If Billy Napier was on the path to succeed at Florida, what would that look like? Actually take a second and think about it.
It’s very easy to get caught up in details and lose the bigger picture. It’s also always tempting to compare college football programs to each other and lose the plot in that minutiae. So set aside everyone else right now.
What would it look like for Billy Napier to be on his way to winning big? Arguably, it would look a lot like the way it does right now.
The first season was always going to be an adventure on the field. The team didn’t go through a big roster purge up front, and not as many players left as has become typical in the current era when teams turn over head coaches. That fact meant that not only were there a lot of holdovers who weren’t as good as their recruiting ratings said, but there wasn’t complete unity in the locker room either. Several players got dismissed post-bye week, and several more basically quit the team to jump in the portal after Senior Day. You don’t see that when everyone’s working in harmony.
And about those players and their recruiting rankings. Dan Mullen’s classes were chock full of players who either didn’t pan out or who left early. In the latter case, you are already thinking of perhaps guys who never even made it to fall like Chris Steele or Issiah Walker. They are notable cases, but there’s just so many of them. Do you remember Jahari Rogers, a 247 Sports Consensus top-100 recruit in 2020 who went back home to Texas after a year and change? Or Malik Langham, one of the precious few defensive linemen that Mullen signed in his first two classes? He’s still at Vandy for his fifth season.
It’s not like a lot of these guys tore it up at their new destination. In these cases, Rogers started more games (nine) in 2021 than in 2022 (four), and Langham’s three starts in 2020 are the only ones of his career. We have a boatload of new test cases this year, but there probably won’t be an epidemic of former Gators making all-conference teams.
So, Napier’s top priorities were to upgrade the team culture and talent, two not-unrelated tasks.
The roster has largely, though not entirely, turned over by now. The Mullen era holdovers are guys who have bought into the new program and, largely, shown their worth as football players. There are still a few of them who are career backups and have no shot at starting, but every team has at least a handful of players who fit that profile.
How do we know it’s working? Well for one thing, many of last year’s best players were either Napier signees or transfers. Spring brought more reports of new transfers who are now among the best on offer, and some 2023 true freshmen will get opportunities to make an immediate splash.
The incredible hot streak of commits in June also means that UF sits at third in the Composite rankings for 2024. The class is incomplete since we’re still six months out from signing day, but it addresses a lot of key issues. Quarterback is chief among them, but not only is DJ Lagway a national top 25 player, but he’s almost the lead recruiter for the ’23 class.
The group has six top-100 commits, which is a big deal. Florida has generally struggled to sign that high-end talent since the Muschamp days, and it has shown on the field. Quality depth is also important, but it’s the elite difference makers that elevate teams from good to great. Take just two players off of the 2006 recruiting class, those being Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin, and Urban Meyer probably never wins a title at Florida.
The 2024 class’s six commits, if all of them stay in the fold and don’t fall in the rankings, would tie 2013 for the most top-100 recruits in a class from 2011 to present. The Composite is unreliable before 2011, so that’s where I cut it off. It’s a really big deal to have this many top prospects on the hook.
Napier also made some staff changes, and what little we have to go on suggests they will work out fine. How much the staff changes were his idea and how much was the NFL approaching his guys is still unclear to me, but they happened. New DC Austin Armstrong is quite young, but he’ll at least be more aggressive and fiery than Patrick Toney was. If nothing else, Armstrong will benefit from everyone having had a year in essentially the same system that he runs.
Last year’s offense was good enough for the team to win several more games than it did. The defense is what let everyone down, but it’s been addressed.
I gotta tell you, I think this is what being on the path looks like. Napier and staff have plenty to prove once the actual games roll around, but it’s hard to realistically ask for a lot more than what he’s done so far.