From the time Billy Napier arrived in Gainesville, he’s been managing expectations.
It started in his introductory press conference. When asked about the 2022 recruiting class, he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t sign many at all, to be honest with you.”
It was the first time of many last year where Napier sought to keep expectations in hand. He had a reputation as being a good recruiter, but he wanted everyone to know from the jump that he wasn’t going to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Nor would he sign players just to sign players.
He put a sign out there, for those who wanted to read it, previewing just what they were about to see, and he followed through on it. The nascent staff made sure the ‘22 class wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t a blowout haul either. If not for two post-spring JUCO transfers, the class would’ve finished with just 18 players.
From talking about a lack of total buy-in to the difficulties of teaching new schemes to repeatedly pointing to his starting quarterback’s lack of experience, Napier was in expectations management mode all throughout last year. He’s continued managing them this year, but it appears he’s managing them in a new direction: up.
Napier has been talking all throughout the offseason of the benefits to being in a second year instead of a first. The players know what the processes are and what’s expected of them better. The coaches are installing things for the second time, which helps them know better how to get through to those players along with simply improving their ability at teaching what had been a new system to nearly everyone last year. Everyone can work together better having done it before, with caveats for new assistant coaches of course. Even then, new TEs coach Russ Callaway was in the building last year as an analyst, and Billy Gonzales is well known to a lot of the veterans.
I noticed Napier predicting an improved offense during the spring session. Back then it was in large part about these kinds of process issues, but he didn’t explicitly limit the prediction of improvement to just that.
SEC Media Days this week threw more fuel onto the fire. All of the Gator participants spoke about how everyone on the team has bought in this year. The big exodus to the transfer portal over the late fall and winter was a chance for anyone who wanted to get off the ride to do so, and they did.
Napier also gushed about how the newly opened Heavener complex improved their process by saving time. It also is apparently a great place to hang out, so players are doing just that a lot more. They are spending more time together in there, increasing team chemistry and camaraderie.
He also bragged on just how much experience the team added through the portal this cycle — more than 10,000 snaps and 123 starts according to his staff’s math — as well as how much of the team was present for spring practice. He put the share of the fall roster to have gone through spring at 93%, a factor of having a record number of early enrollees and doing most of the team’s portal work in the winter instead of spring.
Then, a rather bullish quote went around from a radio interview that Napier did. I would refer you to this link to hear the setup from the radio host and not just Napier’s answer, which lacks something without the context.
In short, the questioner sets up how last year’s defense was lacking in talent to a degree seldom seen at Florida. He then goes over some of the key signees and transfers before summing up with a question about how much better the talent is on that side of the ball.
Napier hedges some, speaking about how it’s going to be a young defense and how there will be growing pains from true freshmen being in the two-deep. He then gives a “but”, followed by a pause, followed by a bit of a boast about how some second-year players are going to show out this fall. “I don’t think people quite know what I know yet”, he said, with almost shifty eyes looking to see if anyone nearby is paying attention.
He can’t help but go back to the youth issue, but then he runs down nearly every position on the defense talking about how excited he is for the players there. He closes by saying it will be hard to find two more impactful defensive linemen in the country than Cam Jackson and Caleb Banks, the pair of D-tackle transfers UF brought in.
Napier can get a little far out over his skis at times just like anyone — see him confidently declaring his wife could call plays for Anthony Richardson after the Utah win — but he’s not a habitual hyperbolist like Urban Meyer was. Ask ol’ Urban at the beginning of fall camp, and his team was a disaster that might not know how to line up correctly. Obviously exaggerated 40 times festooned the walls, and quotidian things could sometimes actually be the best or worst ever depending on his mood.
That’s not the in-house stye anymore at the Swamp. Napier is clearly quite excited about this year’s team in a way he wasn’t last year. He was pumping the brakes most of the way through 2022, whereas now he’s gently pressing the accelerator.
It’s anyone’s guess how the season turns out with it still being July and all, but the quiet confidence within the building is getting slowly and steadily louder.