Here’s how and why Billy Napier was chosen to lead UF’s football program

by Pat Dooley (BSJ ’76)

There are no guarantees, no givens, no absolutes in the world of college football. It is unscripted and volatile and crazy and crippling and glorious all at once.

So, we’re not ready to give Billy Napier a plaque with “National Champions” at the top and blank dates underneath as Texas A&M did when it hired Jimbo Fisher in 2017 (there are still blanks).

All we know is that Florida hired its 28th head coach in its illustrious history and sent the Gator Nation into a Google frenzy trying to find out everything possible about Billy Napier.

Scott Stricklin was way ahead of you.

When you are an athletic director, you know when something is coming. That’s why you have to stay on top of every other program in college football and what is going on so if things turn sour on your campus, you are ready to start the wheels churning towards finding an answer.

The Florida problems started at the end of last year and bled badly into this season like a wound that could not be stitched. There was a culture problem at Florida, which is the only way you can really explain losing nine of 11 games to Power 5 teams and losing seven straight one-possession games.

Whatever happened to Dan Mullen happened. Whether he got too full of himself or thought he could win with any players because he was schematically at an advantage or forgot the Gator Standard doesn’t matter anymore.

Stricklin wanted someone different. All athletic directors do. When you fire someone, you want the next person to be the opposite, in part because you have grown weary watching the same issues repeat themselves.

To do that, Florida’s AD had to find someone who could change the culture because the old culture had cracks in the foundation.

He had a list. Billy Napier was first on that list. He never got to two, three and four.

What Napier has done at Louisiana has been to set up an SEC program in the Sun Belt. The recruiting staff is organized and efficient and massive. Louisiana was willing to spend a lot of money on personnel to get Napier four years ago.

Now, he gets to try it with a brand new football facility that will be ready soon and everything he needs to be successful at this level.

He has the pedigree, a coach’s son (he lost his father to ALS four years ago) who learned at the feet of Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney. He also worked with Jim McElwain, but don’t hold that against him. He had looked failure in the face (getting fired as offensive coordinator at Clemson) and fought back from it to become better at what he does.

But what really got to Stricklin was the plan. Or planning. Everything is planned out meticulously, from the snacks to the sweeps.

It reminds me of the time I went to Washington when Steve Spurrier was the coach there. He took me into the defensive coordinator’s room to meet Marvin Lewis. Lewis showed me a binder with every minute of every day planned out for the day he became a head coach (and he did for 16 years in the NFL).

Stricklin had done his research on Napier before he met him face to face the Tuesday after the Mullen firing. And when he did, he got to see Napier’s very progressive program plan.

One other thing. Stricklin got to a point during this quick search where he was almost looking for somebody to say something negative about Napier. He came up empty.

He talked to an athletic director at another Sun Belt school. Big fan of Napier’s. An NFL general manager reached out to Stricklin to endorse Napier for the job. Stricklin heard from everybody – from his college academic counselor to the director of SEC officiating (who is also the Sun Belt director of officiating).

A high degree of emotional intelligence.

Runs his program like an SEC team.

Courteous, respectful, polite.

He will make your culture right.

As a result, there was no long search or millions of rumors. And, as I said, no guarantees.

I thought it was a great hire, then USC hired Lincoln Riley and LSU hired Brian Kelly. College football may have a problem when a coach leaves a program that has a chance to win a national title, but I digress.

So, I looked up some numbers. And they made me smile.

Because what we have been watching this season made me want to cover my eyes.

Louisiana has averaged 32.6 yards a game in penalties. Florida laughs and says, “Hah, that’s a good quarter for us.” Louisiana is plus-11 in turnover margin. Florida was 121st in the country at minus-9. Louisiana blocked four kicks this year and excelled at special teams. Florida did not.

These are big deals and little things. They are all about focus, concentration, execution and detail-oriented thinking.

They are not cliches with Billy Napier. They are a way of life.

That, in itself, will be a nice change.