featured","tag-college-football","tag-college-football-recruiting","tag-dameon-pierce","tag-dan-mullen","tag-florida-gators","tag-matt-corral","tag-ncaa","tag-randy-russell","tag-sec"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}