Florida Football: Does Billy Napier need the Gators to get him a helicopter?

Recruiting is hard in college football. And even when a coach convinces a high school player to spend their college years with them, the new world of NIL can still cause everything to implode as Florida football found out.

Billy Napier has done a respectable job with his recruiting, considering the NIL restricts he seems to be working with and his 2024 class is slowly coming together despite having a 6-7 season.

But if Florida plans to compete with Georgia and Alabama consistently, recruiting will have to go from solid to elite. And there is one thing that Napier hasn’t used that Kirby Smart and Nick Saban have used frequently.

Florida Football: Get to the chopper

From what we can tell given our very scientific research on Twitter, there are no examples of Billy Napier rolling up to a high school in a helicopter. While there is a bit of a gimmick in using a helicopter, there is a bit of practicality that can allow coaches to save time when crisscrossing from school to school.

As a personal anecdote, I teach at a high school in Hillsborough County. And while I don’t coach with our football team, I recently interacted with a college coach we had on campus talking to our players. The coach said his day started in Miami and then he had to make his way up to Tampa.

That’s a long day and coaches probably appreciate any chance they have to save time.

Beyond that, landing a helicopter at midfield is a sign of strength from a coach. Anytime Saban or Smart lands at a school, it instantly hits Twitter. People get excited and it serves as a conversation piece that coaches are serious about landing that player.

So why hasn’t Billy Napier used a helicopter for Florida football?

If we are to make assumptions based on what we know about Napier, he seems to value substance over style. And the truth is these helicopters are rented and some of the lusters are lost when you are mimicking what everyone else is doing.

So there are two ways of looking at it:

If a helicopter is the difference between a recruit committing to Florida football and going elsewhere, it would seem silly to lose out on top-end talent because you didn’t want to be the investment in.

But Napier seems to want guys that truly want to be Florida Gators. And if a helicopter is the reason they commit, then would they be prone to transfer out once the shine of the helicopter wears off?

The truth is somewhere in the middle, but it seems Napier isn’t willing to pull Florida football into the helicopter wars of 2023.