If you look at the list of the 17 high school players who signed with the Gators in the 2022 class, there’s one glaring problem – a lack of Floridians.
Only five signees call the Sunshine State home, and two of them were already committed when Billy Napier took the Florida job. An additional signee, offensive lineman David Conner, played his senior year of high school football in Florida but has spent most of his life in Atlanta.
Florida is regarded as the most talent-rich state in the country, and out-of-state programs such as Alabama, Georgia and Clemson have successfully raided the state in recent years and left the Gators with the leftovers.
For Napier to get this program back into championship contention, he’s going to have to keep a bunch of those elite players from leaving the state.
Napier understands that. He said that the lack of Floridians in the 2022 class was a product of the tough situation that they were in. A majority of recruits sign in December, and he and his staff only had a couple of weeks to develop relationships with them. So, they prioritized the recruits that they thought were available and the ones that they had prior relationships with. That ended up netting them players from all over the place.
“I think that’s a product of the circumstances,” Napier said. “Those are the players that we felt like fit us from an evaluation standpoint, and then we had the resources to go get that accomplished. I think that’s the one thing to remind ourselves of is that Florida brand is strong, and it’s spread out, and it was able to do good work.”
Now that they’ll have a full year to recruit for the 2023 cycle, the priorities will shift. Signing the top instate prospects is goal No. 1.
“Our approach is going to be inside-out; there’s no question,” he said. “I think history would indicate that when Florida has a really good football team, it starts right here in our backyard and works out. So, that’s the approach that we will take, and, certainly, with the ’23 group, which we’ve already started on, that will be the mentality for sure.”
Large staff building chemistry
With 40 support staffers hired, Napier’s large staff is nearly complete. He said that they just have a few more hires to announce, primarily with graduate assistant coaches.
The next stage in Napier’s staff building is for all of these people to learn to work together as a well-oiled machine. Many of them came with him from Louisiana, but others are new to his very organized and detailed ways of doing things.
You can have a million highly skilled individuals on your staff, but they won’t do you any good if they don’t work together.
Napier doesn’t envision that becoming a problem.
“I’ll tell you what, these official-visit weekends present some of those opportunities,” he said. “I think there’s nothing like kind of getting in there and working together as a team. Recruiting presents that opportunity, and we’ve got a great group, one that I’ve been very impressed with just the morale overall, the teamwork. That’s what it’s going to take.
“I think when you hire people, you’re looking for somebody that will be a great teammate, somebody that has an authentic care for the players, someone that’s an expert at the job that we’re asking them to do and certainly fit our recruiting footprint or bring a skillset, a personality to the table that can help us in recruiting. So far, so good. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem with this group.”
Transfer portal adjustments needed
In recent months, there has been discussion about changing the date for the early signing period. Some have proposed pushing it back to January, others want it moved up to July or August and others want it eliminated altogether.
However, Napier thinks that everyone is focused on the wrong thing when it comes to the recruiting calendar. He believes that the transfer rules need to be adjusted.
Currently, players can enter the transfer portal any time they want, and they can transfer one time without having to sit out a year. So, what’s essentially happened is that every player is a prospective free agent all of the time. It’s become commonplace to see players enter the portal in the middle of seasons or midway through spring practice when they don’t receive as much playing time as they think they should.
Napier would like to see changes made to the transfer rules to create more structure. Even professional sports leagues have rules in place about when players can switch teams. College sports do not.
“That’s what we’ve got to kind of get our arms around as leaders in this college football dynamic that we have there,” he said. “So, I think that’s where the changes and adjustments probably need to be made, if that makes sense. This was the first year where that was expected to be an option for the player, and then, all of a sudden, you’ve got a lot of different dynamics in terms of it’s almost like you added two different free agency periods that you haven’t planned for. That requires work, and that requires planning.”
Gators trying to change the game on special teams
Chris Couch has probably the most bizarre title on Napier’s staff – “Gamechanger Coordinator.” In effect, he’ll be a special teams analyst who will help the on-field coaches put together their special teams gameplans.
Napier said that the unusual title is a way to emphasize the importance of special teams to the players. He wants them to view special teams as equally as important as offense or defense. That message will be reinforced every day when they walk by Couch’s office and see his title next to the door.
“We call our special teams game-changers,” Napier said. “So, when we’re trying to create a game-changing play, we all know the power of an explosive play on special teams, kind of our way to create some urgency, some importance to that part of the game.
“I think it’s the area of your team where you start building culture. It’s a combination of offense and defensive players. Oftentimes, young players will get opportunities to contribute to the team first there. And then your walk-ons can earn a niche on the team there as well. So, it requires a lot of coordination, a lot of team effort.”