I think at this point the football staff for 2024 is set. There may be some new off-field additions to the analyst ranks yet to come, but I think the main staff is probably already in place. Here’s why.
Over the weekend I listened to the podcast of former Gator Country writer Nick de la Torre that he does with Zach Alboverdi for Gators Online. Most of it was an interview with Jeremy Crawshaw, which I think is worth the listen. Nothing earth-shattering came of it, but Crawshaw has been through a lot of change in the program for a lot of years and came from the other side of the world to be a Gator. He has a perspective you don’t hear a lot.
Anyway, after the interview was over, both Nick and Zach stated that all the assistant coach contracts that were due to expire at the end of January were renewed. A handful of the ten assistants had deals that ran out at month’s end, but all of them are still working for the Orange and Blue now in February. If everything is truly done, that means that the offseason has come and gone without any changes to the offensive staff.
I put the pieces together months ago that there likely weren’t going to be any moves on that side early in the offseason. Billy Napier wasted no time in firing Corey Raymond and Sean Spencer. No one else got a pink slip, though, and Andrew’s insider notes about which assistants were going out recruiting kept mentioning Darnell Stapleton hitting the road a lot and sometimes going out with Napier himself.
My guess, and I do mean guess, was that if Napier was going to hire a proper play-calling offensive coordinator, one or both offensive line coaches would have to go. If one was going to depart, I would’ve put money on Stapleton.
I am not in a position to evaluate their work and I don’t have inside sources, but Stapleton is the junior partner in the duo. Rob Sale has more experience and more history with Napier, and he owned the offensive coordinator title even as he didn’t call plays. He could be made co-OC, much like how Spencer was co-DC without ever calling defensive plays. Or, the new play caller could be given some new fancy designation like Ron Roberts’s “executive head coach” to avoid job title conflict. Sale keeping his OC title while a proper play-calling OC came aboard was feasible.
So, I figured early in December that any changes would have to wait until after signing day because Stapleton was out recruiting far too much for someone who was going to be let go imminently. But then, I would read a quote from a high school offensive lineman signee that he was drawn to the program because it had two OL coaches. And then I saw one from a transfer lineman again touting the two-coach system. I can’t remember which ones those were, nor can I find the quotes after searching for them, but it stuck out both times.
If multiple targets, high school recruit and portal transfer, are citing two coaches as a drawing point, then it stood to reason that there would continue to be two coaches. Napier doesn’t seem like the kind to hammer that talking point right before dropping the hammer on one of them.
Two assistants left UF for the NFL last February, and no one knew Jay Bateman was leaving for Texas A&M until it hit the media, so never say never. However it appears likely to me now that the staff is done changing, or at the plan is for it to be done changing.
Yes, I too have been underwhelmed by Sale and Stapleton’s work. We also will never know the counterfactual of what the lines would’ve looked like with a different leadership structure. I’ve said on the GC board that Richie Leonard getting a starting job was a canary in the coal mine: if no one could beat out a slightly below-average career backup for one of the starting five spots, it was always going to be a rough year. There might not be an OL coach out there who could’ve gotten excellent results from last year’s line.
To me it was the same as when Dan Mullen and John Hevesy walked in the door and bumped Nick Buchanan up from third string to starting center. If a guy had no hope of starting under the previous staff, he probably shouldn’t start for the new one either. Yes, I know the story of Shane Matthews from back in the day. Everyone knows that story precisely because it’s so rare for something like that to happen.
Really, the OC hopes were always a least a little bit of a stretch because all-everything quarterback recruit DJ Lagway wants to play in Napier’s offense. He committed early and stayed strong as other blue chips were bailing not just because he wants to play for Napier the head coach but because he wants to run Napier’s scheme.
That’s the main reason why I didn’t note the bit above about Stapleton at the time; hiring a new play calling coordinator before the December signing day whose background was not in Napier’s style of offense might’ve jeopardized the guy who is far and away the most important recruit of Naper’s Florida tenure.
I’m disappointed that Napier didn’t pull the trigger on a new play caller, though there’s still a little bit of time before spring to get someone in to run something heavily based on Napier’s philosophy. There were little birdies in the building as early as in October telling media members I trust and who aren’t spaghetti throwers that an OC was coming. It may be that plans changed, or maybe Napier couldn’t get someone he could trust.
Whatever the reason, I think Florida has who it’s going to have at this point.