Billy Napier is a team builder

Actually that's not objective at all, just another opinion which is hopefully correct. Napier could be a championship coach or a .500 coach going forward.
When Mullen was hired most here raved about his credentials, said he would take us to the promised land. I wasn't a fan of that hire but quickly bought in due to him saying the right things and.....winning. Didn't work out.

The only objective thing is that none of us really know if Napier will win championships.

 

Agreed with the exception that Napier was not a "FCS" coach. The Funbelt is a FBS league.

By the way....Brian Kelly was an FCS coach before he went to Cincinnati.

 

I like him too.
I like his character toward the team and the fans. In today’s society there are many lessons to be learned here. He must of had a good upbringing.

I agree with a lot of the posters that things could be better, and, like you, I hope he can figure it out and make corrections. I think he’s holding back on his true feelings about how this year is playing out. But I’m glad he is FOR his team.

His recruiting has gone very well, so that in itself will help greatly.

We all need to be patient and do a better job of corrective criticism. We don’t want to discourage recruits or the recruits he’s going after.

I think he just needs more time to get his recruits in place.

Though I wish we had more wins I’m also proud of the current team for not giving up, like last year.

Go Gators! Beat the Noles!

 

Wrt to transfers 2005 was a different era only sr grad transfers we immediately eligible or waver requests. Now its free agency hence the roster movement we arent the only team with a coach change to experience turnover

Players like Cox cause a coach to make a calculated decision based on performance and buy in. If you recognize BN isnt Nick or Kirby surely the players do also. BN might not get absolute buy in from all in the program currently but he can dictate moving forward who he has to convince

 

UGA has been elite for awhile under Kirby. Didn’t he make the Natty in year 2? Of course if Napier gets us in the Natty in his first three years then he will get at least 5.

 

We had early success with each of our last terrible head coaches. Now I would never compare them to Kirby as we have seen that his wasnt a fluke but again that is hindsight. Muschamp almost accidentally got us into the national title game if I remember correctly (purely off of memory, I know it was one of the stooges). My point is UF fans in general don't have patience - I doubt they would have had much patience waiting 5 years for a title as I guarantee some would say that the second year success could have been from previous recruiting.

There are so many factors that are in play and also many new factors Kirby and Nick didn't have to deal with like NIL and transfer portal.

 

Improved recruiting increases both the ceiling and the floor of a team.

It is objectively true that Napier has improved recruiting.

 

Actually, technically it is only objectively true if they all sign and play as advertised.
Go Gators!

 

You’re making way too much sense here bigD. Solid points that are easy to forget. FWIW, if we beat ref$u this weekend I don’t think anybody will even remember this Vandy loss

 

You might have just launched the most moronic post I’ve ever read on this message board.

Billy Donovan says hello. Then again you’re obviously a troll so you’re probably googling ‘who is Billy Donovan?’ OK, Billy Martin….oh hell never mind. What a douche

 

Go Gators!

While it's true we don't know exactly how good a class is until 2-4 years down the road, they don't all have to "sign and play as advertised," they just need to prove to be better players or better signings than Napier's three predecessors.

 

Some say "look at what Kelly is doing in his 1st year". Not the same thing, he inherited a Top 15 system of players. Napier inherited a mess with a team ranked nearly 40th after Mullen's departure with many key positions without a single recruit.

Also, Smart's team did lose in his 1st season against Vandy, but it was a stupid call and inefficient red zone offense that lead to Vandy winning. It's one of the most lopsided losses in history of the FBS because if you gave 100 people the stats of the game, all 100 would have said Georgia won 50-0. On paper, they should have. Offensively, they dominated with 420 yards of offense. On defense, only 1 drive for a TD, giving up 170 yards. It was Georgia's inability to score in the red zone and 2 fluky Vandy plays that lead to 2 TDs. Then on the last Georgia drive of the game, down 16-10, 4th and 1 from Vandy's 40, Georgia looked at their chart - "let's see we have Chubb and Michel, so let's roll out both of them and line up a receiver in their position and that will fool Vandy". In fact, that was the sole reason why Georgia lost, they couldn't run the ball all game with the 2 best running back tandems this Millennium (both combined for almost 2,000 yards and 12 TDs that season) accounting for only 75 yards on 29 carries.

Vandy takes over and the game is over. I don't saddle their defense when the ST spots Vandy 1st and goal at the 5 and on a turnover, Georgia's defense gave up nothing but a field goal. Vandy had just 1 drive all game and it was the one that won it for them.

 

Losing to Vandy and UK in the same season is one heck of a way to raise the ceiling.
Likely an FSU lose added to the loss to UGa and UT means losing to all of our rivals and Vandy and UK in the same year.
Not sure when the last time that happened was.

 

Vandy will.
Our SEC rivals will, they will play the score for every top recruit they host.

 

Aw who cares. Beat ref$u and win a bowl game and keep recruiting your ass off. A year from now we will all be concerning ourselves with other issues. This is just one shitty loss amid plenty of others. Just win more next year and more the year after that. It’s doable

 

Don't like the loss to Vandy. I still believe in Napier. Anyone thinking we should get rid of our first year coach is a loser. So vent if that's what you're doing. I think most "defending the indefensible" fans are still thinking that first year tribulations should be excused. What are you advocating if you don't agree? I'm with you if you're just venting.

 

Sure - but it's not objective to say he's failed or he won't win championships. It's year freaking one. I would hope long time Gator fans would be patient and positive. To assail "most here" for hoping that Mullen would succeed is a pretty sorry ass take. You're non-committal but I'm sure you'll remind us of your intelligent non-committal if Napier regime fails. You won't say a word if you're wrong.

 

As far as I know that last happened in 1979, which is why I compare Napier to Pell and not to Saban, Smart, Kelly, etc. The parallels between the 1978/1979 teams are closer to what we are seeing now. In 1978, Doug Dickey's last year as head coach, he attempted to overhaul the offense by hiring Spurrier to convert them from a wishbone offense to more of a pro-style system. Even with a change of coaching and schemes, the talent simply was not there to execute the changes. In 1979, Charley Pell not only overhauled the offense and defense, but also facilities, recruiting, and booster interaction. It took him six years to get the Gators to an SEC championship, which was their first (with an asterisk, obviously).

Charley Pell inherited a team that went 4-7 (3-3) and sacrificed the entire season to overhaul all phases of the program on the way to an 0-10-1 season. He got the Gators to 8-4 (4-2) in 1980, 7-5 (3-3) in 1981, 8-4 (3-3) in 1982 (and their first top-5 ranking, week 3), #6 and 9-2-1 (4-2) in 1983, #7 and SEC champion* at 9-1-1 (5-0-1) in 1984.

Billy Napier inherited a team that went 6-7 (2-6) and is apparently sacrificing this season to overhaul all phases of the program, possibly on the way to another 6-win season, maybe 7 or 8 if you are optimistic about FSU and a bowl game. I would gladly take that over 0-10-1 or 5-7. Could Napier have won more games in 2022 by taking shortcuts? Sure. Focusing on quick wins for the sake of long-term success did not work out well for Muschamp, McElwain, and Mullen.

Saban, Smart, and Kelly all inherited more talented teams with more solid programs--even if some of them were also inheriting NCAA sanctions. Regardless, they all had a head start. Even with 7 years of sanctions under Dennis Franchione and Mike Shula, Alabama was still recruiting in the top 15 between 2001 and 2007. Minor NCAA sanctions on Les Miles and Ed Orgeron did not deter them from recruiting in the top 10 between 2015 (first publicly acknowledged year that Miles was sanctioned) and 2021. Smart also inherited a more talented team that under-performed under Richt.

There are no excuses for losing to Vanderbilt, other than the fact that this team comprised of 60-65 athletes recruited by Mullen is not very good. Vandy does have a few 2020-2022 recruits and transfers higher rated than some of Mullen's 2018-2021 recruits. That is not a sufficient excuse, but quite frankly these recruits play disciplined football with the fewest penalties in FBS and they show more of a sense of urgency than many of the Gators. I trust that Napier will use Vandy as an example of the kind of team discipline he is looking for with the Gators and this will not happen again--especially next year when he will have 40-50 of his own athletes recruited for character traits that he evaluated rather than compromising with recruits brought in by Mullen.

 

Seems every new coach we brought in since 2011 has set some new standard of futility usually starting with "that hasn't happened to a Gator team since 19xx." I guess we should be jumping for joy that we aren't 0-12 for the first time ever. As for BN, precious few of his ideas for building a program here have shown any rewards as of this date. He has struggled to instill his idea of a culture at UF. The team has shown marginal, if any improvement over the course of an entire season. He has been routinely out-coached on the sidelines and even with a million analysts attention to detail seems to be no better than what we saw under Muschamp. The Defense which we thought saw its worst days in 2020-21 appears to be on track to finish as the worst in UF history. The one feather that he can pull from his hat (recruiting) doesn't have any ink on paper as of yet. Again and again our administration has preached "patience...we have our guy" until its past obvious that "their guy" is just an average run of the mill coach. When Pell was hired he was a proven program builder and our entire athletic program was in a much sorrier state than it is today....Spurrier turned a moribund program around at Duke....Meyer won instantly at every stop he's made. I understand why the fanbase is gun-shy to embrace this new coach and I don't think they will until he wins big and consistently.

 

UF and LSU are comparable talent wise

LSU had a comically low number of scholarship players. Yes they had some high end talent but nothing else. Guess what? So does UF. We do have 3 projected first rounders after all.