The Emory Jones era at Florida really appears to have come to an end. After he put out a graphic with a farewell on Saturday morning and UF released some official quotes from Billy Napier, Jones was absent from practice later in the day.
There are a couple of ways to look at the situation. For one thing, the timing seems strange since Jones performed media availability earlier in the week. If he knew then that he was going to head out, it wouldn’t have made sense for him to be doing interviews with the press.
Plus, the content of the interview was fairly head-turning. Jones admitted that he was fully planning to transfer. We knew that since Pete Thamel reported such over the winter, though everyone got confused since he never followed through with putting his name in the portal. But then he talked about how Napier and QBs analyst Ryan O’Hara sat him down and ran through film as a part of re-recruiting him to Florida.
Ethan’s write up of the interview concludes with this: “I’m committed,” he said. “I’m here. I’ve been working my butt off since the offseason, trying to get closer to a lot of guys around here and for this team.”
Four days later, he was no longer committed or here.
The other way to look at this is that Jones is not that great a fit for the new offensive system. It’s a bit strange to say since Jones is actually similar in skill set to Levi Lewis, who was a three-year starter for Napier in Lafayette. Jones is a better runner — he’s better at everything as a 4-star recruit who went to Florida instead of a low 3-star recruit who went to UL-Lafayette — but neither is that great as a pocket passer.
Napier’s offense can handle a mobile quarterback, but it’s what the modern game would recognize as pro-style. There aren’t a bunch of I-formation sets like what “pro-style” meant 15 years ago, but it’s pro-style in the way that Alabama runs more or less the same thing as what NFL teams do. With Napier’s most formative years as an assistant coming in Tuscaloosa, the post-Lane Kiffin Bama offense is the model you should have in your mind for what the new Gator scheme will look like.
The most running any quarterback did for the Kiffin and later era Tide was 2014’s Blake Sims, but he piled up just 83 rushing attempts without taking sacks out. Guys like Tua and Bryce Young were far from pocket statues, but that kind of offense just doesn’t like to put the quarterback on the move as a staple of the offense.
Jones is simply not a good enough or confident enough passer to survive in an attack that doesn’t use quarterback options and runs much. His overly cautious approach causes problems, whether those be late throws because he’s waiting for guys to get open and turn to face him or locking onto his first target because he doesn’t feel comfortable scanning the field.
So while Jones has a long and winding story at Florida, from being the first big recruiting win for Dan Mullen to the popular backup to the starter that fans turned on, the end could also be seen as something utterly banal. The coaching staff turned over, and he doesn’t fit the new scheme. In that particular frame, it’s no less appropriate for him to transfer now than it was for Jake Allen to leave after Mullen replaced Jim McElwain.
The decision to leave had to have come sometime in the Wednesday to Friday range. I’d guess it came by Friday morning at the latest, as I don’t think is graphic was slapped together first thing Saturday morning before practice.
I don’t think we’ll ever know, but I would like to find out whether Jones made the call himself or if Napier gave some encouragement. I could see it both ways on Napier’s part.
He did try to keep Jones around, after all, I’m sure because Emory is an experienced hand who was a leader in the locker room. It probably spoke volumes to many Gator players that Jones chose to stick around after talking to Napier despite all the very obvious reasons why he might want to transfer. There also is the matter that Jones was the most experienced and durable quarterback on the roster.
On the other hand, Jones is not the future in Gainesville anymore. After four years on the college level, there’s not much more potential to be found and developed. He showed himself to be an average P5 starter, and that was with one of the best offensive architects in the game tailoring things to his skill set. If Napier isn’t as good at doing that — and again, pretty much no one is as good as Mullen in that respect — then we’re looking at him sinking down to being a below-average P5 starter.
With a new regime in place and no pressure for winning any titles this fall, there’s no reason to go with the below-average veteran. And if Jones is not going to be the starter, then it’s better for both him and the program to leave. For him, so he could start elsewhere, and for the program, so all snaps and coaching at practice can go to guys who might affirmatively win the starting job some day.
What little we’ve seen from Napier leads me to believe that he would be honest with Jones if he asked about his status with the team. Jones seems to be a pretty bright guy who’s not blinded by arrogance, so he could probably see which way the wind is blowing.
It’s too bad that it didn’t work out for Jones, but all kinds of guys don’t work out at their first college choices. It’s a bigger deal since he’s a quarterback, and a University of Florida quarterback at that, but now he’ll get to transfer elsewhere for a fresh start. He’ll likely graduate with a UF diploma in a couple of months, and that’s a lifelong asset he’ll have.
This is the college football system working. Jones took a great opportunity when Mullen gave him an offer, and his high 4-star rating represented an industry consensus that he was a good enough player to potentially excel at a place like UF. It didn’t happen as projected on the field, but he got a great education and still has a couple of years of eligibility to use while getting a master’s degree elsewhere.
There definitely was some unpleasantness with fans last fall that was regrettable, and Jones alluded to that in his interview from last week. Unfortunately, the chance of that happening is the price of admission for trying to be a quarterback at the top of the sport.
But that aside, this is what the system working can and often does look like. Jones got more than a fair shake thanks to Mullen’s preference for seniority, and I hope we’ll get to see him start elsewhere in September.