GAINESVILLE, FL - NOVEMBER 13: A Florida Gators fan looks on dejected during a game against the South Carolina Gamecocks at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on November 13, 2010 in Gainesville, Florida. The Gamecocks beat the Gators 36-14. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

FSU is having plenty of success on the recruiting trail, while their rivals from Gainesville have been struggling – but the excuse train has started.

When you look at the world of college football recruiting for the 2019 cycle, the current powers of the sport like Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson among the top teams – with the FSU football program among the top 10 classes on almost every single service so far even without having played a season under new coach Willie Taggart.

Down on the list in the 30s and even lower in some are the rival Florida Gators – you know, the program that some say made a home run hire when they brought in Dan Mullen from Mississippi State simply off the fact he coached Tim Tebow for a couple years and had one great season with the Bulldogs with Dak Prescott under center.

Never fear, our friends in orange and blue: despite your woes halfway through the cycle of bringing in players that will take the field for the first time in 2019 to lose again to FSU, you’ve still got people who are willing to make excuses for the fact you aren’t a relevant national power at the moment.

Saturday Down South, a pro-SEC site that looks like Paul Finebaum threw up on a computer keyboard, tried to explain why it is “complicated” that one of the two biggest rivals for FSU can’t seem to compete with other big name programs at this point.

First, it isn’t all doom-and-gloom. Mullen signed the best transition class in Florida history last fall, rescuing a class ranked in the 20s with a host of signing day commitments… Mullen’s 2019 class, with 4 top 300 players currently committed, also rates comparably, at this point in the cycle (early July), to Gus Malzahn’s second class at Auburn (4 top 300 commits), Mark Richt’s second class at Miami (4 top 300 commits), and Willie Taggart’s second class at Florida State (5 top 300 commits).

Okay, it’s a valid point except for the fact that FSU is getting top 300 recruits who are either in the single digits or upper 100s while the Gators are only managing to pull in players that are further down on the list for the most part.

Mullen is also dealing with a host of structural challenges his rivals simply don’t face. To begin with, he inherited a program that has had two 4-win seasons in four years, and hasn’t fielded an offense ranked in the top 50 nationally since most recruits were in elementary school.

Okay, stop right there. I hate the Gators more than almost anyone out there (they are the only team that will actually make me hope for a Miami win, since the hate is stronger for Florida), but they are still a name program – saying a losing season is reason for decline is a weak excuse.

You’re recruiting in the best state in the country – Miami and FSU should be getting better names because we are the big dogs right now, but it’s lazy to not go out and get the rest of the state’s stars because three and four stars from here dwarf five star players from every other state in the country.

I’ll leave the rest of it to read if you want to by clicking the link earlier in the article, but it’s funny how people thought Mullen was going to walk in the door, flash a few title rings and get whatever he wants – they are soon going to realize that of the big three in the state, Florida is looking up at both FSU and that other school in Coral Gables.