GC VIP Stadium Road Audibles — 9/22/24 Edition

I have a theory about the Florida-Mississippi State game: I think we saw what Billy Napier thought he had all along. Walk with me here for a bit.

Napier has his comfort zone calls, like pistol runs for Montrell Johnson on first down and play action bootleg passes to the tight end on third down. That stuff didn’t work at any point yesterday, as even the unit that is perhaps the worst defense in the SEC has fully caught on to it.

But that aside, the offense was highly efficient and showcased some of its talented players. When the defense isn’t living in the backfield or predicting Napier’s obvious tells, there’s something there with the offense. Give Graham Mertz some time, Ja’Kobi Jackson a window, Aidan Mizell some green grass to run to… good things can happen.

They happened because Mississippi State is so poor on the defensive line that it made it look like Florida has a decent offensive line. UF could occasionally gash the Bulldog front with runs, which tells you everything you need to know about that front.

If MSU was an average team and Florida did that exact same thing to them, then you could see how Napier actually would’ve had something going with this team. It would back up the optimistic talk from him from over the offseason. It’d all make sense.

Unfortunately, Mississippi State is a very bad team. Toledo smoked them on the same field the week prior. They’ve been through major strategic and schematic changes going from Mike Leach to Zach Arnett, and then a year later from Arnett to Jeff Lebby.

It seems quite likely that Napier misjudged what he had on the lines, thinking both were a lot better than they actually are. There was a lot of talk during the two major offseason practice sessions about them being fairly even and trading off which had the upper hand. I suspect Napier took that as proof that both were good, when it just meant that they were evenly matched with each other.

He was so sure about it that he went with long rotations on the offensive line against Miami despite — even before the preseason happy talk had been dashed — the Hurricanes having a sizable advantage on paper with its front seven versus UF’s offensive line. Instead of rolling with his best five from the start, Napier seemed to think it was okay to mess around with putting Devon Manuel in for Austin Barber every third series to reward Manuel for good play in spring.

Napier’s been touted as a people-first person from the start. It’s part of what has made him an effective recruiter.

But he also does things like rotate Manuel in as a treat for stuff he did six months prior. And go with a rigid every-other-series rotation with Mertz and DJ Lagway against Texas A&M to be fair and predictable to both in the first game they shared. And playing former walk-on Kahleil Jackson a lot last year and early this year (before his injury) and then former walk-on Taylor Spierto almost 30 snaps last week. I’m not sure I saw Spierto once this week outside of special teams. Like I said before: I have nothing but respect for his work ethic, but he’s not an SEC receiver. He proved it against the Aggies, and so he disappeared this week.

Seriously, how does this make sense? At home against a better team, Napier was sending a limited veteran in Spierto out there a lot. This week on the road with cowbells so loud it’s hard to think, Spierto is MIA while true freshman TJ Abrams caught a ball before Montrell’s day was done. It only makes sense to me in context with everything else, which is that Napier cares more about his people relationships than he does about winning football games.

I mean, all three years there’s been only one area of the program that’s been in elite condition: the GatorMade program. And you know what? I’m glad the GatorMade program has been terrific. It’s a great thing for the players to have the knowledge and experience they’re gaining through it. It’s also something that’s easier to build up than the product on the field because there is no opposing team out there trying to ruin it. But no matter, it’s good stuff.

But if you don’t win enough games, you get fired. And if you get fired, the next guy may not care to continue putting as many resources into GatorMade. Or any at all. And then where does that leave everyone?

Napier famously fired assistants for the first time after last season. They were not from his circle, however, and he’s needed to be more ruthless in staffing before.

Patrick Toney oversaw a decline in the defense versus late-stage Todd Grantham. He should’ve been dismissed, but Napier didn’t act and let him take time to get an assistant position coach job in the NFL shortly before 2023 spring practice. Mark Hocke wasn’t cutting it as strength coach, but instead of canning him, Napier reassigned him to an ill-defined off-field role where he’s reportedly still making his high six-figure salary.

After Jay Bateman left, Napier essentially hired Ron Roberts over Austin Armstrong to be the real DC, but Armstrong still holds the DC title with no “co-” in front of it despite not doing defensive play calls anymore. He’s basically making seven figures to coach a safeties unit that hasn’t performed well either year under his watch.

For as much as Napier’s individual player evaluations are supposed to be good, and they have been a bit more good than bad overall, his other evaluation skills aren’t so good. He’s misjudged how good his team would be on the lines at least two years running. It helped get him to a point where he called dreadful offensive games against Miami and A&M, and now the defense is full of guys alternately loafing or playing heroball because they don’t trust anyone around them. There would be more to trust if the line could ever put pressure on a quarterback, but it seldom does.

I tried to savor this win all afternoon and evening yesterday because it very well could be the last one of the season. Don’t be like Napier and fool yourself, though. Nothing is fixed, and plenty is still broken. This win saved no one’s job. But it is still good to get the win anyway.

David Wunderlich
David Wunderlich is a born-and-raised Gator and a proud Florida alum. He has been writing about Florida and SEC football since 2006. He currently lives in Naples Italy, at least until the Navy stations his wife elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter @Year2