Grand Opening: Gators kick off June with school-record 17 official visitors

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Gators made a lot of noise on the recruiting trail to open the “quiet period” in June. And while the first weekend hasn’t produced any public pledges yet, Florida’s top-five class — currently at eight commitments — will reach double digits in the coming weeks.

Nonetheless, it’s already been deemed successful weekend on several fronts. The Gators made a move for multiple targets (most notably Jordan Ross and his mother), helped themselves with some flip candidates and had one of their top commits, Adarius Hayes, shut down his recruitment.

UF debuted its state-of-the-art “SwampVū” production studio for official visit use and had a new Swamp-themed photoshoot in the locker room, along with another setup that featured a Slingshot motorcycle. And of course, Gators coach Billy Napier drove recruits around in a Maybach Benz.

Napier and his coaches, assistant AD of recruiting strategy Katie Turner, director of player personnel Jacob LaFrance and Florida’s entire recruiting staff just pulled off the biggest official visit weekend in program history — literally.

Florida hosted a modern recruiting era school-record 17 official visitors from June 2-4, surpassing the previous high of 15. And the Gators aren’t putting all their eggs in one basket, with 14 official visitors set for this weekend and 13 more scheduled on June 16.

The vast majority of UF’s visitors this month are top recruits with other trips planned to programs such as Georgia, Florida State, LSU and Ohio State. They’re going to check out their options before making a decision, especially the elite players.

“People always expect 5-7 commitments,” Gators Online’s Keith Niebuhr said on The Inside Scoop. “It’s not how many commitments you get that day, that Sunday, that Monday or that following week. It’s how many of those guys, when you go back in August and September, ended up in your class.

“Did you lay the groundwork for them to become Florida Gators? The staff at Florida, the coaches, the behind-the-scenes people, they think they have laid the groundwork for Florida to be in position to land multiple players that visited over the weekend.”

Grand opening, grand closing.

RELATED: How many June official visitors will UF sign?

Florida’s 17 official visitors last weekend included a trio of five-stars, seven top-100 overall recruits, 11 top-200 prospects and 14 blue chips. How does that compare to other notable OV lists over the last 20 years?

UF has hosted 10 or more official visitors just nine times in two decades, and it’s been done twice by Napier in back-to-back cycles. He and his staff had 11 players on campus at once during the 2023 class.

The other seven weekends with double-digit official visitors included Urban Meyer (11 in 2006), Will Muschamp (10 in 2012), Jim McElwain (10 in 2017) and four more below.

Here are the top five UF recruiting weekends since 2005 based the largest number of visitors, how highly ranked they were, and the total signees produced. The information below was compiled via the On3 and 247Sports databases.

5. 12 official visitors, Jan. 27, 2017 (2017 class)

Five stars: 1 — LaBryan Ray (Alabama)

Top-100: 2

Top-200: 5

Blue chips: 8

Florida signees: 5

Notable visitors: K’Lavon Chaisson (LSU), Devonte Wyatt (UGA), Brad Stewart

4. 12 official visitors, Dec. 9, 2011 (2012 class)

Five stars: 3 — Nelson Agholor (USC), Josh Harvey-Clemons (Georgia), Darius Hamilton (Rutgers)

Top-100: 5

Top-200: 7

Blue chips: 10

Florida signees: 8

Notable visitors: Marcus Maye, Antonio Morrison

3. 14 official visitors, Dec. 7, 2018 (2019 class)

Five stars: 1 — Kayvon Thibodeaux (Rutgers)

Top-100: 5

Top-200: 7

Blue chips: 9

Florida signees: 10

Notable visitors: Tyrique Stevenson (UGA/Miami)

2. 15 official visitors, Jan. 30, 2015 (2015 class)

Five stars: None

Top-100: None

Top-200: None

Blue chips: 5

Florida signees: 9

Notable visitors: Lamar Jackson (Louisville), Antonio Callaway

1. 17 official visitors, June 2, 2023 (2024 class)

Five stars: 3 — DJ Lagway (Florida), Jeremiah Smith (Ohio State), David Stone

Top-100: 7

Top-200: 11

Blue chips: 14

Florida signees: TBD