Billy Napier, the ball is in your court. (Photo credit: Stephen M Dowell, Orlando Sentinel)
Billy Napier seems to have figured out most of what he needs to succeed as the Florida Gators’ head coach.
His team has bought in. DJ Lagway is locked in as a program-defining QB. Recruiting is soaring around him. And, oh yeah– the Florida Gators are winning games now, ending the season on a four-game winning streak.
One thing that Napier hasn’t seemed to figure out is actually running his offense. Sure, the numbers aren’t outright terrible, and the Gators won four games in a row– but that’s a result of the defense stepping up to an unforeseen degree as well as Lagway’s natural talent masking many of the offense’s inherent deficiencies. Even if you want to ignore the tape from the Tennessee game, at the end of the day, finishing with the 66th ranked offense in college football simply isn’t going to cut it.
So yeah– Billy Napier needs an offensive coordinator.
Why do the Florida Gators need an offensive coordinator?
I’ve previously laid out, in no shortage of detail, exactly why Florida needs an offensive coordinator to win championships. I’ll condense that down to a few short paragraphs here.
For argument’s sake, let’s pretend that Napier doesn’t have severe situational cognitive deficiencies, leading to both bad play-calls and bad play designs. Let’s pretend that his decisions of when to call what plays didn’t just outright suck. The equally damaging problem is that his offense isn’t very imaginative.
Personally, I hate it. I don’t dislike it; I absolutely despise it because it’s not only boring, but doesn’t give the elite athletes that Florida has the ability to use their gifts to their full potential. Sorry, Billy, but 12 personnel, mesh concepts five yards down the field, and flood concepts five-to-fifteen yards down the field aren’t going to cut it. Not with the athletes you have, not against the athletes you’e going up against, and certainly not with the frequency with which you call them.
We have a QB who can throw the ball 60 yards downfield within the area of a MacBook screen, ridiculously athletic receivers like Dallas Wilson, Tre Wilson, Aidan Mizell, Tank Hawkins, J. Michael Sturdivant, and TJ Abrams who can either take the top off a defense with pure speed or make contested catches in traffic– or in some cases both– and an offensive line that’s set to return four of five pieces, including the All-American anchor, Jake Slaughter. There’s a lot you can do there, ranging from an Air Raid attack with just enough running plays mixed in that defenses can’t just play Cover Four (or more) on every play, to a modified spread with naturally deeper pass routes that simply has Lagway dial up 5-10 deep shots per game out of the same two or three stock formations to decrease predictability, to something completely new altogether– which requires a level of offensive creativity that Napier simply doesn’t have.
And honestly– that’s OK! It really is! Not everybody has to be great at everything. The only catch to that is that Napier, as the head coach at Florida, needs to recognize the things he’s not good at– and I mean recognize them on his own, not be told he sucks at them– and then appoint the best people possible to fill those roles.
So coming this week and next, I’ll start rolling out the options for who I think Billy Napier should hire as the Gators’ offensive coordinator– and why.
Who should Billy Napier hire as the Florida Gators’ offensive coordinator?
Before I get into any more detail, I do want to point out one quick thing. For too long, the attitude from Florida fan and administrators alike has been to find excuses for why things can’t or won’t work, and then, you guessed it, not do them. For Florida to succeed on the football field, that needs to shift to “Here’s the ideal outcome, here are potential obstacles I see blocking the path, and here’s how we’re going to get around them.”
Some of these offensive coordinators– most of them, in fact– won’t come cheap. That’s the point. In order to win, you’ve got to spend more money. So, within reason– Florida’s not poaching a current head coach to be the offensive coordinator, that’s not logical– again, within reason, the mindset has to be that the Florida Gators can get anyone they want.
Come back to this page, and inallkindsofweather.com, throughout the week to read more details!
