The five stars mean nothing now.
Neither does the No. 1 position ranking, the high school All-American game selection or the state championships. Everyone has the same pedigree.
Come to Florida, where every top recruit has a chance to play right away, provided he's willing to outwork the All-American to his right and left.
The plan is simple: commit to one of the top programs in the nation, outshine every other player at the same position and secure a starting job as an underclassman.
Following through on the plan is significantly harder.
Percy Harvin did it. Joe Haden did it. So did Janoris Jenkins.
Now, safety Will Hill is doing it, too.
The sophomore made his first career start in UF's season opener against Charleston Southern, replacing junior Ahmad Black, who was tied for the most interceptions in the nation just a season ago.
The Gators have three supremely talented safeties battling for two spots on the field.
Coach Urban Meyer and his staff say they are all starters, but when the whistle blows and the first cadence is called, someone is left standing on the sidelines.
"A lot of us have to get used to it because, coming out of high school, all of us were great players, probably the best players on the team," said Black, who won three state titles at Lakeland High. "You know coming to college, you know you got to split time with other great players. You know it will all work out."
Defensive coordinator Charlie Strong elected to use Hill, Black and junior Major Wright in a rotation during the first game, which keeps everyone happy and works fine in a 62-3 blowout. However, when it comes time to put two of them on the field late in close games, a tough decision will have to be made.
The fact that a decision even has to be made after the year that Black and Wright - who started in all 14 games for the Gators in 2008 - had speaks volumes about Hill, who was ranked the No. 1 safety in his class, according to Scout.com, and was selected to play in the ESPNU Under Armour High School All-American Game.
The dreadlocked defensive back has given the coaching staff exactly what they want, a fierce competition for playing time that pushes the individuals involved to be the best they can be for the team.
And Hill's not the only one making things uncomfortable for some returning starters.
Get Noticed
For players to respect a coach, he has to build a strong, caring relationship with each of his guys, which makes it tough to cast aside a proven veteran for the promise of a rising young star.
"It's tough because you get relationships with the players, but I think at the end of the day, guys come to Florida for a lot of reasons and one of them is to win games," Meyer said. "If you're the best player, you're going to play, and they understand that. If you're open and honest and you evaluate, one thing we do is we grade every snap and we meet constantly, so there's no surprises when there's a position change made or when a guy moves up the depth chart. People see it coming."
The day-to-day competitions for starting jobs, backup roles and mop-up duty are as intense as the Gainesville heat and as exhausting as the Gators' new Banzai package.
Compounding the awkward situation of an inherently adversarial relationship with a teammate is the fact that players, by and large, spend the most time with their position groups, often growing closest with guys they are in direct competition with.
"You think about one's feelings, but then you also think about you and your career," Hill said. "So you just got to just go out there and keep your head level and just know everything is going to play out right."
Things have played out right for Hill so far, but not every player's presumed ascension has come to fruition.
Junior Emmanuel Moody, who transferred from USC to Florida largely because of the apparent hole in the Gators' backfield at the time, has seen the field predominantly during garbage time.
Sophomores Jeff Demps and Chris Rainey emerged as home-run hitting tailbacks during their freshman seasons, frequently leaving the oft-injured Moody as the odd man out.
Moody, the Pacific-10 Freshman of the Year in 2006, is now at full speed and feels comfortable with the competition for carries.
"What I love about it is there's no envy toward any of the other running backs," Moody said. "We're just pushing each other and whichever running back makes a big play, we just try to encourage them."
That team-first attitude is birthed out of a commitment to winning first and foremost, something that Black said makes the transition to a reduced role easier.
Fifth-year senior wide receiver David Nelson commended Black for his attitude while conceding that all of the veterans feel pushed by the young talent - the true sign of Meyer's mark on the program.
"That's how it should be. That's competition. Every down, you're playing your hardest to keep your spot," Nelson said. "Coach Meyer has worked real hard here to recruit good players and recruit depth. When he first got here, he had first-deep and that's all he was comfortable with. Now, he feels like he has a two-deep and maybe a three-deep, and so he's confident knowing if somebody gets hurt, somebody is going to step in and fill that void and not miss a beat."
Practice Makes Perfect
Center Maurkice Pouncey, who was on Lakeland's state-championship teams with Black, has started all but one game since stepping on campus, but he still feels like his role is not guaranteed.
"Somebody is trying to come for my job every day," Pouncey said. "That's the way I approach it, everybody goes out there every day trying to get a spot on the field. We practice harder than any other school out there. Practice, to us, is harder than anything I ever experienced in my life. I hope it keeps that way, it keeps us winning."
It's easy to get down after a slip on the depth chart, a decrease in game snaps or any sort of deviation from the aforementioned plan.
Junior linebacker Lorenzo Edwards, who was ranked as the No. 1 weakside linebacker in his class by Scout.com and selected to the 2007 U.S. Army All-American game, admitted to being a little depressed after he came in with lofty expectations but was unable to crack the rotation.
Fifth-year senior Ryan Stamper, who plays the same position as Edwards, tried to help out his younger teammate.
"My first year, my second year, I wasn't playing and I was just telling him, 'You think that it's the coaches. You think that, but you pretty much have to go deep down and it's pretty much you,'" Stamper said. "Most of the players here - this is Florida - the best players are going to play, and that's what I told him, 'Man, you got to find something in yourself because it's you. It's not no one but you."
It's easy to blame a setback on outside interference like politics, favoritism or even class standing, but none of that makes a difference to Meyer, now in his fifth year as UF's head coach.
Players, like Hill, earn their stripes in practice and on special teams.
As a freshman, Hill started off playing almost solely on special teams and impressed coaches by leading the team with 22 tackles on kickoff and punt coverage. He parlayed that into a role as the Gators' nickelback and eventually, a starting safety job.
Hill said understanding how such talented players can get buried on the depth chart isn't quite the mystery some make it out to be.
"You got to think about it, there's a reason for everything," Hill said. "You just watch practice and, basically, practice tells it all."
If that's the case, competing with their teammates may be the toughest test the Gators face this season.
