How the remainder of Florida’s schedule impacts their upcoming recruiting class

Florida dropped their first conference game of the season this weekend, falling to Kentucky 33-14 on Saturday which represents their fifth straight loss on the road or at a neutral site under Billy Napier. The Gators drop to 3-2 on the season and with a tough SEC schedule ahead of them every single game counts, and could even potentially impact them in recruiting.

On3’s Andy Staples spoke with Gators Online’s Nick De La Torre about the remainder of the Gators’ schedule and if a bad season could negatively impact their upcoming class, as De La Torre forecasted the remainder of the year broke down what Florida needs to do to maintain.

“Before the year I said 7-5, that’s still certainly on the table,” De La Torre said. “The key to me, the lynchpin of it all is DJ Lagway. He’s the kind of player if you watched ‘Swamp Kings’ and people were like, ‘I want to play with Tim Tebow‘, people want to play with DJ Lagway and I think he’s all Gators.”

Lagway is one of two five-star commitments currently in Florida’s 2024 recruiting class, which ranks No. 3 in the SEC and No. 4 in the entire country according to On3’s Industry Ranking. And he believes that holding onto those two commitments along with a solid finish to the season can ensure Florida a bright future beyond the 2023 season.

“So you might lose a player here or there, but the two that I think are really important are Xavier Filsaime, who’s a safety, the number one player in the class right now according to our rankings from Texas, and DJ Lagway. You’ve kind of got your best offensive and best defensive player, right now those guys are both bought in and they’re guys that other people want to play with,” De La Torre explained.

“Now listen Andy, if the bottom falls out of this thing and Florida doesn’t win a game the rest of the year we might be having a different discussion. But I think Florida will be a 6-6 or a 7-5 team and you’ll keep most of this class together.”

Four of the Gators’ last five opponents are currently ranked in the top 25, which naturally makes Florida fans look ahead at their schedule to forecast if they can take care of business and in turn sustain their current recruiting class.

“I don’t know if I’ll call Vanderbilt must-win games, but that’s certainly a must not lose and if you start counting that out, if you want to get to seven wins, you have to count Vanderbilt on that,” De La Torre said. “You probably have to count at South Carolina, but the way Florida’s looked on the road under Billy Napier, I don’t know if you can.”

Florida’s next two games versus the Commodores and the Gamecocks may seem like typical SEC East matchups, but could play a major impact in the recruiting space as every game seemingly has higher stakes moving forward.

Florida hosts Vanderbilt this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. ET in a game airing on SEC Network.