With the season now just weeks away, and Florida set to square off with Miami in Orlando on Aug. 24, we decided to take a look at some recruiting battles between the two schools.

Who were the top five “wins” for the Gators?

We will start things off with Jordan Scarlett. Scarlett, a four-star running back out of South Florida, verbally pledged to the Canes on July 8, 2014.

He was committed for nearly seven months before de-committing on Feb.1, just three days before National Signing Day. Scarlett then announced his commitment to Florida the next day, signing his Letter of Intent and rekindling what would be an ongoing rivalry between the two Florida schools.

Two years later Florida found themselves locked into another heated battle with the Hurricanes, this time for four-star South Florida DB CJ Henderson.

Henderson was also a Miami commit at one point during the recruiting process, giving the Canes his pledge Feb. 12, 2016, only to back off of that commitment just less than half way through the season on Oct. 3, 2016.

The Gators and Canes remained in a constant battle for Henderson’s signature all the way up until National Signing Day. He ultimately decided to take his talents to Gainesville, and the Gators celebrated a huge win on the recruiting trail for a kid, who is now the top cornerback on the team and a projected 1st round draft pick in next years NFL draft.

They always say you can never have too many pass rushers, and the next player on the list is exactly that at an elite level.

Khris Bogle is another four-star out of South Florida that the two in-state schools made him a priority during the recruiting process. Bogle committed to the University of Alabama during the All-American Game, and usually when a kid commits to a school that late in the process (especially when it’s Alabama) their recruitment is pretty much over. However, Bogle took a couple more visits after that announcement, one to Florida on Jan. 25 and one to Miami on Feb.1. During his recruitment Bogle was linked to so many different schools at one point or another that it seemed like whoever got the last shot at him would be the one to seal the deal. However that was not the case in the end.

On National Signing Day Bogle flipped his commitment from the Crimson Tide and signed on the dotted line with the Gators.

It’s a common theme in recruiting to hear recruits or high school teammates say that they are a “package deal.” However more often than not that ends up falling through.

Next up on the list we have one of the very few that actually did happen with the Lakeland High duo of Keon Zipperer and Lloyd Summerall.

Zipperer and Summerall were a pair of four-star recruits from what many consider to be a “Gator Hole” at Lakeland High School. Now when you think of Lakeland you would think that it would be easy for Florida to pull the kids that they want, but that wasn’t the case with these two. Zip and Lloyd’s recruitment came down to the wire with Miami once again getting the last shot before they would sign - which left many people thinking that Miami had stolen the talented pair from Gator rich Lakeland.

However, on Early Signing Day, the duo announced their commitment to the University of Florida on ESPNU; leaving Gator fans happy and Canes fans hanging their heads.

Finally, we’ve got another pair that had Miami fans very upset given the bloodlines that are shared.

Quincy and Marco Wilson, two blue-chip cornerbacks from South Florida (and the sons of former Miami Hurricane cornerback Chad Wilson) chose the Gators over the Hurricanes and several others during their respective recruiting processes. Though they were not as dramatic as any of the previous players recruitments, given the fact that they each committed during the month of August and remained solid throughout the rest of the process, it hurt Miami fans just the same.

So much so that many Hurricane fans took to social media to attack Chad, telling him he can’t call himself a Hurricane anymore because he sent his sons to UF. The Wilson brothers were big time wins for Florida, as both will have been multi-year starters at UF by the time they leave.

With these past victories on the recruiting trail, the Gators will be looking to win what’s shaping up to be another hotly-contested battle this cycle for the highly-touted offensive tackle out of South Florida, Issiah Walker. Walker is a blue-chip lineman out of Miami Norland High School that was once a South Carolina commit.

Since de-committing from the Gamecocks, Walker has mentioned the three big in-state schools as the ones to watch. He says he wants to make a decision sometime in the middle of the season, so expect both Florida and Miami to give it everything they’ve got while they start to battle this one out.