Katie Turner describes how UF's class stands out from others she has recruited

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Unlike Billy Napier’s transition class, Florida’s 2023 signees spent several months committed to the Gators before officially signing.

Of the 20 players UF inked from the 2022 cycle, 14 pledged to the program after Napier was hired. Nine signed early, three were mid-year enrollees and 10 joined the class after the New Year.

In Napier’s first full recruiting cycle, 16 of the 20 members in Florida’s 2023 class were committed before September. All 20 signed early last Wednesday and 18 of them will enroll in January.

“I think that we’ve done a really good job of building this class up throughout the months,” UF assistant athletic director of recruiting strategy Katie Turner said on the Gators Tales podcast. “That is typically what you want to get to. That’s the goal. You want to get to a point where you have the majority of your class signed in December. You’re really just looking for a few more pieces and then you do want to be able to start turning the page to the next class. In all reality, we were behind last year.”

With 80 percent of the class in place before the start of the season, Florida’s commits had most of the summer and all fall to communicate with each other, attend games together and build relationships.

Turner has watched those interactions happen during their campus visits, as well as in a group chat that she shares with the signees and other staff members.

“I will say that the class itself as a whole, we have a group chat with them, just a few of us in recruiting and then all of our commits,” Turner said. “And as we would get a new commit, we’d add them to the group chat. And, I mean, it’s been the most active group chat that I’ve been part of in years.

“They’re recruiting each other, they’re hyping each other up, they’re excited. They are really bought in, and it’s been exciting to just witness and watch. I’ll kind of be reading the text sometimes and it’s just fun. So, I was really, really excited just about the class that we’ve been able to put together so far.”

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Turner has been involved in recruiting for almost a decade, assisting Alabama’s efforts from 2013-16 (including three No. 1 classes), helping Napier sign the Sun Belt’s No. 1 class in consecutive years (2019-20) and serving as Georgia’s director of recruiting operations for back-to-back top-3 classes (2021-22).

Her first class with Napier at UF may not be ranked as high, but it still featured Florida’s best blue-chip ratio since the program’s top-ranked class in 2010.

Turner wishes that fans could get a glimpse into how close-knit Florida’s 2023 signees are, she said, because it’s rare to have from a group of recruits.

“People can make their own opinions, but sometimes I wish they could read the texts or see the group chat and just feel that energy. I think that so many people are sometimes caught up on who we’re not getting. And it’s like, ‘But look at the class that we do have.’ They’re great players individually, and collectively, they’re really bought into the program and each other, and you don’t always get that,” Turner said. “So, it’s just been really good energy and I haven’t felt that in a long time.”