Florida is one of the best head coaching jobs in the country. They have everything you need to win big – great facilities, quick access to some of the best high school players in the country, a strong brand that is recognized nationwide, good weather and a ton of money.
However, with those enormous resources come enormous expectations. Gators fans have seen their team hoist three national championship trophies over the past 25 years. That’s what the program is capable of when it’s running smoothly.
So, when the Gators aren’t making substantial progress toward contending for a national championship, the fans can turn on the head coach quickly. Just ask Dan Mullen. He went from hero to zero in about six weeks.
New Florida coach Billy Napier, though, isn’t worried about the pressure that comes with coaching at the school. Instead, he embraces it and is excited about the challenge of restoring this beleaguered program to glory.
“We’re going to build the best football program in the SEC conference,” Napier said. “We must have a championship approach in everything that we do to accomplish this goal. Every choice, every decision, every habit that we build along the way, we’re going to begin with the ending in mind, and that is to be a champion. I’ve seen this done. I’ve experienced it myself, and I can promise you that we will all reap the benefits from this.
“I’m well aware of the expectations that we have here. Trust me, no one’s got higher expectations for what we want to do and what we want to accomplish than myself.”
He added that this will take a collective effort from everybody in Gator Nation. This isn’t as simple as him coming in here and sprinkling some pixie dust and making everything instantly better.
“It’s important that everybody take ownership in their role, whatever that may be,” he said. “You may be the equipment manager. You might be a cheerleader. You may run a local business. You might just be a Florida Gator fan in the barber shop. But I think it’s critical that we rally together, support each other as we work to establish a really high standard of excellence for this program both on and off the field.
“It’s important for everyone to know that we’ve got a goal here to play a brand of football that creates a great sense of pride,” he said. “Pride not only for this institution but for the people in this great community of Gainesville, Florida, and Florida Gators all across the country. To our fans, our alumni, our investors, any and everybody that loves this university and this football program, this will be a team effort. That’s what it’s going to take. It’s going to take all of us.”
Napier also feels like his organizational plan will keep this job from becoming overwhelming no matter how difficult things might become. He’s going to hire a ton of people and delegate responsibilities. He won’t have to face any challenge without plenty of help.
“These jobs will chew you up and spit you out if you let them,” he said. “I think we’ve got to keep perspective. We’ve got to have balance. I think that’s one of the reasons that I believe in the infrastructure that we’re going to create, as we can allow our people to have balance to do a good job at home with their families because they can delegate. Because each role is clearly defined, nobody’s got too much on their plate. And it’ll be the most difficult early, but once we get this machine up and running, I think we’ll be able to have some pace to life where we can enjoy.”
“The Journey” coming to Gainesville
For the past 14 years, Nick Saban has enjoyed unparalleled success at Alabama using a philosophy that he refers to as “The Process.” It’s about much more than just showing up and playing well on gamedays.
It’s about enforcing a very detailed way of doing even the simplest tasks to instill discipline in the players and squeeze the most out of every second of the day. It’s about focusing on details so small that the average fan doesn’t even know about them. It’s about approaching every game so prepared and so confident that the other team knows they’re going to lose before toe even meets leather.
It’s about recruiting elite players and developing them well enough that there’s never much of a drop-off.
Napier got an up-close look at Saban’s Alabama machine as an analyst in 2011 and as the receivers coach from 2013-16. He plans to implement something similar at UF, though he refers to his way of doing things as “The Journey.”
“Our trademark will be our physicality,” he said. “We’ll be in great condition. We’ll be known for how hard we play. We’ll be disciplined, and we will eliminate careless plays — turnovers, penalties, mental errors. We’re going to be sound, and we’re going to attack in all three phases. We will attack by scheme. More importantly, we’ll attack with a relentless mindset. We’re going to be unique. We’re going to be a tough three-day prep for the opponent. Simply put, we want to be the team that the other team dreads to play.
“We will have elite toughness here. We will have elite work ethic here. And we’re going to operate with great class, and we’re going to do things with integrity.
“The key is executing the process. It’s one thing to talk about it; it’s another thing to have the discipline to follow through and do those things each day, and that’ll be the challenge is to get everybody in the building to do just that. It’s my job to create consistency, be fair, hold people accountable and create an environment where people want to do the challenge and look forward to coming to work each day.”
Napier to call plays
Napier will call the offensive plays at UF, as he did throughout his four seasons as head coach at Louisiana. He will also serve as his own quarterbacks coach, with the assistance of an off-the-field analyst.
Aside from obviously being confident in his ability to call good plays, he also thinks that him calling plays and coaching the quarterbacks gives them an advantage from a staffing standpoint.
Per NCAA rules, the Gators are only allowed to have 10 assistant coaches. Because he’s going to essentially serve as his own offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, he’ll be able to hire two offensive line coaches to create a smaller teacher-to-student ratio.
“We will construct our staff on both sides of the ball and put a premium on the line of scrimmage — the offensive line, the defensive line,” Napier said. “The edge players will be very important. And certainly, when you’re coaching offensive line, you’ve got to coach five players. Nobody’s got one coach coaching five DBs. I don’t know why you wouldn’t have two guys coaching the offensive line.”
Napier trying to win over team
Coaching transitions can be a bumpy ride if they’re not handled correctly. In UF’s case, none of the players chose to play for Napier. Some of them may not have even heard of him until about a week ago.
Now Napier is going to come in here and implement entirely new ways of doing just about everything. He’s going to part ways with some assistant coaches and support staffers that the players may have really liked.
Through it all, Napier has to find a way to convince the players that the things he’s doing are in their best interests and that they should give his methods a fair chance.
“It’s going to be about building trust,” he said. “It’s going to be about creating strong communication. That’s where we start. They must see that you have authentic care and you have their best interests at heart.”
He started making progress toward that end on Sunday afternoon when he addressed the team for the first time, though Napier recognizes that this will be a lengthy process.
“I know they went through a tough time, that there’s uncertainty, that they’ve been through a very difficult experience,” he said. “There’s nothing easy about this. They’re young people. That makes it even more difficult. I just wanted them to know that we’re going to work hard for them and that I wanted them to know a little bit about me. I told them that I think that football is a game of people, strategy and competition, and the most important part of the game is the people. That starts with the players.
“Everything that we do is going to be about helping them, serving them, trying to help them improve as people, prioritizing their education and helping them develop as football players, chase their dreams and accomplish the things as individual players and certainly as a team. You can’t win over the team in a 30-minute meeting. You’re going to have to do it with consistency. You’ve got to be fair. You’re going to earn their trust and respect over time, and that’s what we plan on doing.”
Napier stresses patience
As soon as Napier’s hiring was announced on Nov. 28, fans immediately flooded message boards and social media with questions about who he’s going to hire as assistant coaches and if he’ll be able to salvage this recruiting class.
While Jabbar Juluke and Patrick Toney followed him from Louisiana, the rest of his staff remains a mystery. There have been rumors about other coaches joining the staff, but nothing seems close to being finalized as of Sunday evening.
As for recruiting, UF’s class currently ranks 40th in the nation with the Dec. 15 signing day approaching quickly.
Napier urged fans and media to not freak out if things don’t come together rapidly over the next week or two. He’d rather take his time, hire the right coaches and sign the right players than rush through things and make decisions that will hurt the program down the road.
“We’re going to evaluate the situation a little bit this week, over the next 10 days or so, but you can expect us to be very conservative, very patient, trying to position ourselves for post-signing day to evaluate all the players that are left over, all the players in the transfer portal,” he said. “And then when we do have our entire staff and organization put together, position ourselves for some really strong weekends in January and then try to close strong in February.
“Reality is you’re getting in the game, and there’s like three minutes left in the fourth quarter. And I think the last thing we need to do here is make some mistakes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t sign many at all, to be honest with you, but there may be a few out there that are willing to jump in here in the last minute.”
He added that recruiting is all about relationships. It’s not in the Gators’ best interests or in the recruits’ best interests to jump into something when they barely know each other.
“I think it’s important in recruiting that both sides understand each other and have had time to build relationships, to have conversations, to know who is going to coach you, to fully understand what the plan is,” Napier said. “So, I think it goes both ways in that regard. I think it’s an injustice to them and it’s an injustice to us to all of a sudden just hurry up and elope right here at the last second.”