Billy Napier has been giving interviews in the past couple of weeks to various outlets. I don’t know if it’s a strategic choice to do an early summer press blitz or if it’s just working out for him to do it during a time when media outlets could use some new quotes to make writing stories easier.
Regardless, Napier has been consistent about one thing in all of them. He doesn’t always come out and say it in so many words, but since about mid-spring, he’s been telling everyone that he expects the team to improve. I wrote a story at the end of March about him predicting the offense specifically will get better, but he’s said it more generally about the team as well.
As I pointed out in that piece from a while back, a lot of what Napier talks about improving is the process. He thinks the players know the systems better, know the practice routine better, know what the coaches expect of them better. If all of those things are true, then that should yield some better results in a lot of ways.
Whether it will result in more points scored, fewer points allowed, or more wins is an open question we won’t know the answer to for a while. However, Napier hasn’t completely shied away from saying that the product on the field will be better. I think that he thinks it will be.
How? For one thing, Napier is strongly touting Austin Armstrong as the new DC. Granted, a lot of what he says about Armstrong are things he said about Patrick Toney last year, and we all know how big a disaster that defense was at times.
That said, the system isn’t changing. Armstrong has his own spin to it, but Napier has said that he knows what defense he wants his team to use and both Toney and Armstrong ran/will run it. Both are from the same philosophical tree anyway, so it should be relatively seamless. And let me tell you something, if everyone knows better where they’re supposed to be, what they’re supposed to be doing, and what those around them will be doing, that alone will be big.
I think we also got a hint from spring that Armstrong simply will be more aggressive, and while that could mean some more big plays given up, it’s probably good for the players to excel. Defenses have largely been on the back foot since RPOs became ubiquitous, except for the handful of Georgia or Alabama units that have had a ton of future NFL players on them. No tactician is going to outscheme a bunch of pro prospects.
The way that Todd Grantham drifted and that Toney seemed to go was in the direction of reactivity. Give the offense some space to make them commit, and then make the play once you know what they’re doing. It sounds like it could work in theory, but I think it make the players more passive.
It also put them at a disadvantage against quick and shifty players, the likes of which aren’t uncommon in the SEC. The first thing that comes to mind here is Ole Miss’s Elijah Moore going ten catches for 227 yards in the 2020 opener. No receiver should ever get about a quarter of the way to 1,000 yards in a single game against the Gator defense.
I’ve also hear Napier talk from time to time about the importance of experience at quarterback. His system puts a ton on the signal caller to make decisions. Napier has said that when his offense is run to the fullest, nearly every play will be either an RPO or have a “tag” on it.
A play tag is something like having a receiver make a bubble screen motion instead of just blocking or running a go-route decoy on a run play. Maybe it was called a run, but the bubble screen is attached to it (as the “tag”) and gives the QB a chance at cheap and easy yards if the defense didn’t respect it. And, of course, if the defense is respecting the bubble, that’s a defender or two who’s not in the way of the run attempt.
Anyway, Napier made reference to Anthony Richardson’s inexperience on a regular basis throughout 2022. In 2023, he’s praised Graham Mertz’s experience. Mertz’s ceiling is quite a bit lower than AR’s, but he does have three years’ worth of starting snaps on the P5 level. It’s clear from his comments that Napier thinks he can ask Mertz to do more high level passing things than he could Richardson because of the much greater number of games that the former Badger has played.
So, it could just be that the Gators will improve in a lot of ways, and I’m not sure if all the ways are being accounted for. Few seem to be including the abilities of 2023 signee Eugene Wilson, easily the most dynamic offensive skill position player UF has signed since Kadarius Toney. I get why, since Wilson wasn’t an early enrollee and therefore didn’t participate in spring practice. However, I’ve seen enough from his film and some viral videos of him doing drills that I know he’s too good not to get real opportunities this season.
It’s a well-worn trope that a team can improve without the record reflecting it due to a difficult schedule. UF no doubt has a rough slate, though I think it’s been a bit overstated. I don’t think Tennessee QB Joe Milton is as good as Hendon Hooker no matter how far he can launch the ball, I don’t think Arkansas’s KJ Jefferson is good enough to elevate a team with likely a horrible defense, and South Carolina’s new OC Dowell Loggains has real trainwreck potential. Several of the new SEC coordinator hires have been underwhelming, to be honest. Plus, Utah QB Cam Rising may miss or otherwise not be 100% in the opener after tearing his ACL in the Rose Bowl.
We’re barely into June, so we still have a few more months to ride the expectations roller coaster before actual events replace supposition. I am withholding judgment for now as to whether Florida will be better since I have no idea yet, but Napier seems pretty convinced that the team will improve.