Coach O’Sullivan and the Florida Gators are sitting pretty in the 2017 Perfect Game college recruiting rankings. The Gators are currently ranked 2nd in the 2017 class, only behind Florida International.

Coach O’Sullivan is one of the best recruiters in the nation, nearly every year he has been associated with college baseball a top ranked recruiting class has followed. Recruiting rankings are not the end all be all of college baseball but they are a very good tool we have to judge a player based off of what other scouts, coaches and evaluators say about a kid.

According to Perfect Game, in the 2017 recruiting class O’Sullivan has gotten a verbal commitment from seventeen players total. Fifteen of the nineteen recruits are from the state of Florida. The two other recruits are from Minnesota and North Carolina.

With four schools in the state of Florida among the top 25 in recruiting the 2017 class, Florida boasts the most Perfect Game Top 100 players with seven. Both Florida International and Miami hold six and Florida State holds four.

Recruiting the top players in the country has become relatively easier over the last decade or so with tournaments like, World Wood Bat Association (WWBA), Area Code Games, National Underclass events and many more.

Over this past week October 20 – 24 at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida some of the nations elite amateur baseball prospects all gathered for arguably the best tournament Perfect Game has to offer. Since Perfect Game launched the Jupiter tournament in 1998, there have been 4,067 players drafted and 566 of those draft picks went on to play in the bigs.

This year, the Florida Gators saw fourteen of their 2017 recruits participate in the powerhouse amateur baseball tournament. The eight players that participated included; SS, Brady McConnell, RHP, Jack Leftwich, SS, Shane Shifflett, RHP, Samuel Carlson, C, Calvin Greenfield, OF, Justin Farmer, C, Zach Jackson, C, Brady Smith, SS, Jose Ciccarello, RHP, Tommy Mace, C, Samuel McMillan, RHP, Hunter McMullen, RHP, Connor Churchill and LHP, Colton Gordon-Ziering.

Perhaps the most electric Gator recruit was RHP, Jack Leftwich. The Gator commit touched 94 on the Juggs guns a few times and had quite a few scouts hovering around the backstop during his outing.

Day 1 scout notes from @PGWWBA World Championship loaded with notes and video from a talent filed day in Jupiter https://t.co/l6mszdT2b5 pic.twitter.com/AAnl8RVNTm — Perfect Game USA (@PerfectGameUSA) October 21, 2016

Also, getting some love from Perfect Game was, LHP, Colton Gordon-Ziering. The 6-5, lefty, Gator commit pounded the strike zone and sat 87-89 mph throughout his three innings of work. A 6-5 presence on the mound is going to play well for the Gators when he arrives in Gainesville.

Now, it isn’t any secret that the Gators won’t be able to keep all of the 2017 recruiting class due to the MLB draft, but if O’Sullivan can manage to hold onto some of the top tier guys, we will have way more depth for a College World Series run in 2017.