Four of the most fraught words that can be uttered are, “this time is different”.
I always fall for my buddy’s crossover/head fake move on the basketball court, but this time is different. I’ve committed to lose weight every January for the last ten years, but this time is different. I always lose money following Jim Cramer’s stock advice, but this time is different.
Chances are, this time isn’t different. If it was easy to make a change you’ve been trying to make for a while, you’d have done it already. And making predictions is hard, especially about the future. If there’s a rake you keep stepping on, it’s best to avoid it because more than likely you’ll just step on it again.
Florida is starting the 2022 season with a new head coach. It’s the sixth time it’s happened in the last two decades. Will this time be different?
Different is indeed desirable even when looking at the one success, Urban Meyer. It was a faustian bargain, winning a pair of SEC and national championships in exchange for a poisoned culture with high levels of player arrests and severe locker room dysfunction. Most fans of most schools would still make that trade, since national titles are so hard to come by for anyone not named Nick Saban. Nothing about how it happened was sustainable, however.
That’s no small thing, by the way. When Scott Stricklin discussed his dismissal of Dan Mullen, “sustained success” was a phrase he repeated in terms of what he wanted out of the football program. I’m sure all Gator fans would agree that such is preferable to the roller coaster the program’s been on since Steve Spurrier left for the NFL.
Is this time different? Some elements are unquestionably so.
For the first time in forever, Florida’s facilities are up to par with the best in the sport. You can argue how much that matters with NIL potentially eclipsing facilities in importance, but it’s no longer a hinderance/excuse for a lack of sustained success going forward.
The Florida football stuff is also larger than it has ever been. That is an important difference in a day and age when the best of the sport also have large staffs. You either have to find coaches who are more productive and efficient than the Sabans, Smarts, and Ryan Days of the world – not too likely – or you have to match their level of investment. UF has done the latter in a way it hasn’t in the past.
For now, Billy Napier even seems like a more stable individual than most recent coaches. Ron Zook was an over-caffeinated Jack Russell terrier. Meyer exuded intensity even when it didn’t matter, leading to extreme burnout. Will Muschamp famously could fly off the handle at a moment’s notice. Jim McElwain seemed okay at first but lost it in less than three years. Mullen retreated to defensiveness or denial any time anyone questioned his decisions.
Napier seems to never get too high or too low while never coming off as blasé. That’s a rare combination of traits for a Power 5 head coach. If he can keep that up, that’s the kind of personality needed to survive a pressure cooker of a job like Florida’s.
All of this is a good start, but there’s still the matter of winning ball games on the field. Napier finally has a chance to do that at week’s end.
When I think about UF coaches’ first openers, I think about things like throwing deep on the first play to pander to Gator fans’ love of the pass game. Napier doesn’t have the luxury of such stunts, since Utah is far and away the best first opponent for a new head coach in a long time. Spurrier played Oklahoma State in his first game, but those Cowboys finished 4-7. The Utes are reigning Pac-12 champs.
So this inaugural game will be different too. It won’t be like those of the four fired coaches who won their openers by an average of 52-6 over three FBS bottom feeders and an FCS team.
It’ll be tempting to say that this game “sets the tone” for Napier’s tenure, but as the aforementioned results show, openers can be deceiving. Chip Kelly lost his first game at Oregon 19-8 to Boise State. Afterwards he won three conference titles, had three top-five finishes, and made the national title game all while putting gaudy numbers up on the scoreboard. Sometimes one game is just one game.
Napier’s summer recruiting surge has bought him patience with the die hards, and it may be necessary this year. McElwain and Mullen may have won ten games in their first campaigns, but the schedule and state of the returning roster make it tough to see Napier getting there. He probably won’t go 6-6 like Muschamp did in his first season, but with just the right injuries, it’s not off the table.
Muschamp did win more than ten games himself in his second campaign in 2012, boosted by Meyer’s sensational 2010 recruiting class. Florida has sunk to lows in its lost decade that’s lasted a dozen years, but the peaks have still come and the valleys have been mercifully brief. Each of the last four UF head coaches have hit double-digit wins at least once. The Gators have only missed two bowl games since Tim Tebow graduated; Tennessee has failed to reach bowl eligibility five times in the same span, and FSU has gone four seasons straight without visiting the postseason.
So this time probably won’t be different in that respect, especially if Napier can hold onto his current 2023 commits and add a few more good ones to fill out the class. It’s shaping up to be the kind of haul that can lead a team to at least nine regular season wins with a bowl victory, even with a Muschamp-level coach at the helm. If Napier stays long enough to coach that group in their second or third year, he’s practically guaranteed to hit ten wins too.
No one wants it to take three or four years to get there, though, especially in the transfer portal era. Napier’s contract is long and lucrative enough to give him a little extra leash, but Florida fans are demanding. Uncharitable commentators may call fans impatient instead, but enough Gators remember the ’90s and the mid-2000s that they know what excellence looks like. They therefore know what building to excellence looks like, and they don’t want to watch bad process play out for years before making a change.
And sure enough, this time is different in that respect. Napier’s staff is full of known quantities that other programs wanted. It’s not partially populated by cronies who’d never be poached away like Mac’s and Mullen’s staffs were. There aren’t any head scratchers like Muschamp had. Its recruiting results already are on a trajectory to surpass Mac’s and Mullen’s too, and it won’t take that high a hit rate on the offensive side to surpass Muschamp’s as well.
For now, Florida football sure feels different in a way it hasn’t in over a decade. There are a lot of great people in charge on and off the field, and the early recruiting returns are approaching what UF expects and aren’t merely good considering that the last guy underachieved.
It’ll be a while before we can definitively say that this time is different, but the program finally appears to be on the road to get there with fewer caveats than any new start since Meyer’s. That’ll remain true no matter what the result is on Saturday.