The Florida Gators are only a few days away from closing out their 2018 recruiting class. Currently, UF sits at 16 verbal commitments with 6 or 7 spots open to close out this class. The Florida staff has worked hard visiting top recruit after top recruit after forming their big board shortly after their arrival in the last couple months.

One of the instrumental names behind the recruiting scenes for new head coach Dan Mullen is Director of Recruiting Operations Lee Begley, who came over from Mississippi State. Coming back to the school where Mullen had success as a former coordinator has the new head man walking with a little extra pep in his step.

“He loves it and I haven’t ever seen him happier,” Begley said of Mullen on the SEC Recruiting Buzz Podcast. “He is like a little kid at Christmas. He is loving his Jordan’s and it’s been good. It’s been really cool to see.”

As Director of Recruiting Operations, Begley is heavily involved in the planning of Florida’s recruiting strategy, which has been geared towards bringing back the glory days of Gators football that Mullen was apart of in the mid to late 2000’s.

“There is so much tradition at the University of Florida,” Begley explained. “We want to bring back that tradition and win another National Championship. That is one of the biggest things we will take them around the Heisman statues and the National Championship trophies and say this is what Florida is and need you to help us bring that back.”

With the recruiting ‘Contact Period’ ending soon, the Gators coaching staff has been out making several visits to high schools and prospects living rooms over the last several weeks. The planning behind when and where those visits will take place are also a role Begley is involved in.

“You have to be very strategic and a lot of people don’t know that the head coach can only visit one time. You have assistants that can go in and see them once a week up to six times. So you have to go in and say okay, if he’s coming in for a visit this weekend then we should visit him the first week because that makes sense. Or if he comes the last weekend we can see him again. You have to make sure you see your 2018 kids as well as your 2019 kids, and that has been a challenge, but it’s been good. Trying to take care of our home state first.”

The Gators have also been active in sending prospects mail under Mullen, with hundreds of letters going out to a single prospect at a time.

“We wanted to do something different because some kids went to other schools for visits,” Begley explained. “We wanted to let them know we were thinking about them so every kid had over 100 letters from us. I got a phone call from shipping and receiving at UF asking if we knew we were sending 100 letters to the same kid. I had to tell them that I knew and the kids like that thing. They had never done something like that before here.”

The Gators class is currently ranked No. 17 Nationally by 247Sports with several targets still in play. As the final stretch looms and the last weekend of official visits in Gainesville taking place Begley is excited to see how the Gators fare on National Signing Day.

“You never know with kids and 18 year olds but we are feeling good heading into signing day. We will see how it all plays out.”

Related:

*** Florida Gators Recruiting War Room

*** Florida Gators expecting top prospects on campus this weekend

*** Florida Gators recruiting targets visiting elsewhere this weekend

You can listen to the entire interview with Begley below: