Will Napier learn from this year or die on the hill

Oh, I did too and especially with their QB out. Early on, you could see it wasn’t our night. We were terrible in many aspects and somewhat marginal in others. You could see Utah took advantage of our ineptness, mistakes, and poor coaching.
What I would hope is we get things fixed to some degree next week and beat Tenn with a stout defense and serviceable offense with better play calls. I would be happy with that result.

 

I can only think of 2, McNeese and Charlotte. The others are toss ups. 3-5 in conference last year, 2-6 2021.

 

The top recruits in FL don't choose UF, FSU or UM any more. It's basically the 70s again. I get what you're saying. And given the CEO nature of coaching these days, your point makes sense.

But it is what it is now, a pay to play system where recruiting is 90-95% of the game. So, just as if not more important than a good OC is a solid fundraising wing to make sure you can bid with the bigger players.

 

The answer, good or bad, will be revealed soon

We hired CBN because he was supposed to be an elite CEO, manager, organizer, recruiter, and with a huge focus on details.

Unlike play on the field every one of those things should be able to be on display whether you have a walk on playing or a Heisman winner playing

 

Excellent question. After the Oregon State bowl game debacle, the general narrative was that the team had checked out and thus the shellacking. Honestly, I had a different take. It seemed to me that we struggled on offense because Oregon State figured out how to defend it when there wasn't a threat from the quarterback position to run. They were firing down safeties and linebackers into the correct gaps every single time. That means there's a book on Napier's offense. Napier's offense has extremely slow developing plays. This requires Napier's offense to slow down the back seven's recognition and action. You can do that with a mobile quarterback. AR forced teams to sit back. I think that's also why Napier feels the need to do such incessant motion pre-snap. It's useless motion. But part of the reason you do it is to make the defense think and thus be slow to react. The problem is the defense realizes it's useless motion so they don't have to worry about it so they just continue with their attack from the back seven. With the current makeup at quarterback, he cannot do slow developing plays like this. He has to give defenses a reason to pause. He obviously didn't look at that Oregon State tape and think about changing his scheme to fit the absence of a mobile quarterback. I'm probably wrong anyway. But it just seemed kind of obvious to me and yet the change was not made, so effectively in our last two games we've scored a grand total of six points. I don't count garbage points in the fourth quarter to make the score look better as real points.

 

I remember commenting, on the game thread that, three quarters in, it felt like Oregon State all over.

 

I’m gonna give Napier this year and this offseason to iron out kinks. I believe we lost 3 assistants from last year so it may have been too much coaching turnover if he hired an OC and changed things on Special Teams. I am “trusting the process” here.

So far I have not seen anything in Napier’s playcalling to make me believe he is above average to excellent in this department. I also get the feeling he may pull the whole “listen guys I can’t have a competitive offense unless I have the best collection of offensive players possble.” Good playcallers and offensive gurus can squeeze production out of marginal talent and do wonders with above-average talent. If this is the case, boosters will need to decide what kind of timeframe he and Stricklin get.

We can’t walk into 2024 without a clear plan and identity both on Special Teams and offense. I realize we may have a different QB starting next year but Thursday’s showing isn’t on Mertz or the Rashada fiasco. Lots of other issues not related to QB play.

 

Why carp about the Oregon State game? We had numerous opt outs for that game plus an unproven QB. We had miscues our first game but nothing that isn’t fixable. But I did see a QB that threw for 300 yards and I did see a much improved defense! Better than last years defense! It was game one! Get a grip and support the Coaches and the players or find another team to pull for!

 

Got to give him time, hope to see improvements this season and a great recruiting class secured come December.

If all else fails, maybe hire a 3rd OL coach.

 

Plus 2 more Nutrition Coaches. But absolutely no on ST coach or OC.

 

Agree on the gonna run 12 and almost force a stacked box. I noticed in last night game, one of the early plays they motioned the rb to the slot to create a quick mismatch…..

 

Why not let Russ Callaway call the plays? He has the experience all be it in the FCS. Then get rid of one OL coach and hire a ST coach

 

I think those just SS's excuses. Actually BN was a panic hire. SS hired Mullen (another panic hire because Chip shunned UF and UT wanted him) and got burned. Instead of doing a thorough research, SS decided to hire the opposite of Mullen. Unfortunately, although BN is far superior to Mullen in the traits you mentioned, he's also opposite to Mullen as a X-and-O guy. It alone is not the problem, the problem arises when BN fancies himself as a offensive guru despite the fact he never had any high-powered offense success anywhere...

 

That's very kind of you, I'm sure that takes a tremendous weight off his shoulders.

 

I like it.....

He spent five seasons at Samford where he served as the Bulldogs' offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2016-19, while also coaching the wide receivers from 2015-17.

As a unit in 2018, Samford's offense led the FCS in passing yards per game (392.7). The offense also ranked fourth in the FCS in total offense (515.9 ypg.), and eighth in both red zone offense (.898) and in first downs (298). Meanwhile in 2017, the Bulldogs' offense led the SoCon and ranked fifth in the FCS in passing yards per game (33.4 ypg.).

In 2016, Callaway's offense ranked third among all FCS schools in passing offense, averaging 349.4 passing yards per game. They also ranked sixth in the FCS in red zone offense (90.2%), 11th in team passing efficiency (155.24), 12th in scoring offense (35.1 ppg.) and 14th in total offense (446.2 ypg.).

During his time with Samford, Callaway mentored quarterback Devlin Hodges, who earned the Walter Payton Award for the top offensive player in all of FCS football in 2018. Hodges passed for an FCS-record 14,584, breaking the old record set by Steve McNair.
Russ Callaway - Assistant Coach / Tight Ends - Football Support Staff - Florida Gators

 

One of the OL coaches. Billy can coach ST himself.

 

He’s one year and a game into his tenure. This is ridiculous. 14 games ago Norvell was going to be bought out at the SOW. Everything said on this topic at this point is knee jerk childish reactions.

 

Then you mean 3 pts