In the past week or two, I’ve seen various people claim that now, whenever “now” actually happened to be, was the halfway point of the offseason. I don’t care enough to parse through when people’s various start and end dates are, so suffice to say the offseason is probably more than half over by now.
With that being the case, I want to run through how Billy Napier has done so far as head ball coach of the Gators. It’ll necessarily be an incomplete image of him in the job since he’s yet to actually coach a single game, but he’s laying the groundwork now for everything that comes later.
Napier has done a good job of getting most fans on his side. He’s been managing expectations since his introductory press conference to what appears to be good effect. He’s much more warm and personable, if more low key, than Dan Mullen was. Being strong where the guy who just got fired is weak is always a plus.
Winning over the locker room took longer than I would’ve expected, with expected major contributors Khris Bogle, Mohamoud Diabate, and Kemore Gamble hitting the road before seeing what the new staff is like in a football context during spring practice. Surprisingly few players have left since spring, so that shows how things have turned around.
One hitch is that I think we’re all getting used to how he communicates. He is more straightforward than probably any UF head coach since Spurrier, which is a nice change. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that everything he says can be taken at face value.
Napier gave some statements about roster depth and anticipated portal activity during spring that were specific enough to calculate some roster changes. I did those calculations, and I came up with UF needing to shed a dozen or more scholarship players from the spring roster to make all of the statements come true.
Well, only two scholarship players have entered the portal since Napier made those statements. The comment that folks honed in on the most was about how he thought the team needed depth and how he’d be aggressive in the portal. While UF took a run at Maryland transfer Darrell Jackson and is trying to lure a couple of Arizona State guys, there just hasn’t been that much portal action in Gainesville. UF instead just took a late 2022 cycle JUCO offensive lineman and has an offer out to another from the same school.
It’s possible that Napier was just wrong about how many quality players would be available in the spring portal period. It’s also possible that he was pulling a Nick Saban and trying to communicate via the media. To his team, in trying to light a fire under them to learn the new schemes and systems ASAP, and to players elsewhere, that if someone’s on the fence about their current spot then maybe they should jump in the portal and hear what Florida has to say.
Recruiting has been a little bit of a mixed bag. Napier took a risk by not going out of his way to keep as many holdover recruits as possible, which is something that most incoming coaches do. He made up for it with a nice close in December, though February lacked the fireworks that the recruitniks in the fan base had hoped for.
It’s been slow going getting the 2023 class kick started, though that may be a sign of the times. There are a conspicuous group of teams/coaches known for recruiting prowess who have five or fewer commits at the moment. UF has only four, but Bama has three, Oklahoma has four, Clemson has four, LSU has four, Texas has five, and Mario Cristobal’s Miami has five.
Several of those listed have new coaches who are trying to make up for not having recruited for their current schools for more than five months. The crucial junior year relationships with prospects just weren’t there for those guys.
However if you’re gunning for the big names these days, those three crucial letters NIL loom large. Top prospects willing to take a deal and shut it down this early are not unheard of, but they’re far from the norm. I think we’ll need to get used to the top talents waiting longer so they can play collectives off of each other to get the best deals they can.
Napier has at least proven that the IMG curse is, in fact, dead. He landed Kamari Wilson last cycle and just secured a commitment from O-lineman Knijeah Harris last week. Both Harris and Wilson subsequently tweeted out a graphic showing the IM from the IMG logo connected to the script Gators logo to make an “IMGators” effect. UF has literally never had this kind of momentum with the state’s local talent factory.
Spring went about as well as it could, though the plague of tight end injuries was unfortunate. At least there was clarity at the most important position. Anthony Richardson is the undisputed QB1, and he adapted to the new offense extremely successfully.
Perhaps most importantly was that Florida finally had another spring game, and it was an actual spring game. It wasn’t one of these practice-like outings that you see around the country where it’s more of a skills showing than anything else. Gator fans really do care about the Orange and Blue Game, and it was great to see it happen again.
The honeymoon period for Napier is still in bloom, though I know a few recruiting die hards who might disagree. The NIL thing looms largest there, and Napier himself is forbidden by one of the few actual NCAA rules about it from being directly involved. Short of being a cheerleader for the Gator Collective, there’s not much else he can do.
There are still some more offseason issues for him to deal with, especially regarding roster numbers. If the Covid exemption users don’t count towards the 85 cap again, which is not something that the NCAA has clarified publicly, then UF is at 85 now with yet more transfer irons in the fire. Regardless, Napier has done about as well as could be expected given the circumstances, but it still is only the beginning of the process.