Billy Napier continues to hurt the Gators and DJ Lagway by doing the one thing he refuses to change
The fact that we continue to have this discussion is utterly ridiculous
It was the same old story for the Florida Gators on Saturday night, as they lost another winnable game 34-17 to the Texas A&M Aggies.
This one is solely on head coach Billy Napier and his continued stubbornness on the offensive side of the football. The Gators finally broke out on offense due to their incredible talent at the skill positions, but that was the only reason. It wasn’t due to the one thing that has harmed the Gators this entire season: Napier’s play calling.
Billy Napier’s play calling is hurting the Florida Gators
The Gators got off to a fast start, scoring a touchdown on the first drive and on the third drive as well, with a three-and-out mixed in there. In those three drives, which all took place in the first quarter, the Gators gained 157 yards on 17 plays at a whopping 9.24 yards per play. Quarterback DJ Lagway looked like his confident self, thriving in getting the ball down the field to his playmakers.
Unfortunately, that is where the success on offense ended. The Gators couldn’t do much of anything the rest of the game, netting just one more yard than they had in the first quarter (158 yards) the rest of the game, and the Gators had 61 plays in the final three quarters.
The big thing here is watching the play calling sequencing. He is still doing the same things. It’s a bunch of horizontal throws, trying to get his playmakers in space to make plays. The biggest problem is when the defense expects that, they sit on it and make your life really difficult.
Early on, the Gators did have some shots down the field to the likes of Dallas Wilson and Vernell Brown III, but those became stagnant over the course of the game. Napier was spamming nine routes on the outside with little creativity to make things easy for his quarterback, rather just calling the same concept with the hope that someone makes a play.
He also doesn’t get it when it comes to fourth down, which isn’t much of a surprise when you see his game management.
Where is the creativity? Why is there no imagination in what Napier is calling? Left tackle Austin Barber was struggling with Cashius Howell, so where was the misdirection to make his job a little bit easier? None of that was there, and it hasn’t been for some time.
We’ve seen coaches like Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz give up play calling so they can focus on managing the game. Napier has needed to do that for at least the last two seasons, but won’t give it up. That is losing the Gators winnable football games, and it’s a major problem.
Will it cost Napier his job? It should, but since it hasn’t at this point, will it? Gators fans are not going to be patient forever.