Florida football recruiting: George Brown, Jr. flips to LSU, probably without live tiger

Remember George Brown, Jr., who committed to Florida with the aid of a live baby alligator (sort of) over the summer?

Saturday night, he flipped to LSU.

247Sports's Ryan Bartow first reported the flip, which reportedly occurred during Brown's official visit to LSU. Brown himself tweeted it out shortly afterward:

I Have Officially Committed To Louisiana State University #LSU #GEAUXTIGERS

— George Brown Jr ® (@MADDAWG_G) December 7, 2014

Brown was, despite his showy commitment, not one of the higher-profile commits in Florida's class, though the shrinking size of said class makes "one of the higher-profile commits" something that applies to almost everyone left in it. At 6'6" and 250 pounds, Brown has a good frame for an offensive lineman, but needs significant weight gains to be an SEC-caliber player. He's as destined for a redshirt at LSU as he would've been at Florida, and Brown wasn't going to be the immediate solution to Florida's significant woes on the offensive line.

But Brown's decommitment leaves Florida at an incredible seven recruits in the 2015 recruiting class. After his decommitment, and that of four-star QB Sheriron Jones on Saturday, Florida fell from an already-unfamiliar No. 62 perch to an unfathomable No. 84 in the 247Sports Composite team rankings. Only Michigan, which holds just six commitments, has fewer commitments than Florida, among teams in the top 120 of those rankings.

Florida's ranking will no doubt rise in the next two months, as Jim McElwain hits the trail hard in search of essentially his whole recruiting class. But McElwain is either going to have one of the all-time closes in recruiting history, or be saddled with one of the worst recruiting classes in Gators history — even a very good return on 10 weeks of hard work on the trail is unlikely to get Florida into the top 20 in 2015, and the Gators have only very rarely finished lower than that plateau.