Billy Napier came to Florida with a detailed model for how his program would operate. Two years in, no one is happy with the 11-14 cumulative record.
Napier likes to talk about how he constantly evaluates everything, and Scott Stricklin has vouched for that in interviews this offseason. The model hasn’t been working to peak performance, so it needed to be evaluated and adjusted.
I believe that Napier took the opportunity to discuss how the model changed this winter when he sat down to a podcast interview with the voice of the Gators, Sean Kelly. It’s definitely worth listening to it so that you can hear both Kelley’s and Napier’s deliveries. Kelley wasn’t afraid to ask some very direct questions rather than toss up softball after softball, so there were some legit takeaways.
The upshot of it all is that, in so many words, Napier laid out what the newest edition of his model entails. He didn’t show up to proactively lay it all out, so it may not register right away when you listen. However if you pay attention, it seems to coalesce into an update on the structure of the program.
Before going on: this piece here is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. I already opined in depth on Napier’s model last year after the Utah game. I think most of that still holds up. What today’s article is about is converting the interview’s content into something more succinct while letting Napier’s words speak for themselves.
I will also note that this interview took place before new strength and conditioning coach Craig Fitzgerald left for Boston College and co-offensive line coach Darnell Stapleton left for the NFL.
Kelley’s second question was asking what the most important changes Napier made since last season were. The head coach, naturally, said that all the changes were important, but then he specified these:
- Position coach changes on defense: nothing further mentioned here or later.
- Nutrition and the strength and conditioning program: “the game is trending toward just a really high level of investment and expertise in those areas and what you offer to the player. What’s the track record, the pedigree, what experience do you have, and trying to improve our product and improve the player experience.”
- Personnel management: Napier says they’re taking more of an NFL-style approach given all the things that have to be managed from an NIL-standpoint: “agent relations, player relations, investor relations”.
- Special teams: Napier says they added “a layer there to help from an organizational standpoint and just overall strategy”.
So what do these mean? Let’s take them one at a time.
Just after the regular season ended, Napier fired DBs coach Corey Raymond and DL coach Sean Spencer, eventually replacing them with Will Harris and Gerald Chatman, respectively. Later after Jay Bateman left for a coordinator job at Texas A&M, Napier hired Ron Roberts from Auburn.
Napier didn’t use the phrase with Kelley, but in his February signing day presser, he called Roberts the “head coach of the defense… basically a guy who oversees that side of the ball to some degree”.
Next, Napier fired director of nutrition Kelsee Gomes and reassigned strength and conditioning coach Mark Hocke to a role outside of direct coaching. He went to the NFL for his replacements. He plucked Fitzgerald from the Giants to be head S&C coach, and the release touted his more than 25 years of experience. He then pulled Washington’s Jake Sankal to become team nutritionist and assistant S&C coach.
For building the front office, UF hired Mark Robinson to the job title of Chief of Staff. Napier name-checked him as an example of building out a more professional-style personnel management department.
Finally, Napier hired Joe Houston to be another special teams analyst. Kelley asked point-blank how the special teams shop is going to work with Houston and Chris Couch running it as analysts rather than on-field coaches. He didn’t give much in the way of details, though in reference to having the special teams coordinators be off-field analysts, he said, “some of our bigger competition operates the same way”. This is likely a reference to the fact that Georgia hasn’t had an on-field coach with a special teams title since 2021.
Napier did take a moment to say that Houston and Couch “are working on it the entire year… they don’t have to recruit”. In other words, having analysts run special teams allows the position coaches to spend more time on position coaching and recruiting while letting the special teams guys focus solely on their domain. He also reiterated that they were focusing on the organizational aspect following “miscues” in that area last year.
Kelley then asked about “systems, processes, [and] structure”. The answer to that question brought everything into focus.
Napier said that they finally have a system in place for NIL where he’s not having to deal with it “24/7, 365”. The new system also allowed some of personnel evaluation to be “taken off my plate”. He said the additions of Roberts and Houston will “help from a delegation standpoint” and that he would “hand off some tasks on offense”.
And then when Kelly asked about offensive play calling, Napier said he still wants to do it. He then said he wanted to develop some members of the offensive staff and had put in a lot of work to figure out what exactly that looked like. The upshot was that “all these other areas [are] being taken care of so that I can focus, do my best for the team in that regard”. I believe the regard in question is, based on the context of the question and answer, offensive play calling.
Last fall, I was one of the ones speculating that Napier had too much on his plate. It sounds like Napier agreed with that assessment.
My solution was for Napier to give up play calling to better oversee other areas of the program.
Napier’s solution was to hire Robinson, Fitzgerald, Houston, and, more opportunistically, Roberts to oversee other areas of the program so he could spend more time on the offense, including play calling.
Fitzgerald’s departure to reunite with longtime collaborator Bill O’Brien throws a spanner in the works, and finding another strength coach with similar quality and experience at this time of year will be hard to impossible. I envy the challenge.
However I wouldn’t put any money on Napier replacing Stapleton with a new play-calling offensive coordinator. Napier just spent months overhauling the rest of the program so that he can delegate some responsibilities and spend more time on the offensive planning and play calling.
Napier is explicitly betting on himself as an offensive architect and play caller from here on out. It’s the opposite tack of what a lot of coaches do, which is step back from the nitty-gritty details to become more of a CEO.
It’s far from the only thing that Napier has done to go against the grain organizationally, from having two offensive line coaches to employing analysts to serve as special teams coordinators and quarterbacks coach. Succeed or fail, there’s no doubt that Napier is doing things his way. All the glory or blame will rest with that one guy.