Senior offensive lineman Mike Pouncey has some advice for Florida’s highly touted recruiting class.
And it has nothing to do with adjusting to the speed of college football, living away from home for the first time or better understanding the game.
“At the end of the day the freshmen need to just shut their mouth and come play,” Pouncey said. “They haven’t done anything on Saturday, and most of the fans don’t even know who they are. So, until they prove themselves, they just need to sit back and let the older guys play.”
The Gators brought in the second-best recruiting class in the nation, according to Rivals.com, signing four five-star and 17 four-star players.
Three of those five-star prospects — Dominique Easley, Sharrif Floyd and Ronald Powell — are defensive linemen, which has led to plenty of expectations and hyperbole for the group.
“Ronald Powell is Chris Bosh, Sharrif [Floyd] is Dwyane Wade and I’m LeBron [James],” Easley said at UF’s Media Day, drawing a comparison to the Miami Heat’s free-agent class.
Pouncey said the trio isn’t as cocky as some of the other freshmen, but Easley’s quote shows a little of bit of what concerns Urban Meyer with the season opener less than two weeks away.
“You have 25 young players — or whatever it is — that think they’re going to go dominate the way they did in high school, and they have no idea what’s about to hit them,” Meyer said.
Meyer has a reputation for playing his best players regardless of seniority, and that won’t be any different this season.
The veteran players are counted on to make sure the rookies understand how demanding a college football season can be.
“You don’t want to beat up on them and tear down their confidence, you want to help them,” redshirt senior Carl Johnson said. “You want to show your dominance but also be a great teammate. So I think that’s one thing veteran guys do here.
“It’s kind of like a father-son lesson.”
Redshirt senior linebacker A.J. Jones remembers coming in with the 2006 recruiting class that included Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin and Brandon Spikes.
Jones said his class, which also included Johnson, was just as cocky, but the older players on the team helped humble them and let them know that their time would come.
“A lot of them come in [cocky]. A lot got to adjust fast,” Jones said. “Us older guys just try to tell them, ‘We had to wait our turn to play. It was rough at the beginning, but just keep working hard and everything will get better.’”
Meyer said this recruiting class might come across more arrogant or entitled than previous classes simply because there are so many heralded freshmen — 25 to be exact, after Jordan Haden and Adrian Coxson decided to transfer.
Arrogance aside, having that many freshmen who can potentially contribute to winning right away is a good problem for a head coach.
“That’s kind of standard operating procedure when you get a highly recruited player, but it seems like we have more of them, which is good,” Meyer said. “They’ll learn to do it.”