All this angst and anger really isn’t doing anyone any good.

Because what happened over the past few weeks with a high school recruiting class isn’t going to determine the fate of embattled Florida coach Billy Napier.

The next 4 or so months will.

“Look, it’s for some, it’s not for some,” Napier said of his rebuild at Florida, which last week included the addition of a 3rd high school recruiting class — one that had numerous late flips to other schools, and one that has an unsettled fan base looking for answers.

But this isn’t about a class that 3 weeks ago was No. 3 in the nation in the 247Sports composite ranking, and currently sits at No. 16. It’s not about a class that at one point had 7 players in the top 100 and finished with 3 (2 in the top 6).

It’s not about what could be with high school recruits. It’s about what will be with proven, experienced players.

Florida will win and lose games in 2024, for the most part, with players Napier adds from the transfer portal over the next 4 months. And frankly, that’s not looking too good, either.

It’s certainly not what Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is doing (more on that later). It’s certainly not what Kentucky has done, or South Carolina is quietly putting together.

The 4 players Napier has signed from the portal translate to a No. 36 ranking, right behind Georgia (which doesn’t need portal players) and West Virginia (which needs everyone it can get).

This, more than anything, should be the red flag. Not a high school recruiting class that tanked late (though, that’s an issue, too).

Napier knew he would need a significant upgrade from the portal, as many as double-digit starters. Not fill the hole players, but impact starters.

So far, the Gators have a left tackle from San Diego State (Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson), who Napier said is, “looking to play against better competition.”

Then there’s DT Joey Slackman, the Ivy League player of the year who Napier said had “20 offers early.” And Oregon backup CB Trikweze Bridges, who Napier said was a member of the Ducks’ “leadership council.”

Finally there’s Wisconsin WR Chimere Dike, a burner who was hit and miss for 4 years in Madison, mainly because the Badgers haven’t had a quarterback of significance in years (including, a guy named Mertz for 3 of Dike’s seasons).

And that’s it.

If you’re a Florida fan and you’re starting to get nervous about 2024, there’s more to chew on that tension bone.

2. Napier, the recruiter

Let’s not forget that Napier’s calling card is recruiting. It’s what he did so well as a key assistant at Clemson and Alabama, and how he found gems as head coach at Louisiana.

But look at his first 2 recruiting classes at Florida and try to find impact players making a difference not only on the team, but in the SEC.

There’s LB Shemar James and RB Trevor Etienne from Napier’s first class, and Etienne just transferred to Georgia. There’s WR Eugene Wilson from the 2023 class.

And that’s it.

There are numerous guys who could be good players — edge TJ Searcy, DE Kelby Collins, CB Ja’Keem Jackson, S Jordan Castell, TE Arlis Boardingham, to name a handful — but there are way too many misses (and questions) for anyone to think the 2024 recruiting class will be the key to saving Napier’s job.

The irony, of course, was the argument made over and over late in the 2023 season — while a 5-game tank unfolded to finish with 7 losses, setting a school record with 3 straight 7-loss seasons — is that Napier can’t be fired because you’ll lose the recruiting class.

Well, folks, the recruiting class took significant hits because of the way his team performed. And more to the point: an exciting hire (let’s say, I don’t know, Lane Kiffin) would’ve kept the class and added key components from the transfer portal.

And that next thing you know, you’re off and running and heading into the Cocktail Party — the annual barometer of all things health of the program — with a couple of big wins under your belt and believing in a Playoff run.

Instead, the Gators are staring at a roster that just lost its most dynamic player on both sides of the ball to the portal (Etienne and edge Princely Umanmielen), and wondering how in the world you dig out of this hole.

3. Unraveling the untenable, The Epilogue

Napier is a throwback, a guy who wants players who want to play for Florida — not guys he has to beg. And he wants to build organically through high school recruiting.

He could pull that off 15 years ago, knowing that he could get a majority of the elite players in the state of Florida and that he’d have enough time to do so.

But not now, and unless you’re Nick Saban or Kirby Smart (and maybe Ryan Day), that plan is next to impossible to pull off in the player movement era of college football. It just can’t be done unless you have the huge built-in advantage of previous championships, and a track record of developing NFL players.

So what’s the answer? The portal.

Napier’s 2 previous attempts at portal recruiting included 2 key additions you can’t really count because they were star players with him at Louisiana (O’Cyrus Torrence, Montrell Johnson), and of course they were following him to Florida.

Other than that, there’s WR Ricky Pearsall, G Micah Mazzccua and Mertz. That’s 5 impact players in 2 seasons in the portal.

The problem now: A majority of the elite impact players have signed elsewhere. There’s a few remaining — and could be more on the way after the Playoff, and after the spring portal opens in April — but Napier is again chasing the future while trying to build in the past.

This isn’t rocket science. Napier himself says it over and over that they’re in a talent acquisition business. Somewhere in that 40-plus head count of football operations at Florida that Napier praised on signing day, something is misfiring.

You can’t be an elite recruiter and your class at No. 16 is 4 spots below the last class of the guy you replaced in 2022 (Dan Mullen), whose main flaw was he didn’t like to recruit.

That last Mullen class, no matter what you think of the players, produced starters for the past 2 seasons — including a few of the best players on the team (CB Jason Marshall, LT Austin Barber, LB Scooby Williams) and a player Napier has raved about but was hurt in fall camp and lost for the season (DE Justus Boone).

That’s why the next 4 months are so important. Florida needs upgrades on the lines of scrimmage, and needs skill players on offense (outside of Wilson) that put defenses in conflict.

The Gators need players in the front 7 who affect the quarterback and give cover to a talented young secondary. You can’t expect guys in the back end to run around for 6 seconds while your pass rush gets all of 22 sacks in 12 games.

That’s right, 22 sacks. Absolutely pitiful for a program that has the ability to recruit and develop elite defensive players but hasn’t completed the process (either recruit or develop) in Napier’s 2 seasons.

The only player who could consistently affect the quarterback was Umanmielen, and now he’s gone.

There’s potential with young players — Searcy, DE Kelby Collins, and 5-star signee LJ McCray — but that entails development and putting players in the right position to succeed on game day. Again, this isn’t rocket science.

If Napier can’t land impact players from the transfer portal over the next 4 or so months, someone else more than likely will in 2025.

4. The portal king, again

Imagine of Kiffin had the ability to recruit high school players to Alabama or Georgia or LSU or Florida.

While Mississippi is a wildly underrated state for high school recruiting, it’s not Florida or Georgia or Louisiana. And it certainly doesn’t have the pull of the aforementioned blue-blood programs.

But that doesn’t mean Kiffin isn’t continuing to rebuild Ole Miss on an annual basis by recruiting the portal better than anyone in the SEC. In the past 3 weeks, Kiffin has landed:

— A starting All-SEC wide receiver (South Carolina’s Juice Wells).
— A starting SEC cornerback (Mississippi State’s Decamerion Richardson) and starting Big Ten cornerback (Illinois’ Tahveon Nicholson).
— 2 starting SEC edges with a combined 28.5 sacks (Tennessee’s Tyler Baron and Umanmielen).
— Added the best interior linemen in the SEC in Texas A&M’s Walter Nolen.
— 3 starting safeties with a combined 10 career interceptions and 24 passes defended (Indiana’s Louis Moore, Tennessee’s Tamarion McDonald, Oklahoma’s Key Lawrence).
— A starting guard (Southern Miss’ Gerquan Scott).
— One of the SEC’s best defensive players in 2023 (Arkansas LB Chris Paul Jr.).

That’s 11 players long on experience, including 10 with Power 5 starting experience. That’s how you quickly flip a roster.

And how you win 10 games in 2 of the past 3 seasons.

5. The Weekly 5

Five players to watch this bowl season:

1. Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava: He has to play. But how much without insulting starter Joe Milton III?

2. Alabama edge Dallas Turner: Had a bounce-back season in 2023. Put on a show in the Playoff, and watch his draft stock soar.

3. Georgia LB CJ Allen: Played well with Jamon Dumas-Johnson injured. Look for a breakout game in a big moment against unbeaten FSU.

4. LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier: WRs Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas will play. Time for Nussmeier to show the job is his in 2024.

5. Missouri DE Darius Robinson: Had a big 2nd half of the season. Can it continue against elite team (Ohio State) with a new QB (Devin Brown).

6. Your tape is your resume

An NFL scout analyzes a draft-eligible SEC player. This week: Missouri WR Theo Wease.

“A fast riser. It’s a combination of things. He has good size (6-2, 192), and will grow into that frame. He’s long and athletic, and he’s a lot faster than you think. He’s got acceleration speed, and he can catch it and go. He has had some drops issues in the past, but he really played solid this season. A lot of attention was on (Luther Burden III), and (Wease) became a vital part of that offense. Just a smooth, fluid route runner whose ability after the catch can cause problems.”

7. Powered Up

This week’s Power Poll, and 1 big thing: pre-bowl momentum.

1. Alabama: Rising. Nick Saban’s best coaching job since he arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2007. The defense is playing at an elite level under 1st-year DC Kevin Steele (a wildly underrated factor), and QB Jalen Milroe is surging.

2. Georgia: Falling. The return of QB Carson Beck for his senior season stopped the bleeding of blue-chip recruits leaving for the portal. So did the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class.

3. Missouri: Rising. If everyone comes back (and stays clear of the portal) — including QB Brady Cook, WR Mookie Cooper and Wease — the Tigers will be difficult to stop in 2024.

4. Ole Miss: Rising. Kiffin’s work in the portal has been remarkable — as has been his ability to keep others from poaching talented RB Quinshon Judkins.

5. LSU: Falling. The Tigers have a chance at 10 wins — a good thing. But this team underachieved in 2023, and the defense was the culprit. Change is coming.

6. Tennessee: Falling. The offense just didn’t look the same under QB Joe Milton III. It’s not all his fault, the WRs weren’t the same, either.

7. Kentucky: Falling. There was too much to like prior to 2023 to finish with 7 wins. Beating Louisville saved something, but everything changes in 2024 when it gets more difficult to win in the SEC.

8. Texas A&M: Rising. New coach, new vibe, new hope. Even with significant losses to the transfer portal. At the very least, the dread of another season with Jimbo Fisher — and all that goes with it — is gone.

9. Auburn: Rising. If Auburn gets off the field on 4th-and-31, everyone is raving about coach Hugh Freeze and his ability to beat Saban and the future on The Plains.

10. South Carolina: Falling. A crossroads season for coach Shane Beamer in 2024. The defense was atrocious, the offensive line (with so many injuries) was worse.

11. Florida: Falling. Even with a predictable offense, the Gators could’ve still made strides in 2023 with a respectable defense. Another historically bad effort cost them 2 games (Arkansas, Missouri), and a chance to get to 8 wins — which looks a whole lot better than 5.

12. Mississippi State: Rising. New offensive-minded coach (Jeff Lebby), new promise. You win at MSU with offense, and what the Bulldogs showed in 2023 wasn’t close to making that happen.

13. Arkansas: Falling. It’s not good right now, and it all falls at the feet of the coach everyone — from the university president, all the way down to the players — wants to succeed. If Sam Pittman can’t find the magic again in 2024, he could be the first coach fired.

14. Vanderbilt: Falling. The offseason has been worse than the winless 2023 SEC season. Vandy’s best players have left for the portal, and a brutal task to win in the league just got significantly harder.

8. Ask and you shall receive

Matt: If Florida State gets out of the ACC, how fast does the SEC nab the Noles? — David Booker, Tallahassee.

David:

Not as quickly as you think. The are more than a few hiccups right now with FSU. Florida won’t want FSU in the league and will be difficult to sway.

But it’s more than that. Will the SEC presidents want to invite a program, a university, that just took its last conference to court to break an agreement? You can say FSU was only doing what it had to do (and that might be correct), but it doesn’t mean that’s something that will be endearing to university presidents.

More important, the SEC presidents have said time and again that future expansion is more than likely into new territory. That means if FSU finds an out from the ACC and others follow, the SEC’s first move would be North Carolina.

In a dream scenario, the SEC’s 2 adds would be North Carolina and Notre Dame. Both would be difficult to add — and both would be pursued by the Big Ten, too.

That doesn’t mean FSU is completely out of any future SEC expansion, it just means that it’s more complicated than most assume. The SEC doesn’t need Florida State; Florida State needs the SEC.

9. Numbers

26. As in, Oct. 26, 2024. Texas doesn’t play its first SEC true road game — the game against Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl is a neutral site game like Florida-Georgia in Jacksonville — until the last week of October.

That game, if you can believe it, is at Vanderbilt. And it only underscores the Longhorns’ cakewalk through the league in road games for Year 1.

Texas gets Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Texas A&M as true road games in 2024. Oklahoma, meanwhile, plays its first true SEC road game Sept. 28 at Auburn, and also plays at Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU on the road.

Oklahoma is designated the “home” team in 2024 for the Red River Rivalry, and plays one more true SEC road game than Texas.

10. Quote to note

Georgia coach Kirby Smart on the 2024 recruiting class: “I think 24 of 28 guys worked out on our campus with our coaches, and 25 of 28 guys were multi-sport athletes.”