Culture Shock, Part II: inside the Billy Napier rebuild of the Florida Gators

He’s a head coach. If he can’t handle the oc duties once he has the players to fully implement his offense, he will get someone who can. That’s what good CEO’s do.

 

I remember reading stories of the people who played golf with Spurrier.
They all said the same thing: 1, Play the ball where it lies. 2, No gimmies allowed at all.

 

That's right. And most golfers will tell you that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they play.

I was a Mullen fan, but this paragraph I think sums up the problem.

“Here’s what I think it boils down to,” one of Mullen’s former players told me.

“Dan Mullen loved being the offensive coordinator at Florida, because he got to work with some of the greatest players to ever step foot on a football field. And as the OC, all he had to do was call plays and coach his QB’s, the two things he was really great at. And he loved being the head coach at Mississippi State because he could still do those two things, and delegate everything else. Nothing else was his problem. He didn’t have to personally recruit at a high level. He just had his assistants do that, so they brought him players and he coached them and called plays. And I think when he was offered the head coaching job at Florida, he thought he could combine those two worlds. He thought he wouldn’t have to recruit, he could have assistants do that for him, and he could just coach QBs and call plays and everything would work out. And for awhile it did- but when adversity came to him and forced him to make a change, he didn’t do it. He realized it wasn’t what he signed up for, and he let it all collapse.”

“But Billy Napier, on the other hand,” the former player continued, “Billy Napier wants to be the head coach of the Florida Gators. And he wants to do every single thing that holding this job requires, and more.”

 

This is why I have an attitude with Mullen... That was his plan, but he didn't have any "Ace Recruiters" on staff to go out and snatch up recruits. Lazy Coaching/developers & lazy/inept on the trail... equaled disaster

 

The only thing I gave the disagree for was that last bit about DefCon 1. For my answer to that look no further than that pile of steamy shit about 150 miles to the NW. They were on a similar path and with some patience have seemed to have righted the ship. Hell, Taggart was waaaay worse than Mullen.

 

Yes, we are at “not enough data” to draw conclusions either way. I think from Napier’s playcalling at ULL, you can say he isn’t an innovator like Mullen would be a fair assessment.

I think with Napier you’re gonna have a guy that pulls the best of what currently works schematically and simplifies it for the players so they can execute it efficiently. He did have a few play calling gaffes last year in clock management and such, but I’ll chalk that up to not trusting his personnel at this point.

 

Integrity is a gunner thing.

 

Mullen proved he was a good playcaller with Tim and Percy and with Trask and Pitts. He didn’t look mind blowing without those guys. It’s hard to judge Napier when his best qb doesn’t even come to mind.

 

Napier started his ULL QB Levi Lewis for 4 years, so that was his best QB. You can get a pretty good idea about his playcalling watching his time at ULL.

 

How capable was Lewis? Was it an open playbook or did he limit tge playcalling? I’ve never watched a game.

 

Lewis had the playbook

 

Did Franks have the same playbook as Trask?

 

I’m a Napier fan. I’m just saying we haven’t seen him being an offensive innovator at OC. Go watch Levi Lewis. He’s more McElwain than he is Mullen as far as offense is concerned. Nothing wrong with that. Just saying Napier is evolutionary more than relovutionary.

 

I mean this in the nicest possible way but Napier is closer to Addazio than McElwain. McElwain was a pro style passing expert. Thus far all we know about Napier is he is a good running game coordinator.

 

He coached at Louisiana for a total of 4 seasons. Not much chance to create your own roster to suit your game, especially when you’re recruiting to a ‘lower division’ school. Yet he won them a national championship. Rather than assume he’s limited in what he can do, have you considered Napier took the talent he had and built his offensive game plan around what they did best?

It worked. If he’d tried to turn that roster into a fun & gun, it’s extremely likely they wouldn’t have won the championship. And people would have been quick to say he was pounding square pegs into round holes. So instead, he maximizes effectiveness of the talent he has, and people say he’s limited to running the ball.

People are funny

 

And just as important is he organizes his assistants to do that as well instead of letting them run off and do what they want.

 

Funny thing about these offensive genius/innovator coaches. I don't see a lot of them winning titles. Close, but still no trophies. I see a lot of TALENTED teams winning.

 

Who won a national championship? Louisiana?

 

Mullen has looked pretty basic most of his career too. Having elite players makes things look a lot different . I understand that talent and playcalling are both needed for it to work. I don’t think Napier has ever called plays for an elite offense . I’m interested in seeing what his offense looks like when he gets elite players. He didn’t even attempt a teo minute offense last year. The best we had was run AR on the last scorng drive against Utah. He has to have more ingenuity than that. Sure, he’s more of a pro style playcaller but I don’t think pro should be a negative term.

 

Yes - in the Division One Subdivision, if that’s what it’s called. Like Marshall did with Eric Kresser under center in 96 when we won it all