Take Two: Will Miami's early commit strategy pay off in 2020?

CLASS OF 2019 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position | Team

CLASS OF 2020 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position

Take Two returns with a daily offering tackling a handful of issues in the college football landscape. Rivals.com National Recruiting Analyst Adam Gorney lays out the situation and then receives takes from Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and a local expert from the Rivals.com network of team sites.

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Miami has quickly jumped to No. 1 in the early 2020 team recruiting rankings as the Hurricanes have already landed 12 commitments, led by wide receiver Marc Britt and eight other four-stars.

All 12 of Miami’s pledges are in-state prospects as coach Mark Richt and his staff continue to aggressively pursue the top players from Florida and they’ve had tremendous success in the last couple recruiting classes.

This story has played out before. In the 2019 recruiting class, Miami took an early lead nationally in the team recruiting rankings, only to experience some decommitments. Other teams have loaded up and the Hurricanes currently sit at No. 20 nationally. Five-star Akeem Dent and many others backed off their early pledges along the way.

The Hurricanes are doing phenomenally well early in the 2020 class as well, but could be doing even better if five-star receiver Leonard Manuel and four-stars Avantae Williams and Jermaine Burton stayed committed. All three have already backed off a pledge to Miami.

There is no question Miami has had tremendous recruiting success, especially in recent cycles. But is the strategy of loading up early with commits the smartest move even if some high-end prospects decide to keep looking around following their pledges?

“Miami's recruiting philosophy is to be aggressive with the South Florida and in-state kids and build relationships early and gain commitments early. Let everyone else chase from behind.

"And it is hard to argue it because it is working. They understand that in today's recruiting world, there are some situations that will become more complex and some that will disintegrate over time. But that really has become the price of doing business the way things are going in recruiting right now and how so many of the nation's top programs are attacking South Florida. They haven't yet erected the wall around South Florida that they would like, but in the three years Mark Richt has been head coach it is certainly on the upswing.

"A championship season would likely push them up that one last notch that they need. But it is not realistic to expect Miami to wind up with every single kid from South Florida, so there will probably always be some that get away.”

“If you get commits too early, you almost know that some of them are going to decommit. There are very few prospects like Derwin James out there who commit as sophomores and decide to stick and never waver.

“But I would still take them. If a kid wants to commit and he’s highly talented there is no way you’re going to turn them away. Miami is off to a good start in the 2020 class. This isn’t the Al Golden starts, though, because they were No. 1 under Golden for a couple years early and they were loading up on 20 kids by June, but a lot of them weren’t dynamic players.

“Richt is doing a good job. If they lose a few, that’s the risk you take, but you’re not going to turn these kids away.”