Post by Mojave Gator on Feb 6, 2024 22:26:37 GMT -5
Florida fans and boosters held on to the notion that Florida had a top five class coming in as they overlooked two losing seasons. But with the class falling apart and a vicious 2024 schedule there is no way Billy Napier gets out of the season as head coach. His final five games — Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and Florida State. Not good.
- Mike Farrell, MikeFarrellSports.com
Asked about his message to the fanbase following Florida’s 39-36 OT loss to Arkansas, Billy Napier says, “It’s not my job to preach patience. It’s my job to coach the team.”
While this is factually true, it’s not exactly what fans want to hear after a loss that can largely be blamed on coaching. Florida attempted to substitute on offense to spike the ball ahead of what would have been a game-winning field goal, but an illegal substitution penalty pushed the attempt back, which kicker Trey Smack ultimately missed.
- Tyler Nettuno, ForTheWin
On Monday, Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier held a press conference. In it, he announced that linebacker Brenton Cox Jr. had been kicked off of the team. Naturally, that drew questions from reporters. The aftermath of the press conference also generated some drama.
When the press conference was over, the stream continued. In the stream, some reporters were heard talking to each other. One of those reporters — identified by a Gators blogger as Mark Long of the Associated Press — was clearly heard saying “I don’t give a f***. I will be here longer than Billy Napier. I can promise that” when in a conversation with another reporter.
- Michael Dixon, AwfulAnnouncing.com
To make sense of why Billy Napier seems to be flailing in his second year at Florida, we must revisit an incident from his time at Louisiana-Lafayette.
In 2019, Napier said scholarship players would be required to donate $50 to the athletic department's fundraising arm, though later the school clarified that it was only encouraged. Napier defended it with a lot of platitudes, saying he wanted to build a culture of gratitude for all the work that went into making the players’ jobs easier.
That's a nice idea, but the mechanism was all wrong. At a time when we should have been talking about schools paying players, the idea of players paying the school was a failure to read the room.
Why is that relevant to Florida? It’s a question of style over substance. Napier is a genial person, but he’s the king of coach speak. He loves quoting famous people. He loves a buzzword as much as a first down. He says what he thinks you want to hear.
And that’s a great way to get a big-boy job like Florida. It’s not necessarily a great way to keep it, especially at a school that chewed through three coaches in 11 seasons before Napier showed up.
Last year, Napier lost a lot of credibility with the Florida fan base when he ended his debut season with consecutive losses to Vanderbilt, Florida State and Oregon State to finish 6-7. But there was promise in the offseason of improvement, excitement about new facilities and a recruiting uptick — a real chance for Napier to get some momentum and have the fan base fully behind him.
Instead, what happened? Florida looked awful in the season opener at Utah, but seemed to recover in September by notching a good win over Tennessee. Then the Gators got stomped 33-14 at Kentucky, weren’t even remotely competitive with Georgia and have now suffered a true humiliation with Saturday’s 39-36 overtime loss to Arkansas in the Swamp.
What’s Florida’s identity? What are the Gators actually good at? And why is Napier clinging to his offensive play-calling duties when the offense hasn’t been very effective?
These are all questions that Florida fans are asking, and rightfully so. As Georgia has become the nation’s dominant program and Florida State has ascended to a College Football Playoff caliber outfit, Napier hasn’t shown that he’s the game-changer to get Florida back on that level.
- Dan Wolken, USA Today
Florida allowed 30 or more points in six of its last eight games. The Gators struggled to contain explosive plays all season. UF ranked 86th in the country in plays allowed for 20 or more yards.
Florida also failed to generate havoc. The Gators ranked third-to-last in sacks and last in interceptions in the SEC.
While the Gators continue to develop on both sides of the ball, discipline and detail mistakes haunted Florida throughout the season.
UF was flagged for having two players wearing the same jersey number on a punt return in the season opener against Utah, extending a drive for the Utes that ended in a touchdown.
Mistakes like this became the norm all year.
Florida racked 90 penalty yards against the Seminoles, including a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on redshirt freshman Jamari Lyons for spitting on an opponent. Lyons was ejected from the game for this penalty.
- Topher Adams, The Independent Florida Alligator
When asked about the state of the program under coach Billy Napier, Spurrier said, “There’s a feeling around the Gators of, ‘What the heck are we doing?’ There’s a lot of questions that I don’t have answers to about organization.”
Full stop.
If that doesn’t raise a massive red flag, nothing will. Spurrier isn’t a doddering, old former coach who has lost his fastball and living his golden years on the golf course and at the beach.
This isn’t a team that was an injured quarterback away from a Year 2 improvement. Or a 4th-and-17 stop on defense, and a missed last-second field goal from winning 7 games (and possibly 8 in a bowl) and changing the narrative of Napier’s brief tenure.
Don’t let anyone sell that nonsense. This is a program that has played historically bad defense under Napier, has wasted (or couldn’t develop, or both) a top 5 NFL Draft pick at the most important position on the field, lost its most dynamic offensive player (Trevor Etienne) and best defensive player (Princely Umanmielen) to the transfer portal, and has 1 win of significance in 2 seasons (Tennessee, 2023).
program that, despite the narrative, isn’t recruiting at an elite level. The latest production: 247Sports composite rankings of No. 14 (high school recruiting) and No. 18 (transfer portal).
Those aren’t even Dan Mullen-level recruiting classes, and Mullen was fired, in part, because he wasn’t exactly stressing about player procurement.
Don’t buy the nonsense that Florida’s NIL, and the lack of cash, is the problem. You know why there’s a lack of cash?
Because those with deep pockets — those who brag about getting the head coach in any sport on the phone whenever they want because of the money they give — aren’t throwing money at a program that’s 7-13 vs. Power 5 teams the past 2 seasons.
They’re not ponying up for a program that looks like a dysfunctional and operational mess.
Spurrier is making these public statements because — the diehard Gator he is — the current state of the program is eating his insides.
And frankly, he can’t go through another season of this mess. He can’t watch Florida produce a 4th straight sub-.500 finish for the first time since 1935-38.
He can’t watch 2 players wear the same number on a play, and it prevents the defense from getting off the field. He can’t watch mistakes on special teams over and over and over, or the defense give up 33 points a game in SEC play.
He can’t watch an offense that has, schematically and structurally, been an operational disaster too many times in 25 games under Napier. Can’t watch the passing game not successfully drive the ball downfield, and instead settle for 1st level throws.
Can’t watch teams that run a fire drill kicking team on the field when they don’t need to, and the resulting penalty leads to a missed game-wining field goal.
Can’t watch a team that, 18 games into Napier’s coaching tenure, got flagged for leaping over the punt protect shield — which led to a first down and on the next play, the defense gave up a 75-yard touchdown run.
Can’t watch another loss to Georgia or LSU or Florida State, and — for the love of all things orange and blue — another loss to Kentucky.
- Matt Hayes, Saturday Down South
- Mike Farrell, MikeFarrellSports.com
Asked about his message to the fanbase following Florida’s 39-36 OT loss to Arkansas, Billy Napier says, “It’s not my job to preach patience. It’s my job to coach the team.”
While this is factually true, it’s not exactly what fans want to hear after a loss that can largely be blamed on coaching. Florida attempted to substitute on offense to spike the ball ahead of what would have been a game-winning field goal, but an illegal substitution penalty pushed the attempt back, which kicker Trey Smack ultimately missed.
- Tyler Nettuno, ForTheWin
On Monday, Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier held a press conference. In it, he announced that linebacker Brenton Cox Jr. had been kicked off of the team. Naturally, that drew questions from reporters. The aftermath of the press conference also generated some drama.
When the press conference was over, the stream continued. In the stream, some reporters were heard talking to each other. One of those reporters — identified by a Gators blogger as Mark Long of the Associated Press — was clearly heard saying “I don’t give a f***. I will be here longer than Billy Napier. I can promise that” when in a conversation with another reporter.
- Michael Dixon, AwfulAnnouncing.com
To make sense of why Billy Napier seems to be flailing in his second year at Florida, we must revisit an incident from his time at Louisiana-Lafayette.
In 2019, Napier said scholarship players would be required to donate $50 to the athletic department's fundraising arm, though later the school clarified that it was only encouraged. Napier defended it with a lot of platitudes, saying he wanted to build a culture of gratitude for all the work that went into making the players’ jobs easier.
That's a nice idea, but the mechanism was all wrong. At a time when we should have been talking about schools paying players, the idea of players paying the school was a failure to read the room.
Why is that relevant to Florida? It’s a question of style over substance. Napier is a genial person, but he’s the king of coach speak. He loves quoting famous people. He loves a buzzword as much as a first down. He says what he thinks you want to hear.
And that’s a great way to get a big-boy job like Florida. It’s not necessarily a great way to keep it, especially at a school that chewed through three coaches in 11 seasons before Napier showed up.
Last year, Napier lost a lot of credibility with the Florida fan base when he ended his debut season with consecutive losses to Vanderbilt, Florida State and Oregon State to finish 6-7. But there was promise in the offseason of improvement, excitement about new facilities and a recruiting uptick — a real chance for Napier to get some momentum and have the fan base fully behind him.
Instead, what happened? Florida looked awful in the season opener at Utah, but seemed to recover in September by notching a good win over Tennessee. Then the Gators got stomped 33-14 at Kentucky, weren’t even remotely competitive with Georgia and have now suffered a true humiliation with Saturday’s 39-36 overtime loss to Arkansas in the Swamp.
What’s Florida’s identity? What are the Gators actually good at? And why is Napier clinging to his offensive play-calling duties when the offense hasn’t been very effective?
These are all questions that Florida fans are asking, and rightfully so. As Georgia has become the nation’s dominant program and Florida State has ascended to a College Football Playoff caliber outfit, Napier hasn’t shown that he’s the game-changer to get Florida back on that level.
- Dan Wolken, USA Today
Florida allowed 30 or more points in six of its last eight games. The Gators struggled to contain explosive plays all season. UF ranked 86th in the country in plays allowed for 20 or more yards.
Florida also failed to generate havoc. The Gators ranked third-to-last in sacks and last in interceptions in the SEC.
While the Gators continue to develop on both sides of the ball, discipline and detail mistakes haunted Florida throughout the season.
UF was flagged for having two players wearing the same jersey number on a punt return in the season opener against Utah, extending a drive for the Utes that ended in a touchdown.
Mistakes like this became the norm all year.
Florida racked 90 penalty yards against the Seminoles, including a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty on redshirt freshman Jamari Lyons for spitting on an opponent. Lyons was ejected from the game for this penalty.
- Topher Adams, The Independent Florida Alligator
When asked about the state of the program under coach Billy Napier, Spurrier said, “There’s a feeling around the Gators of, ‘What the heck are we doing?’ There’s a lot of questions that I don’t have answers to about organization.”
Full stop.
If that doesn’t raise a massive red flag, nothing will. Spurrier isn’t a doddering, old former coach who has lost his fastball and living his golden years on the golf course and at the beach.
This isn’t a team that was an injured quarterback away from a Year 2 improvement. Or a 4th-and-17 stop on defense, and a missed last-second field goal from winning 7 games (and possibly 8 in a bowl) and changing the narrative of Napier’s brief tenure.
Don’t let anyone sell that nonsense. This is a program that has played historically bad defense under Napier, has wasted (or couldn’t develop, or both) a top 5 NFL Draft pick at the most important position on the field, lost its most dynamic offensive player (Trevor Etienne) and best defensive player (Princely Umanmielen) to the transfer portal, and has 1 win of significance in 2 seasons (Tennessee, 2023).
program that, despite the narrative, isn’t recruiting at an elite level. The latest production: 247Sports composite rankings of No. 14 (high school recruiting) and No. 18 (transfer portal).
Those aren’t even Dan Mullen-level recruiting classes, and Mullen was fired, in part, because he wasn’t exactly stressing about player procurement.
Don’t buy the nonsense that Florida’s NIL, and the lack of cash, is the problem. You know why there’s a lack of cash?
Because those with deep pockets — those who brag about getting the head coach in any sport on the phone whenever they want because of the money they give — aren’t throwing money at a program that’s 7-13 vs. Power 5 teams the past 2 seasons.
They’re not ponying up for a program that looks like a dysfunctional and operational mess.
Spurrier is making these public statements because — the diehard Gator he is — the current state of the program is eating his insides.
And frankly, he can’t go through another season of this mess. He can’t watch Florida produce a 4th straight sub-.500 finish for the first time since 1935-38.
He can’t watch 2 players wear the same number on a play, and it prevents the defense from getting off the field. He can’t watch mistakes on special teams over and over and over, or the defense give up 33 points a game in SEC play.
He can’t watch an offense that has, schematically and structurally, been an operational disaster too many times in 25 games under Napier. Can’t watch the passing game not successfully drive the ball downfield, and instead settle for 1st level throws.
Can’t watch teams that run a fire drill kicking team on the field when they don’t need to, and the resulting penalty leads to a missed game-wining field goal.
Can’t watch a team that, 18 games into Napier’s coaching tenure, got flagged for leaping over the punt protect shield — which led to a first down and on the next play, the defense gave up a 75-yard touchdown run.
Can’t watch another loss to Georgia or LSU or Florida State, and — for the love of all things orange and blue — another loss to Kentucky.
- Matt Hayes, Saturday Down South