By Will Miles
Men’s basketball streak
At the time of this writing, Florida is on a 4-game win streak. The Gators are now sporting a 16-8 record, and if they win the rest of their games against just their unranked opponents, that would mean a 21-11 record.
That’s not going to happen.
I say that because Mississippi is a below average basketball team, and they took the Gators to overtime at home. This after losing to Ole Miss on the road badly just a few weeks ago. There’s another bad loss lurking on the schedule somewhere, and with Kentucky on the schedule twice and Auburn coming up as well, the chances of a ranked upset are rather remote.
That means we’re looking at 20-12 with an inexcusable loss to Texas Southern on the resume. It also would mean the Gators’ only win over a ranked team was against #20 Florida State to start the season, but the ‘Noles are currently 13-9 and struggling as well.
At this point, this is what we get from Mike White. The bottom doesn’t fall out, but the top end is severely limited. He’s tried with his own recruits. Now he’s tried with the transfer portal. Maybe he gets it right eventually.
But right now, we’re exactly where we have been for his entire tenure.
Women’s basketball play thus far
With all the turmoil around the program this offseason, you could forgive the women’s basketball team for having a poor season. After all, if women’s basketball teams are leading ESPN stories, it’s usually not a good thing unless it’s about UConn.
But sure enough, the team has come out and put up a 17-6 record thus far – including a 7-3 record in the SEC – and is finally competitive for the first time in years. That includes a 12-point loss at home to South Carolina, the number one team in the country. For reference, the Gamecocks beat UConn earlier in the season by 16.
It’s a very inside-oriented team. Leading scorers Kiara Smith (14.9 ppg) and Lavender Briggs (12.5 ppg) have taken a combined 478 shots, with only 101 of those coming from 3-point range (and only converting at a 27% clip).
That stat – particularly the shooting percentage – should be a little bit worrisome, except Briggs and Smith both shot 32% last season. Briggs also shot 35% in 2019, so particularly for her, I’d expect the shooting numbers to improve significantly moving forward.
More than anything, with all of the clamoring for a winner from fans for Gators football and basketball, you’re missing a winner right under your nose. The Gator women are only averaging a little more than 1,500 people per content (versus 2,600 on the road).
The next home game is February 17 against Arkansas. Go check them out.
Kelly Rae Finely
There has been quite a bit of scuttle this week about Kelly Rae Finley. Finley took over for Cam Newbauer after allegations of abuse surfaced this past offseason.
That position for Finley comes with an interim tag, and certainly after starting with a 17-6 record as an interim head coach, there will be calls for the tag to be removed. That is what happened when LSU’s Kim Mulkey spoke about Finley this week.
But I don’t think that’s a good decision-making process. Perhaps Finley is a fantastic coach and Florida needs to make this hire. But that should be based on both her coaching and her recruiting acumen. We all know in football how important recruiting is, but that extends to other sports as well. A great X’s and O’s coach is still going to get whipped if the other team has better players.
Beyond that, Finley has been brought up in the Newbauer investigation, sometimes in a negative light. She may be completely innocent, and Florida is hopefully investigating the allegations and will be able to shed some light on Newbauer’s role in the situation, but also on Finley’s.
Because I know that winning is a priority. But it shouldn’t be THE priority. If Finley did things that enabled Newbauer, then you’re already starting on the wrong foot. And if you change your mind about whether she deserves the title of head coach based on the on-court record instead of combining that with the off-court investigation, what have we learned from the Newbauer situation anyway?
Gators OL
Bill Sikes wrote an article over at my site this week detailing the struggles that Florida has had on the offensive line all the way back to the Urban Meyer days.
There are a lot of great nuggets in the article, but the one that stood out to me is the following: since 2010, Florida has signed 46 offensive linemen compared to 50 for Georgia. But of those 46, 20 have left the program early (non-NFL) while the number is 7 for the Bulldogs.
If you want to talk about the SEC being a line of scrimmage league, that just can’t happen.
The result is that Florida has had to rely on transfers a lot. The problem has been exacerbated by trying to build numbers by taking some risks on players with iffy medical histories. And then it has also been exacerbated by having coaches who just haven’t worked out, whether that’s Greg Nord or John Hevesy.
In some ways, the numbers make me appreciate what Kyle Trask did in 2019 and 2020 even more. It also makes me wonder whether all of the blame sent Emory Jones’ way last year was deserved. Trask had a unique pocket presence that helped him overcome line limitations. Remember the play against South Carolina where there was a free runner and he sidestepped him and hit Kyle Pitts over the middle?
That isn’t a play Emory Jones would have made. But I’m not sure it’s a play a lot of college football QBs would make.
That’s why I do think it’s important to take Billy Napier at his word when he says everyone gets a blank slate, Jones included. I think we have enough tape to know that Jones won’t be transcendent. I think that’s why you give Anthony Richardson the nod if the players are even. I still think it’s more likely than not that Jones transfers after the spring.
But it’s really hard to play QB when your offensive line is struggling.
Expectations for 2022
I’ve had a lot of people ask me what my expectations for 2022 are from a record perspective. My initial inclination was to suggest that the opening year record doesn’t matter all that much. After all, both Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen won 10 games, and neither of those situations worked out all that well.
But if we look at our old friend point differential, we do see a little bit of a trend.
Steve Spurrier’s first team won by an average of 19.7 points per game. He obviously became a legend. Ron Zook’s first team won by an average of 4.3 ppg – average. Urban Meyer’s first team won by an average of 9.8 ppg – two championships. Will Muschamp’s first season differential was 5.2 and Jim McElwain’s was 4.9.
The only coach to perform well in this analysis who flamed out was Dan Mullen, who won by 15 points per game in 2018. But if you remember, that 2018 season almost flew off the rails after a 38-17 loss to Missouri and was saved by a luck-filled win against South Carolina.
The point is not that a high point differential necessarily suggests success. The point rather is to suggest that a low one absolutely indicates a coach who is going to struggle. Every time that point differential has been below 5.2, the coach has been gone quickly.
So if I’m looking at expectations, I’d love 8 or 9 wins. But I’m going to be looking at how Florida wins (and how they lose) rather than just how many, because I’m much more concerned at the process Billy Napier is taking into the games than the results, at least in year one.
NIL and the Gator Collective
In response to name, image and likeness rules, a bunch of collectives have sprung up around college football programs to help support these athletes. Florida is no exception, and in fact was on the leading edge with the formation of the Gator Collective.
I get what these collectives are doing, and fundamentally, I’m thrilled to see players getting compensated for playing a game with large risk of injury and no long-term monetary guarantee. But I’ve been uneasy about these collectives and hadn’t really been able to put my finger on why.
But then it finally clicked. The SEC signed a TV deal with ESPN that is going to give its member institutions $68 million annually starting in 2024. That’s a lot of money that could be shared with players if the NCAA and the conferences would get out of the way of the free market. But as of now, they refuse to do so.
Instead, they’re asking their fans to foot the bill, all so that they don’t have to treat their athletes as employees. The fans are obliging because they value the prestige of the university and crave championships, but name me another business that asks its customers to pay for its product, then after pocketing the profits, asks those same customers for donations to cover the cost of its employees?
We all know where this is headed. Players are gaining power in negotiations. The Supreme Court has clearly indicated that this business model isn’t going to stand for much longer. It won’t be too long before college football powers are going to have to make a choice about unions, collective bargaining and how to split up profits.
Until then, it just seems uncouth for schools to ask their fans to pay for something they are unwilling to pay for themselves. Again, I’m happy players are finally getting something. But the reality is that it is still table scraps compared to the money that is coming into these schools.
2023 Recruiting
But currently NIL is the law of the land, so Billy Napier is going to have to utilize the collective to further his goals. And those goals should be significant given the landscape of the 2023 class. Just look at these statistics about recruits in the state of Florida for 2023:
- 9 recruits with a 5-star ranking
- 3 recruits in the top-10 nationally
- 20 recruits in the top-100 nationally
- 39 recruits in the top-200 nationally
That means the state contains 25% of all 5-star recruits, 30% of top-10 recruits, and 20% of both top-100 and top-200 recruits. So basically, if you win the state of Florida in recruiting, you should win recruiting.
I say this because Texas has five 5-star recruits, 2 top-10 recruits, 17 top-100 recruits and 35 top-200 recruits. When people talk about recruiting, they talk about Florida and Texas and the Sunshine State is ahead in 2023. And not only did Billy Napier have to navigate a transition class, but Florida had a much lower talent level in the 2022 class (24 top-200 recruits and one top-10 recruit).
All of this to say that everything is set up for Billy Napier to succeed in 2023. Missing on Herald Perkins is reasonable because you had to pull him away from LSU. But in 2023, other programs are going to have to pull recruits away from Florida.
Napier can’t let that happen.
Wide Receivers
Florida has had a lot of success at the wide receiver position over the past few years. You obviously have the development of Kadarius Toney and Kyle Pitts into All-SEC players, but guys like Trevon Grimes, Van Jefferson, Freddie Swain, Tyrie Cleveland and Josh Hammond provided valuable playmaking and depth along the way.
The Gators roster right now at the wide receiver position is devoid of both.
Caleb Douglas is a brand new recruit. Marcus Burke and Daejon Reynolds caught a total of three passes last season. Ja’Quavion Fraziars and Ja’Markis Weston caught five each. There are only three other scholarship receivers currently on the roster (Trent Whittemore, Xzavier Henderson and Justin Shorter) and none of them has proven yet the ability to be a game changer.
That’s why if you’re looking at the transfer portal after spring practice, I think you have to believe that Billy Napier is going to focus at receiver. I get that he wants to run the ball and rely on his offensive line.
But today’s game is won through the air. You have to have gifted receivers. And quite honestly, there’s no excuse that Florida – home of the Fun ‘N Gun – doesn’t have gifted receivers all over the place.
Pasqualoni to the Panthers
Paul Pasqualoni was the lone holdover to Billy Napier’s staff from the Dan Mullen era. Pasqualoni was going to be Florida’s director of advanced scouting, but is now leaving to take a role as the defensive line coach with the Carolina Panthers.
This is clearly an upgrade for Pasqualoni. He gets to go from what essentially is an analyst’s position to an on-field coaching role in the NFL. Good for him.
As for Florida, they’ll be hard-pressed to find someone with as much experience as Pasqualoni to fill the role he’s leaving behind. The good news though is that they might be able to find someone better, or at least better suited to the role.
I know Pasqualoni knows a ton about football. But when Florida fired Todd Grantham and he came down onto the field last year in a coaching capacity, did we really get all that excited about the future he brought to the program? Of course not. His best coaching days are behind him, which makes sense since he is 72 years old.
Now Florida has an opportunity to fill this role with a young coach who is willing to put in the hours and is potentially an up-and-comer. The practice of “padding” – or diagraming the locations of each player for each play, both yourself and opponents – is something that Bill Belichick reveres and makes all of his young coaches do. It teaches them a ton about the game, but it also teaches Belichick a lot about them.
I can’t imagine Napier was going to be able to ask Pasqualoni to spend all night in his office padding the Vanderbilt offense this offseason. If you get someone on the upswing of their career into this role, they likely would welcome that sort of thing.
Auburn debacle
What in the world is going on at Auburn?
Bryan Harsin may not be a great coach, but his record at Boise State says that he might be. You’re not going to learn that after one 6-7 year. Yes, there are rumors circulating – some unsubstantiated – that paint Harsin in a bad light, but those are things you would hope Auburn would have vetted out before hiring the guy.
I’m not sure that the Tigers administration and boosters have a realistic view of who they are. They are the second fiddle in a state run by the best coach in the history of the sport. Yet, they fired Gus Malzahn after he went 3-5 against Saban in his eight seasons. Saban only lost 7 other times in 104 contests.
If nothing else, this really does point towards a solid decision-making process for Billy Napier. Napier was reportedly of interest to Auburn and he turned them down. Now, jobs are never officially offered if someone is going to turn them down, but the fact that Napier realized this wouldn’t be a good fit for him was a wise move given the recent events.
But the fact that Auburn is about to run out a coach after one year is just mind boggling. If Napier wouldn’t take that job a year ago, who’s going to take it now? The answer is someone who either needs to rehab their image due to transgressions somewhere else, or someone who is desperate for SEC validation who is going to inherently be a high-risk candidate.
Harsin may not be the right guy for Auburn. But man, have they boxed themselves in with this one.