Recent comments from Florida HC Billy Napier show that he doesn't get what it takes to succeed in the SEC
It's incredibly difficult to predict if a head coach will be a championship-caliber coach in college football. But it's not that difficult to identify a head coach that's on the verge of getting fired. And once that prediction is made by a few folks, it's usually inevitable that it'll happen. That seems to be the […]
It's incredibly difficult to predict if a head coach will be a championship-caliber coach in college football.
But it's not that difficult to identify a head coach that's on the verge of getting fired. And once that prediction is made by a few folks, it's usually inevitable that it'll happen.
That seems to be the world that Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier is living in these days.
Napier took over as Florida's head coach ahead of the 2022 season and went 6-7 last fall.
The former Louisiana head coach was never able to build any momentum in his first season at Florida. The Gators lost five of their final seven games last season, including a brutal loss to Vanderbilt (Florida's first loss to the Commodores since 2013).
Napier seems to be going for the "slow burn" rebuild at Florida. He thinks he has plenty of time to get the Gators on the right track.
Anyone who keeps up with the SEC on a regular basis knows that's simply not the case — especially not at Florida, a program that fired its last two head coaches after relatively successful runs (Jim McElwain was fired the year after winning the SEC East and Dan Mullen was fired two years after winning 11 games).
If Napier wants to stick around in Gainesville beyond 2023, he needs to operate with a sense of urgency. But instead, he's already trying to lower expectations for Florida this fall.
"We're going to be successful here, it's just a matter of how fast it's going to happen, that's what I would tell you," said Napier recently on the Gator Nation Podcast (via 247Sports). "I would be hopeful it would happen faster than fast, quickly, but the reality is it may take us a little bit of time to get it done. We're going to have to get…the ball's got to bounce the right way here or there."
Napier's comments are in stark contrast to the comments made by Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel when he arrived in Knoxville a couple of years ago. Heupel told reporters that Tennessee was in a race to be as good as possible as fast as possible — he never told fans it would take a while.
“I don’t want to be patient,” said Heupel in 2021. “We want to be as good as we can as fast as we can…As a coach, you don’t want to be patient. You’re pushing for it every single day. ”
Heupel's urgent approach clearly worked — the Vols have gone 18-8 since he took over as the program's head coach two years ago (including an 11-2 season in 2022).
I don't think Napier is a bad coach. And if he was given plenty of time at Florida, he could probably build a solid program that competes for spots in the College Football Playoff on a regular basis. But that's not how college football works these days. If coaches can't find success in their first couple of seasons, they're usually told to hit the road. And considering the way Florida has handled head coaches over the last decade, I wouldn't expect Napier to be given more time than other Gators coaches in recent years.
If Napier doesn't change his mindset and start operating with more urgency, his stay in Gainesville will be over nearly as quickly as it started.
