Explaining how programs in Florida have struggled to keep pace in college football

Throughout most of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, at least one team from the state of Florida was in contention to win the college football national title.

Miami, Florida and Florida State combined for 10 national titles during those three decades, and they were in the running for several more.

All three programs have fallen off in recent years, though. Miami hasn’t won more than eight games in a season since 2017, while the Gators haven’t surpassed the eight-win mark since 2019. FSU did win 13 games last season in an impressive year for Mike Norvell, but FSU also had four straight losing seasons from 2018-2021.

On3’s Andy Staples, who played college football at UF, recently joined the Gramlich and Mac Lain podcast and shared why college football in the Sunshine State has gone downhill.

“Well, I think everyone else figured out how good players in Florida were. Like if you look at rosters from the ‘90s, everybody just kind of stuck to their own geographic region,” Staples said. “The Florida, Florida State and Miami teams… Miami would go, they had their pockets, like they’d go to California and get a quarterback. They had those good Canadian offensive linemen in the late ‘90s, early 2000s.

“But for the most part, Florida, Florida State and Miami were getting most of their talent from the state of Florida or from South Georgia.”

That worked out well for those three schools as other college football powers were also recruiting their own local areas. However, for the most part, that talent wasn’t as good as what was coming out of the Sunshine State.

“Alabama got most of its talent from Alabama or Georgia or Mississippi – bordering states. It’s not like that anymore,” Staples said. “Now everybody just goes and gets the best players.”

Staples used Alabama going to Florida and landing really good receivers over and over and over again as an example of teams now coming into the Sunshine State and landing top recruits.

“Think of the run Alabama had with Florida receivers – Amari Cooper, Jerry Jeudy, there was always somebody coming out of the state of Florida. They did so great with South Florida receivers at Alabama – Calvin Ridley is another one,” Staples said. “And now Jeremiah Smith, a South Florida receiver, going to Ohio State. I’m telling you right now, he’s as advertised. Like, he may be the best receiver in the country as a true freshman at Ohio State. You notice none of those guys are going to [UF], [FSU] or Miami.”