GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- After a whirlwind first few weeks on the job, Florida coach Dan Mullen can finally take a breath. Well, briefly, anyway.

Wednesday's early signing period allowed the Gators to lock down 13 signees, building the foundation for what will be Mullen's first recruiting class with the Gators. Among those 13 signees were eight prospects who will enroll for the spring semester and a Top 50 prospect in dual-threat quarterback Emory Jones.

Mullen described Jones as a leader and a winner who can begin having an impact immediately.

"Now having him in place, I think over the next six weeks, and as other guys that we're recruiting as it gets heated up here, they're going to look and say, 'Hey, the leader is already in place, and it's a big-time leader at Florida,'" Mullen said.

With Jones on board, Florida can now take a step back and reorganize its recruiting board with prospects who remain unsigned. From there, it's back to recruiting them all over again to fill the remaining needs.

The Gators should be relatively set at a couple positions, most notably at kicker and at running back, where UF signed one of the nation's best legs in Evan McPherson and a pair of four-star prospects at running back in Iverson Clement and Dameon Pierce. Mullen didn't rule out signing a second quarterback but there's little doubt Florida already has a very solid answer there in this recruiting class with Jones on board.

So where are the remaining needs?

"Certainly corner is going to be a big need for us, defensive line, outside linebacker, offensive line and wide receiver are going to be really the emphasis moving forward," Mullen said.

Those positions will all be important down the stretch.

The bottom line is that for a class that had some serious question marks, what Mullen did on Wednesday securing the commitment of Jones and a handful of other key prospects sets a great baseline for the 2018 class.

More importantly, after beating out the likes of Alabama, Florida State and Ohio State for Jones' signature, it shows that Mullen is well aware of what it takes to win at this level. And he's ready and capable of doing just that.

"Those are the expectations here. That's I guess maybe the first but certainly is not going to be the last, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of them because we want to go and recruit the best players in America to come play for us," Mullen said. "So the guys that we're going after, they're going to have a lot of different opportunities to go to great schools all around America.

"For us and our coaching staff, we're going to be in a lot of those recruiting battles in the future of getting the best players in America."

Be sure to enjoy VIP access to GatorBait.net with our 7-day FREE trial promotional offer. We'll keep you up to date with all the latest scoop on fall camp ahead of the season opener against Michigan.

---------------

For more news on Florida sports and recruiting, follow GatorBait247 on Twitter or sign up for our FREE daily Gators newsletter!

Contact Thomas Goldkamp by 247Sports' personal messaging system or on Twitter at @ThomasGoldkamp.