New Year’s Resolutions: Nine things that Napier needs to do in 2022

The dawning of a new year provides the perfect opportunity for self-reflection and setting goals for the year ahead.

That’s especially true for the Gators football program given that they’ll have an almost entirely new staff.

In accordance with the time-honored tradition, here are nine New Year’s resolutions for Billy Napier and the Gators as they enter 2022.

1. Instill better discipline and establish a winning culture.

Upgrading the talent level is going to take some time. At best, their roster will be competitive with Georgia’s or Alabama’s in two or three years.

However, a lack of discipline has been just as big of a problem for the Gators as the talent disparity over the past couple of seasons, and it’s a problem that is very much correctable in the short term.

They’ve got to stop beating themselves with false starts, offsides penalties on third-and-short, late hits, taunting penalties, roughing the passer fouls and flinging shoes 30 yards down the field. Whatever the previous staff tried to do to instill discipline clearly didn’t work, as the same type of mistakes showed up from one game to the next, often by a different set of players.

Napier needs to implement a strict discipline plan that involves grueling workouts after practice, a loss of playing time and whatever else they can think of. Basically, the players need to be afraid of what the consequences will be if they cost their team 15 yards and/or a first down in a game.

The Gators need to become a well-oiled machine that opposing teams have to play nearly flawlessly against to beat.

2. More competition and less complacency.

Dan Mullen and his staff said all of the right things about putting the best players on the field, but the results often told a different story.

If not for an injury, Kyle Trask would’ve probably never started a game at Florida. Feleipe Franks would’ve finished his career at Florida and been succeeded by Emory Jones. And then this year, despite it being obvious to almost everyone that Anthony Richardson was the most talented quarterback on the roster, Mullen stuck with Jones until he ran out of excuses in the second half of the LSU game.

They’ve got some talented young skill-position players like Marcus Burke, Nick Elksnis and Demarkcus Bowman that barely played this year.

Defensively, the Gasparilla Bowl showed you everything that you need to know. They didn’t have Mohamoud Diabate or Jeremiah Moon available, which forced them to start Ty’Ron Hopper and Derek Wingo. That was perhaps the best game that the linebackers played all year.

The depth chart felt more like a succession order than a fluid ranking of who was playing the best at each position. Once the depth chart was established in spring camp, pretty much the only way that it ever changed was via injury.

Napier needs to change that by making practices and meetings ultra-competitive. A fifth-year senior who has started 30-plus games needs to feel the pressure to perform. The players need to know that the best players at each position are going to play regardless of experience.

That’s going to lead to a better product on gamedays but should also lead to better player development, as the young guys will know that they’ve got a legitimate chance to earn significant playing time now and not just work their butts off for some time three or four years down the road.

3. Identify and develop a competent starting quarterback – preferably by the end of spring.

The quarterback position is arguably the most important position in all of sports, and the Gators weren’t very good at the position in 2021.

Richardson enters the offseason as the starter. He showed off his jaw-dropping athleticism and penchant for making big plays early in the season, and he threw the ball well when Mullen put him in positions where he only had to read one defender and either let it fly or run.

However, he struggled mightily when asked to scan the entire field and throw the ball to the open guy in a timely manner. For him to win the starting job and live up to his sky-high potential, he’s going to have to become a much better passer.

If he doesn’t, don’t be surprised if Ohio State transfer Jack Miller wins the starting job. Miller broke the Arizona Class 2A high school records for passing yards (3,653) and touchdowns (53) in a season as a freshman. He also ran for more than 800 yards that season.

While things didn’t pan out for him at Ohio State, that had more to do with C.J. Stroud being there than anything else.

Richardson has the higher upside, but Miller might be the better player as of now.

Napier needs to exit the spring game knowing who his starter is going to be so that he can spend the summer building his offense around him.

Who he chooses and how well he plays will go a long way in determining how successful the 2022 Gators will be.

4. Place a heightened emphasis on special teams.

It’s one thing to be bad on special teams; it’s another to be bad and not even put your best foot forward. Such was the case for the Gators in 2021.

They recruited Fenley Graham specifically to return punts, and it took until the final game of his second year on campus for him to finally do it. Bowman and Lorenzo Lingard are two of the fastest and most explosive players on the roster, which would seemingly make them excellent choices to return kickoffs, especially since they weren’t involved in the offense. Instead, they just collected dust on the bench.

Schematically, when was the last time that the Gators dialed up an exotic punt block or attempted a surprise onside kick? The only fake punts that they ran under the previous staff involved the punter running with the ball. Their plan on punt and kickoff returns seemed to be to fair catch as many of them as possible and avoid disaster.

There’s a reason that coaches often refer to special teams as the third phase of the game. It really can win a game or lose a game. Being bland on special teams isn’t going to work.

By not playing their best special teams players or showing much creativity with their special teams game plans, the previous staff basically sent a message to the players that special teams aren’t as important as offense or defense, even if that wasn’t their intent.

Napier needs to reestablish the proud special teams tradition that the Gators had under Urban Meyer.

5. Rotate the running backs in a way that makes more sense.

The problem wasn’t that the coaches rotated Dameon Pierce, Malik Davis and Nay’Quan Wright. The problem was that they tried to use them interchangeably and that they weren’t adaptable enough to keep feeding the hot hand.

There were numerous occasions this season where they’d have Davis in the backfield on third-and-1 even though that’s an obvious situation that calls for a more powerful runner like Pierce.

Or, they’d give Pierce the ball twice in a row, he’d gain 20 yards and then he wouldn’t touch the ball again for another 15 plays. Davis and Wright also had moments where they looked like the best running back on the team.

If one of them is gaining eight yards a pop, why on earth are you yanking them out of the game just because a sheet of paper that you wrote tells you to?

Hopefully, Napier and running backs coach Jabbar Juluke will have a better feel for how to utilize their players’ individual strengths instead of lumping them together as one big unit.

6. Recruit better.

Napier and co. got off to a hot start on early signing day by nabbing five-star safety Kamari Wilson, top-100 linebacker Shemar James and four-star defensive back Devin Moore.

The first full recruiting class is often the best indicator of how good a staff is at recruiting, and that will especially be the case for Napier’s crew. The positive energy within the fan base is at a level so high that there’s almost no way that it will be sustained forever. They’ve got a brand new, state-of-the-art facility opening soon. Miami and Florida State are still down.

If this staff can’t sign a top-5 class given all of that, then will it ever happen?

Napier was brought here largely because of his recruiting prowess, so he’ll be expected to start delivering some results from the get-go.

7. Take a step in the right direction with the offensive line.

While record-breaking passing attacks generate the most buzz these days, dominating up front is still a crucial component of fielding a championship-caliber offense.

There’s a reason why teams with mediocre offensive lines haven’t made the College Football Playoff but a handful of teams with mediocre quarterbacks – I’m looking at you, Stetson Bennett – have.

Success in the passing game is going to come and go. It took the Gators 10 years to find the right quarterback after Tim Tebow. And even the best quarterbacks are going to have bad games and throw two or three interceptions every now and then.

However, knocking defenders off of the ball is something that can travel anywhere against any opponent. There are fewer moving pieces that have to align just so to be a good running team. Being able to consistently run the ball well allows a team to have a larger margin for error in the passing game and possibly compete for championships even when they don’t have a great quarterback.

The offensive line has been a major weakness for the Gators for most of the last three seasons. Other than the first few games of this season, they just haven’t been able to run the ball well regardless of the situation.

They’re going to lose at least two starters from the 2021 unit (Stewart Reese and Jean Delance) as well as one of their most promising young players (Gerald Mincey). For this offense to be effective in 2022, Napier’s two offensive line coaches are going to have to squeeze the most out of the returning players.

It’s going to take Napier at least two or three recruiting classes to completely fix the offensive line, but they need to at least show signs of progress in 2022.

8. Develop some depth at defensive tackle and middle linebacker.

As things stand now, Gervon Dexter and Jalen Lee will be the only two defensive tackles with major experience on the roster next year. While both of them have shown encouraging flashes, neither of them has established himself as a sure thing heading into next season.

The depth behind them will consist of second-year players Desmond Watson and Chris Thomas and a couple of veterans who haven’t done much (Lamar Goods and Jaelin Humphries). Ideally, you want at least four or five players to rotate through at this position. So, they’ve got a lot of work to do, both in quality and in depth.

At middle linebacker, the Gators received a big boost on Christmas when Ventrell Miller announced that he will return for another season following his season-ending arm injury in week two of this year.

If he stays healthy next year, Miller will provide excellent run-stuffing ability and leadership.

However, they need to develop reliable options behind him so that the defense doesn’t fall apart without him on the field. Chief Borders, Diwun Black and Scooby Williams all look the part, but they’ve got to improve over the offseason.

9. Win the games that you’re supposed to win.

Look, nobody in their right mind can expect this team to challenge for a spot in the playoff next season. This is a rebuilding job and not a situation where a new coach can just breathe life into a program and make everything good again. This will take time.

There are seven games that the Gators should win next season: Kentucky, South Florida, Eastern Washington, Missouri, South Carolina, Vanderbilt and Florida State. There are three games that should be considered toss-ups: Utah, Tennessee and LSU. If they win all seven of the games that they’re supposed to win and go 2-1 in the toss-up games, that should be considered a successful debut season for Napier.