He is the one.
He has to be the one.
He absolutely, positively must be the one.
If Billy Napier isn’t the coach who can fix the Florida Gators’ football program, then I’m not sure it can be fixed.
When Napier ran out of the tunnel amid a massive roar from a frantic, frenzied sellout crowd at the Swamp for Saturday night’s season-opener against No. 7-ranked Utah, he represented the latest, greatest hope for a program that has lost its way.
And what amazing hope Napier and his electrifying quarterback Anthony Richardson gave the Gators on this surreal Swamp-stomping Saturday night when Florida recorded a heart-stopping, nail-biting 29-26 victory over the defending Pac-12 champions in what was the biggest season-opening victory in the modern history of Florida football.
Utah may have come in with the better team, but Richardson was the best player on the field. And that was difference. Richardson made a handful of jaw-dropping plays like a 2-point conversion early in the fourth quarter in which he nullified a baffled defender with a pump fake, then ran by another defender before putting on the brakes and throwing a perfect ball to wide-open Ja’Quavion Fraziers in the back of the end zone.
Richardson was efficient with his arm (17-of-24 for 168 yards), but, more importantly, he rushed 11 times for 106 yards and three touchdowns, including a dazzling 45-yarder and the game-winner from 2 yards out with 1:25 left.
The Florida defense, which earlier came up with a stout goal-line stance, preserved the victory with 17 seconds left when Amari Burney came up with a goal-line interception.
I still remember four years ago when the Gators destroyed rent-a-victim Charleston Southern 53-6 in the grand opening of the Dan Mullen coaching regime and there were some in the UF administration who were upset with the tone of my column from that day. The gist of what I wrote then is the same as it is now: Gator Nation should be cautiously optimistic because they’ve seen this movie before; they’ve seen supposedly good coaches come in and lose their fizzle like an uncapped bottle of Coke.
They saw it when Will Muschamp took over as coach. They saw it when Jim McElwain took over as coach and they saw it when Mullen took over as coach. All of those coaches had their early successes and then the bottom fell out and they were fired.
For some reason, though, Napier feels different. This was an unbelievable, inconceivable start, but no matter what happens from here on out, I believe Florida fans will be more patient with Napier, and administrators will get off this endless treadmill of changing coaches every three or four seasons. Quite frankly, the Gators should strive to be the program they played on Saturday night. They should strive to be Utah.
The Utes are Exhibit A of how far the Florida program has fallen in recent years. Gator Nation undoubtedly looked at Utah as an inferior program when really quite the opposite is true. Utah has been a model of stability and consistency whereas the Gators have been the quintessential example of volatility and instability.
Here’s all you need to know: When Urban Meyer left Utah after the 2004 season to become Florida’s head coach, Kyle Whittingham was promoted, and he began his 18th year as the head coach of the Utes on Saturday night. In contrast, Meyer left Florida in 2010 to spend more time with his ESPN family and Napier is the seventh head coach, including three interims, in the 12 years since.
The difference between Florida and Utah is this: Utah stuck with Whittingham despite back-to-back 5-7 seasons a few years ago and it’s paid off. The Utes won the Pac-12 last season and could have — and probably should have — beaten high-flying Ohio State in the Rose Bowl before losing 48-45.
Yes, the Gators have more brand recognition than Utah, but brands fade quickly in today’s digital world. JCPenney probably has more brand recognition than Etsy, but Etsy is worth about $14 billion while JCPenney is trying to climb out of bankruptcy.
Likewise the Gators are trying to climb out of their own form of bankruptcy. Just call it the Mullen/McElwain/Muschamp malaise. This is why Napier is the most important coaching hire at Florida since Steve Spurrier himself.
You see, it’s up to Napier to stop the Florida fade into irrelevance. He seemingly has all of the necessary qualities — relationship-building, organizational skills, attention to detail and recruiting prowess — to be a successful head coach in today’s college football.
“He’s a really authentic, genuine individual who is incredibly organized, has a great work ethic and is really good at evaluating people and putting people in a position to be successful,” Gators AD Scott Stricklin told me recently. “Whether it’s his players, whether it’s his staff; he’s just really good at developing authentic relationships. He’s also really good at basically all the things that a modern-day CEO would need to be good at — setting goals, putting resources behind those goals, holding people, including himself, accountable to achieving those goals. Everything about how he is running the program, how the players respond to his leadership, just the kind of person he is, I don’t think the University of Florida could have a better person in this really important leadership position than Billy Napier.”
Napier also has something Muschamp, McElwain and Mullen didn’t have — seemingly unlimited financial resources. The Gators just opened an $85 million standalone facility and have vigorously increased the salaries for assistant coaches while giving Napier $5 million to hire a battalion of support staff.
When asked recently why he thinks he can be successful at a program where his predecessors failed, Napier replied, “I think timing is important in every job. I have been impressed with the leadership at Florida in terms of their awareness and what is required to be competitive at this level. They [UF’s administration] have been committed to our vision, our plan and a more modernized approach.”
With all of the investment in staffing, salaries and facilities, Napier must make Florida relevant again.
If he can’t do it, heaven help Gator Nation.
But let’s say this after this Gator-chomping, Swamp-stomping Saturday night:
So far, so good!
It’s no wonder that when Napier was getting ready to run out of the tunnel and onto the field, he turned to an assistant and said gleefully,
“Can you believe they pay us to do this?”
