While it’s still much too early to be very concerned about recruiting rankings, that reality is never going to stop SEC fans from hovering their hands over the proverbial panic button when they see their school listed near the bottom of the league recruiting rankings.

That’s a situation many Gator fans find themselves in as Dan Mullen’s first full recruiting class for Florida currently ranks 10th in the SEC and 31st in the nation with the recruiting calendar halfway to the next early signing period. Mullen hasn’t coached a single game yet as Florida’s head coach so until he proves just how high he can elevate the program in Gainesville, he isn’t likely to lure an elite recruiting class to the Swamp, anyway.

Besides, Mullen’s forte is much more about coaching and developing talent than recruiting it.

With that being said, if you look at the Gators’ 2019 recruiting class, it’s lacking offensive playmakers outside of four-star QB commit Jalon Jones. Jacob Copeland, the program’s newest arrival to campus, has a theory as to why that could be: the elite receivers the Gator coaching staff is courting are afraid of competing.

Check out what Copeland tweeted out on Friday:

Copeland didn’t mention any prospects by name but one he could have been referencing is four-star California prospect Mycah Pittman. The nation’s No. 12 receiver prospect is considering both Florida and Oregon but recent comments made by Pittman suggest the coaching staff may not have a ton of faith in Florida’s receivers at the moment.

Check out this tweet from SEC writer Trey Wallace of the Read Optional and FOX Sports Knoxville:

https://twitter.com/TreyWallace_SEC/status/1013981177630380033

Those comments exhibit an interesting juxtaposition of the situation in Gainesville at the moment but could explain the lack of recruiting success for Mullen’s staff at the moment. What the truth is we may never know but either the coaching staff is selling the current players short, which may be a turn off to some prospects, or the recruits the staff has targetted fear the likely competition that they would face if they did sign with the Gators.

Which one makes more sense to you?