Despite an ongoing, and what now looks like over-the-top, public relations campaign by Jim McElwain to convince the Gator Nation – and perhaps himself – otherwise, there was one major revelation during Saturday's lopsided 33-17 loss to Michigan. That being that despite the preseason hoopla, Florida's offensive line not only isn't the best unit on the team, it is still the hot mess that it has been for several seasons now.

After replacing Mike Summers with Brad Davis this past off-season, perhaps Florida's offensive line is more technically sound or playing with more fire, passion and intensity. That can't be proved or disproved one way or the other after one game.

What is matter-of-fact though is that the talent level remains below par for a Florida Gators offensive line.



Davis may or may not be a superstar coach in the making. We still don't know, but what is clear is that from a talent standpoint, he is being forced into taking a knife to a gun fight when you compare the current talent level along the line to what Florida has featured on their best teams of the recent past.

I am sure that this is where a select few of you are ready to jump off the train.

The argument for many of you in that group is that the Florida coaching staff is a better evaluator of talent than is Rivals.

My response to that is - prove it.

I mean that sincerely.

I will provide stats below showing that Rivals rankings are relevant when it comes to predicting future success of prospects coming out of high school.

If you have a valid argument that either stars and/or Rivals recruiting rankings don't matter or aren't as accurate as Florida's staff evaluations - I am all ears and eyes.

I would legitimately like for anyone to provide an argument for that point of view.

My take being, that yes, there are those who are highly rated who can be busts and there are those who are lowly rated who can surprise and become damn good players.

That is without question possible.

However, every single statistic out there that I have seen proves that on average the higher rated a prospect is coming out of high school the more likely he is to find success in college and beyond.

For those who need proof of that - I offer into evidence this statistic.

While I could go back further, in the two year McElwain era at Florida there have been 10 offensive linemen named to the Coaches post-season All SEC first-team.

The 10 players in the two combined years consisted of:

Five-Stars: 3

Four-Stars: 4

Three-Stars: 3

Right now someone who doesn't completely understand math is probably thinking, 'Well there are as many three-stars as there are five-stars.'

That is correct. However, you have to keep in mind that there are many times more three-star rated linemen compared to five-star rated linemen.

Take 2013 for example (since we used that cycle below in a table). That year there were two five-star offensive linemen on Rivals compared to 198 who were rated as three-stars.

So there is roughly one five-star offensive lineman for every 100 three-star offensive lineman.

The conclusion that can be drawn is that the best offensive linemen in the SEC were highly rated. Right here, 70-percent of first-team honorees these last two years were four or five stars coming out of high school.