Florida football head coach Billy Napier heads into his second season on the sidelines of the Swamp following a disappointing debut with the Orange and Blue in 2022. His opening campaign saw the Gators post their second-straight losing season — the first time that has happened since the late 1970s — following Dan Mullen’s disgraced exit from Gainesville.
Napier has a steep hill to climb — even possibly a Sisyphean task — to bring pride back to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium as the program’s rivals continue to evolve with the sport. The Athletic staff writer Andy Staples recently submitted one question he would ask the Florida skipper, free of coach speak and composed of pure, distilled truth.
Here is what Staples would ask.
Is this Nick Saban’s process or the Philadelphia 76ers’ process?
Napier’s fans — of which there are many in the coaching community — claim that other than Kirby Smart, Napier is the best at reproducing Saban’s detail-oriented, process-over-results thinking in terms of roster- and team-building. But before his second season, Saban signed the greatest recruiting class of all time. That 2008 Alabama team then went 12-2. In Smart’s second season, he won the SEC, and Georgia made it to the national title game. Nothing like that is going to happen in Napier’s second season. — Staples
The Gators open up their 2023 schedule on the road against the Utah Utes on Aug. 31, with the start time still to be determined.
[lawrence-auto-related count=5 category=1368]
Follow us @GatorsWire on Twitter and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.