It feels like every time the Gator football team loses a game, the subject of “will Florida fire Billy Napier?” generates a renewed buzz. The answer this time, after Florida’s most recent loss, to LSU, is the same as it was after the Gators’ last eleven losses: “No. Nor should they.”
That answer continues to hold firm for a number of reasons.
For one, firing Napier after this season would be a dumb move financially. Florida AD Scott Stricklin and Napier’s agent Jimmy Sexton agreed on an unheard-of buyout clause that would see Florida owe Napier 85% of whatever is left on his contract. You can read the full details and dollar amounts of it here.
For another thing, firing a coach after two seasons would demonstrate an awfully quick trigger finger for a school that hired Napier specifically to orchestrate a multi-year rebuild project. Stricklin didn’t want a quick microwave fix. He wanted a coach who would be at Florida for the long haul. Firing Napier would be admission that he messed up— and if Napier goes, Stricklin might just go with him.
For still another thing, Napier finally seems to have turned the corner on the recruiting trail. After a good-but-not-great bump class that featured some talented players- keyword some, as in, not enough of them- Napier currently has a unanimous top-5 class on the way— even after a pair of decommits this weekend. Firing him would destroy it.
And then there’s a number of miscellaneous ancillary reasons why he should not and will not be fired after this season, including the fact that he inherited a massive culture mess, the fact that his axing would touch off the fifth coaching hire since 2010, and the fact that his teams have shown flashes of promise, albeit only in quick bursts.
But we’ve also reached the point in time where broaching the subject is no longer nonsensical.
To this point, two games shy of two full seasons in, Billy Napier has been a colossal disappointment. His overall record at Florida is now 11-12, easily the worst start for any Gator coach since Charley Pell in 1979 and 1980. And in some aspects, it’s even worse than that statement sounds.
Yes, he did inherit a culture mess. Yes, there have been a couple of big wins in there, namely Utah in his Florida debut and then Tennessee this past September. But stacked up against those two big wins are: a pair of double-digit losses to a Kentucky program with significantly less overall talent, a mortifying loss to a Vanderbilt team with significantly less overall talent than Kentucky, let alone Florida, an overtime loss at home to a 2-6 Arkansas team that had its plays called by an interim 32 year old receivers coach, and way-too-close-for-comfort eyesore wins against putrid South Florida (1-11) and Charlotte (3-6) teams in the Swamp at night. Oh yeah, and a 1-6 record against traditional rivals Tennessee, Georgia, LSU and FSU on top of all of that.
And now he’s just tacked on the ultimate ignobility to the top of that heap of losses: his Gators were just responsible for the single worst performance in school history, surrendering 701 yards to LSU in a 52-35 loss. LSU ran 61 plays in that game, meaning Florida gave up an absolutely ridiculous 11.5 yards per play and 0.85 POINTS per play.
To be fair to Billy Napier, there’s a bit more context that needs to be applied here than just that. Arkansas was a scrappy 2-6, having lost five of its six games by one score- including to top-20 ranked Mississippi, Alabama, and LSU squads all on the road. With all those one-score games that they’d lost, they were bound to win one eventually. Making matters worse, archrivals Georgia and FSU have been legitimately dominant teams these past two seasons; LSU and Tennessee, for their part, finished 2022 ranked in the top 15 and figure to finish the 2023 season ranked somewhere between 11-25 again. Napier can’t help that all four of Florida’s rivals are really good these days. And as for Florida’s most recent loss, Jayden Daniels deserves to be in New York City for the Heisman Trophy ceremony- if not outright win the award.
But all that additional context does is muddy the waters and deflect away from the larger issue at hand. Billy Napier is a bad in-game coach. Start, middle, and end of conversation. He is a liability as an on-field decision maker. That’s not to say he can’t succeed at Florida despite that, because he can. He simply has to make adjustments this offseason in order to do so.
Savvy football fans noticed the problem in the very first game he coached. The first clue that Napier’s in-game coaching maneuvers would lead Florida to failure came when, down four but driving in the final moments, he bled down the play clock to zero… and then burned a timeout, one that Florida would have badly needed had Cam Rising not thrown an interception in the end zone in the game’s dying seconds. Somebody on Napier’s well-publicized “army” of staffers should have gotten the message across to Billy Napier that he’d dodged a bullet and won despite his late-game tactical maneuver, not because of it. They didn’t and it happened again the very next week… and then over and over again, turning it into a pattern.
Bizarre decisions to go for it on fourth down in situations that did not call for it, refusal to show urgency late in games Florida was trailing, and wasted timeouts in a bevy of other situations where he should not have followed in short order, building the case that Napier simply didn’t know what he was doing as an in-game CEO. By the time he’d abandoned an effective running game that FSU couldn’t stop in favor of ordering three straight Anthony Richardson passes- when Florida’s receiver depth chart was down to Ricky Pearsall and a skeleton unit- it was clear to everybody with basic knowledge of the game that Napier was a detriment to the Gator football team by wearing so many hats, and not delegating certain responsibilities. And it was clear that he had to make changes.
Like, for example, on special teams. It was admittedly not a terrible idea to put quality control assistant Chris Couch in command of the special teams unit, and use that extra assistant coach slot for a second offensive line coach. No doubt the offensive line is the co-most important non-QB position in the game of football, and sure, you could argue that the move paid off because Florida’s offensive line was very good in 2022, but that was far more due to the talent and experience of unanimous All-American O’Cyrus Torrence and second-team All-SEC selection Ethan White, along with a third above-average lineman in Michael Tarquin, than it was due to the presence of twice the number of coaches as usual handling that position. And meanwhile, the special teams unit of the Gator football program- once renowned for its wild levels of success under Urban Meyer- fell to pieces.
Never mind that Florida demolished South Carolina 38-6 in its third-to-last game of the season. The Gators’ special teams unit wasn’t merely bad that day; it was abhorrent. In the span of just four quarters, the Gator football team fumbled on a punt return (during which Xzavier Henderson ran backwards before fumbling), had one field goal blocked, botched another attempted field goal where holder Jeremy Crawshaw simply dropped the snap, surrendered a fake punt for a touchdown that came after a timeout (during which Florida coaches could maybe have reminded players about Shane Beamer’s propensity for special teams trickery?), gave up a 38-yard punt return by Josh Vann, and then for good measure, committed a completely unnecessary facemask at the end of that aforementioned punt return for yet another 15 yards.
All those things happening throughout the course of an entire football season would be cause enough to at least think twice about not making any changes there. For them all to happen in one game should have triggered an infrared alarm in Napier’s head. Something to the effect of, “Hey. This is a problem. This can’t continue. Let me address this in our staff meeting tomorrow.” Instead, Napier- perhaps either too busy drawing up a game plan for Vanderbilt the following week to notice or falling victim to the pretense that because Florida won that game where all the issues had occurred by 32 points, it wasn’t worth his time- left the matter alone. Sure enough, in that very next game against Vanderbilt, Jason Marshall ran backwards to field a punt in his own end zone, muffed it, and Vanderbilt recovered for a touchdown. Not coincidentally, Florida lost that game by seven points.
At least at that point in time, though, you could excuse Napier’s failure to make a move as something he was just stuck with for the rest of the season. To place someone into the ST coach role when that position didn’t even really exist before would mess up continuity, and for reasons of loyalty- sure, roll your eyes and conjure up mental images of Dan Mullen all you’d like, but it’s a genuine recruiting tactic- on top of that, it at least made sense to wait until after the season to make a change there. But to not do some soul-searching at the end of a 6-6 season and realize you had to do something different here?
And special teams is just one of the major changes he needs to make. As a play-caller, Billy Napier simply isn’t very good. Oh, sure, he can draw up a nice concept here and there- the TE leak play that resulted in an Arlis Boardingham touchdown against Charlotte comes to mind as a very pretty design- but his play-calls indicate a failure to grasp the reality of various situations.
It seems like Napier’s philosophy on third down, as long as it’s third and less than twenty, is to try to get half the yardage needed for the first down with his third down play-call, and then if that works, go for it on fourth down- or at worst, you’ve tacked on a few yards to the punt. That’s why he’ll often call running plays on third and seven or screen passes on third and twelve. It’s not a bad idea in theory, and as an admitted “couch tweeter,” I do understand why the thought process is appealing to him: you limit the risk of a turnover with a safe play-call, and with the defense expecting a deep pass, you might be able to get all but two or three of the necessary yards for a first down with all that green grass.
The problem with this thought process is one that you don’t even need to follow football to understand. In any game that involves tactical decision making or matching of wits, like chess, tennis, one-on-one pickup ball, or even cards, the element of surprise can be beneficial. If you do something unconventional, you might be able to catch your opponent by surprise and gain something as a result. But if you have a penchant for doing the unconventional, any half-intelligent opponent is going to realize that you aren’t trying to trick them; it’s simply who you are.
For example, in one-on-one, if you know your opponent likes firing the ball at the backboard and alley-ooping it to himself, you’re going to be aware of that and be much less likely to get beaten by it. Sure, it might catch you by surprise once or even twice because of how strange of a tactic it is, but see a pattern of it develop and you’ll incorporate that into your defensive game plan.
That’s why all gimmick and innovated offenses eventually fail at the college and especially the NFL level. That’s why the Wildcat offense (with a running back taking direct snaps) had some initial success and then quickly declined in prevalence as defenses caught on. That’s why the old Nebraska wishbone offense became obsolete. That’s why fewer and fewer teams run the triple option these days.
And that’s why when Billy Napier seems to think he can catch defensive coordinators off guard on a third and nine with a simple handoff, defenses are ready for it. If he called that play on third and long three or four times a season, it might work when he calls it. But because defenses know to expect that, it doesn’t.
And similarly, that’s why Napier’s run-a-man-in-motion-on-70-percent-of-the-offensive-snaps routine doesn’t do a damned thing to phase defenses. It’s supposed to confuse opponents and get them scrambling once the ball is snapped, but like anything else, when you do something so often that there’s an abundance of game film on it, intelligent defensive coordinators are going to drill assignment football into their players’ heads, have the scout team run it all week in practice, and shut it down on Saturdays.
That’s also why, on a third and four from midfield, down ten with seven minutes to go, Napier’s decision to call a handoff to Trevor Etienne- the third such play-call in a row, after which Florida had burned 40 seconds in between the two previous plays- was easily detected and stuffed by LSU, putting Florida in a desperation fourth-and-go-for-it scenario rather than just take two shots at trying to get four yards.
Then there’s the fact that the concepts on some of the Gators’ pass routes are unimaginative and border on just plain lazy. Florida’s offensive line regressing from 2022 to 2023 is somewhat to blame for Graham Mertz’ limitations as a downfield passer, but his receivers (other than Ricky Pearsall) aren’t doing a lot to help him. And the source of the problem is most likely not them.
Yes, you could excuse a cluster of receivers in the same area as a young player running the wrong route, but when it happens over and over again throughout the course of the season it’s difficult to blame the players. For one thing, there’s no way that any one player in isolation could run the wrong route so many times and still be out there. For another thing, it’s very clearly more than one player- it’s a problem that spans the entire receiver room- and when these many different clusters of receivers in the same area are comprised of so many different players, it’s clearly a coaching issue. And I’m not talking about Billy Gonzales or Keary Colbert (last year’s WR coach) here.
And then- stop me if this sounds reminiscent of Dan Mullen- there are the personnel problems. You know. Again.
Montrell Johnson is a very good running back and certainly has a place in this offense. He’s a battering ram, an excellent short yardage back, a very capable blocker, and an ideal change-of-pace back. But on no planet should he be siphoning carries away from his electric backfield mate Trevor Etienne, unless you want to use Etienne as a decoy once in awhile and feed Johnson with the defense all keyed in on Etienne. (Again, that’s where the element of surprise via doing something occasionally rather than frequently comes into play.)
And that’s just one example. Why did it take so long for Billy Napier to get the ball to Eugene Wilson against Arkansas? Why did it take until midway through the Tennessee game to make the switch from Adam Mihalek to Trey Smack at kicker? Why did it take until the LSU game to even consider replacing Jalen Kimber with Devin Moore at cornerback?
Maybe hiring competent assistants to coach the special teams and run the offense will help iron out the personnel issues by proxy. Maybe having these assistants he can trust will give him more time to think these personnel issues through, and make the right decisions with less to have to worry about going wrong. It’s clear that by wearing all these hats, Napier does his Gator football program a disservice.
Had Billy Napier realized the holes in his operation after the 2022 season and hired a true offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator for 2023, Florida likely would have beaten Utah and Arkansas, and be sitting with at least two more wins right now. No way would the double jersey penalty have happened and no way would Florida have finished with a measly eleven points against a suspect Utah defense missing its best player. No way would the special teams blunders that have become more of a staple than anything else so far this year happened against Arkansas, and without even one of the two major screwups not happening- either the botched PAT or the “let’s all run onto the field while the offense is trying to spike the ball” illegal substitution penalty that pushed Trey Smack’s last-second field goal back five yards- Florida almost certainly would have won that game.
So if you want to put a price tag on the Billy Napier refusal to make the changes that were obvious he needed to make after the 2022 season, there you have it. His stubbornness last offseason directly cost Florida two wins. Those two wins are the difference between regressing in Year 2 (six wins to five) and progressing in Year 2 (six wins to 7). And even if Napier does indeed finally make these fixes this offseason, he’s a year behind the 8-ball.
2024 could and should have been the second year with an offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator. Instead, it will be the first, opening up a possible excuse of a new coaching staff getting its feet wet and settling in. That’s what 2023 should have been for. It wasn’t, because Napier decided that he’d rather stick with the course of action that had a lot to do with Florida’s subpar 6-6 record.
Now, because Napier waited a whole additional season to make these changes, there’s that much more pressure on him to win in 2024. The 2023 season, for all intents and purposes, is shot. The best Florida can possibly do in Napier’s second season is finish 7-5, plus whatever happens in the potluck of a bowl game.
For most Gator football seasons, that’s simply not good enough. For Year 2 of what most fans understood was going to be an unpleasant rebuild, 7-5 is passable, but by no means ideal. And again- that’s the best possible outcome. The other possibilities are worse than that “passable, but by no means ideal” bar.
As for that best possible outcome? Here’s where it’s instructive to remember just how unlikely that scenario is. If we’re being honest with ourselves, finishing 7-5 is a pipe dream for this Gator football team, one that banks on upsetting a top-15 team on the road and then knocking a terrifying FSU team out of the CFP in back-to-back weeks.
And now Gator football fans are stuck once again, for the third offseason in a row, placing their hopes for the future on recruiting rankings rather than on-field results. There’s no doubt Napier has a spectacular recruiting class on the way. However, there is very much doubt surrounding his in-game coaching, and frankly that’s more concerning than his recruiting prowess is helpful.
So we’re going to have to wait and see. Who will the new special teams coordinator be? Who will he hire to be the offensive coordinator? Can Billy Napier force himself to be hands-off and let his new play-caller do his job? Maybe this won’t even be a 2024 issue, but can Billy Napier and his OC hire tweak the offense accordingly when DJ Lagway one day steps into the QB1 slot?
With so much still unknown, once of the few things we do know is that Billy Napier will be back in 2024. So yes, there is still time for him to course-correct and in fact be the man who restores the Gator football program to glory. And speaking personally, because I like him personally and do think he’s a great off-field CEO, I really hope he does.
There’s simply less evidence than I would have liked to see by now that indicates he will.
