Ten games into his tenure in Gainesville, Meyer felt his first season slipping after a loss at South Carolina. The Gators dropped to 7-3 after a third defeat in six weeks. Chemistry was bad, the coach said, so he made a few personnel changes. Two weeks of good practice followed.

As Meyer remembers that regular-season finale, every key player on the Gators’ recruiting board jammed into their locker room for the FSU game, including quarterback Tim Tebow and receiver Percy Harvin.

“And at the end of the night,” Meyer said, “they all wanted to come to Florida.”

Tebow and Harvin committed within three weeks. ESPN ranked the Gators’ 2006 class No. 1 nationally. Three of the next four years, Florida finished 13-1. It won a pair of BCS titles.

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