Off the top of your head how many players have we flipped from the gators? Or how many important recruiting battles have we beaten them compared to them beating us for legit players we both wanted.
The issue is not whether we have flipped Gaytor verbals, the issue is whether the Gaytors have flipped Miami verbals.
So let's give full and fair disclosure on everything. It's hard to say what the score is on "players we both wanted". Everyone is going to have a different story on whether a kid was a "take", or had a "committable offer", or if a school "backed off".
From the standpoint of official UF decommits that later chose Miami (and in the same timeframe as the article), we only have Nigel Bethel, who took about 6 weeks to choose Miami after decommitting from UF. So, by my working definition, NOT a flip.
The bigger problem is that from the 2015 class up through the 2020 class (thus far), Miami has had 88 decommits, while UiF has had 61. Some of these decommits (at both schools) ultimately chose to recommit. More telling, though, is that for this 6-year class-window, Miami has had more decommits than UiF in every year except one (Class of 2018), when we had a seemingly secure Richt and UiF had the shark-fvcker.
There is an important issue and a "who-cares" issue here. First, we have to look at what is going on with decommits, particularly with SoFla kids, which I believe impacts Miami more heavily, even when we seem to have a secure head coach. And in a not-so-shocking "who cares" analysis, yes, if Miami has more decommits, then STATISTICALLY speaking, some of them are going to choose UiF. Or F$U. Or Clemson. Or Alabama. Or Georgia.
So if anyone cares to look at our 88 decommits, we could try to figure out how many chose those other big schools in the southeast. Because then you could argue that all of these other schools have a "history" of "stealing" Miami recruits.
I'd like to see Manny get us back to single-digit decommits in any given year. That's fairly straightforward.
And, yes, decommits DO end up choosing another school. Big deal. Several chose UiF. Only 7 Gaytor Flipz in 6 years. That's 7 more than I would prefer, but it makes the Gaytors fans feel all warm and fuzzy at night.
Let's see how they feel when they go to sleep on August 24th.
