Florida Football: Billy Napier is a builder but isn’t immune from critiques

Billy Napier was brought in to lead the Florida Gators to provide a solid foundation and repair the cracks that were left behind by the previous coaching staff. Fixing Florida football is going to take time and Napier’s stated mission of being a process guy means that he isn’t going to resort to band-aid fixes to address long-term problems.

By all accounts, Napier is getting his process in place and the dividends will hopefully pay off in the next two years. But just because the expectation is to have success down the road doesn’t mean he is immune from critiques as the process takes hold.

Florida Football: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Rome also crumbled.

We have had mostly positive things to say about Napier and the program he is building. As we have pointed out before, Napier’s team at Louisiana didn’t start great but once he got his guys in the program became dynamic.

In time, Napier should and will get the Gators to the point where 9–10-win seasons are automatic again and not just a wish upon a star.

But there was a question asked to Napier about the talent gap between Georgia and Florida and how much he felt it played a factor. Napier skirted around the issue even though it was an issue. That’s not Napier’s fault, he’s playing with the cards he was dealt.

Florida football has put together a top-10 recruiting class despite the 4-4 season. Almost everyone Napier has had commit is a blue-chip prospect. However, the whiff on Cormani McClain highlighted that as of now the Gators are not willing to pay the price for the elite guys and without those, the Gators will probably never catch Georgia in terms of pure talent.

The program that Napier is building seems to be based around getting high-quality, though not elite, players into the program, building them up to execute flawlessly as a unit, and win games not because of the scheme but because of a rock-solid foundation.

This is in contrast to Dan Mullen who believed he could scheme his way to victory regardless of his foundation. And while it worked in spots, Mullen’s foundation crumbled, and the scheme didn’t matter.

But you know who else has a rock-solid foundation with a rather pedestrian scheme?

Georgia.

This is where a critique and possibly rhetorical question of Napier’s program exist; What is Napier’s long-term plan to beat Georgia if Georgia is always going to have “better” talent and thus a better foundation?

Florida Football: So about the play calling.

The defense didn’t have an amazing game and was helpless once in the redzone, but it also produced some turnovers, had some third down stops, and most importantly was gassed because the offense went three-and-out the first four drives.

Perhaps the single biggest critique of Napier is his instance to also be the offensive coordinator. The problem is that he hasn’t shown a way to scheme his way out of an opposing defense that stops his plan A.

Florida football has had a top-level run game this season, but the passing game has revolved around rather basic routes, and when the run game has been stopped the Gators seem to have no answers.

Below is a recap of Florida’s first four drives on offense.

11:40 in 1st

• 1st and 10 – Two WR left, one TE right, Henderson in the backfield with Johnson. Henderson motions, play actions, Shorter and Pearsall run vertical routes in the same lane. Richardson scrambles for four yards.
• 2nd and 6 – Two WR right, Zipperer right, Shorter left, Johnson backfield. Zipperer splits out to the right to try and pull a linebacker. Doesn’t work. Johnson’s run gets stuffed as Michael Tarquinn doesn’t win the battle.
• 3rd and 6 – Shotgun, two WR right, Zipperer right, Shorter left, Johnson in the backfield. Georgia sends four and the pocket collapses right away. Zipperer is sent on a drag route and even if he makes the catch he is stopped short. Hard to see without the All-22 film, but the other three routes looked vertical in nature.

7:06 in 1st after Etienne’s kickoff return to the 36-yard line

• 1st and 10 – Pearsall, Shorter, and Henderson left. Georgia immediately checks out of their defense and seems to recognize what’s coming. Henderson does his orbit motion right, hand off Etienne to the left. Etienne seems to miss a hole between Shorter and Pearsall, but the line of scrimmage otherwise stopped up.
• 2nd and 9 – Same formation. Richardson gives a play action and looks right. It’s hard to tell what the routes were, but based on the initial steps the receivers took it was three downfield routes that didn’t look like they played much off each other. Richardson forced to dump into the flat to Etienne for no gain.
• 3rd and 11 – False start
• 3rd and 16 – Tight formation. Georgia lines up all their DBs along the first down marker. Florida once again just sends guys in a vertical route. Richardson again forced to dump off.

1:29 in 1st at the 25-yard line after kickoff

• 1st and 10 – Shorter and Pearsall start left. Pearsall in motion and it’s a sweep to him. Florida does get a blocker on everyone, but Georgia is just too fast for that to work and what little seam Pearsall did have to get up field gets closed up.
• 2nd and 7 – It’s literally a repeat from the first play on the 2nd drive. Henderson in motion, Johnson gets the carry, and the entire play is blown up the moment Johnson gets the ball.
• 3rd and 10 – Maybe the first attempt to counter what Georgia is doing. Three receivers right, Georgia DB’s lined up along the first down marker. Receivers run basic routes. But this time Dante Zanders drags across the field and it draws a Georgia DB down to him. This opens up a window for Shorter to sit in. Richardson unfortunately misses the throw high.

14:53 in 2nd at the 41-yard line after Jadarrius Perkins interception

• 1st and 10 – Shorter and Henderson are the lone receivers. While the blocking scheme on this was different, this is the exact same play Florida ran against LSU when Richardson rolled right and hit Shorter on a deep bomb and an almost identical concept Florida used against Eastern Washington. The only problem is that even with max protection Georgia is able to get home with just six guys rushing. Hard to tell without All-22 if Shorter would have been open.
• 2nd and 23 – Richardson was called for intentional grounding the play before. Persall just runs up the seam and Richardson finds him to give Florida football a chance on 3rd down.
• 3rd and 7 – False start
• 3rd and 12 – Again, the critique is that guys are just running routes that feel isolated from each other. Richardson forced left, incomplete. Would have been holding anyway.

By the time Florida got a first down it was 21-0. From there, the Gators played Georgia even the rest of the way (technically losing 21-20 the rest of the way, but some of that is influenced from Napier having to chase the game).

And credit to Florida football for showing fight after falling down 28-3 where previous teams would have folded. That speaks to the culture and program that Napier is trying to build.

But the reason the Gators were behind 28-3 in the first place is part because Florida ran the same offense it has been running all season. If you have superior athletes like Georgia did with Brock Bowers, it doesn’t really matter if the QB is a former walk-on and the routes are vanilla. Florida didn’t have superior athletes on Saturday and even though it is recruiting at a high level it won’t have superior athletes compared to Georgia most seasons.

Running plays with just two receivers running vertical isn’t the most ideal play call even when you have five-star guys. So for Napier the very fair question for him is even if/when he gets his guys into the program, would his guys have executed better on Saturday and lead Florida to victory?

Maybe, but Napier is also an introspective enough guy to recognize that there are holes in the scheme. We are still excited for the future as the foundation gets built up, we just want a few more amenities to go inside the house once built.

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