Florida Football: Billy Napier can’t blame Dan Mullen for this one
![Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier waits for teams to run out before the game during the Florida Gators Orange and Blue Spring Game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Thursday, April 13, 2023. [Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun]Ncaa Football Florida Gators Orange Blue Spring Game](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F605306b0b97eaeeefb5a08d339d55031708d27a045ab5dcb779bcf8e4fcdd34c.jpg "Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier waits for teams to run out before the game during the Florida Gators Orange and Blue Spring Game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Thursday, April 13, 2023. [Matt Pendleton/Gainesville Sun]Ncaa Football Florida Gators Orange Blue Spring Game")
We here at Hail Florida Hail have chronicled the mess that Dan Mullen left behind for Florida football. Recruiting nosedived, discipline became non-existent, and Mullen himself essentially quit on the team.
In retrospect, pretending that Mullen was the guy to bring Florida to the mountaintop is foolish.
But no matter how big of a mess one thinks that Mullen left behind for Billy Napier to clean up, we are far enough along that one can’t evoke Mullen’s name for the disaster we just witnessed in Lexington.
840. 33. 833. Final. 14
Florida Football: Bad day to be a Gator
Kentucky, by comparison, has the 31st most talented roster.
So, even if one wants to factor in the experience on Kentucky’s roster relative to the youth movement at Florida, these rosters were at worst even when it came to talent.
But only one of the two teams on the field in Lexington looked like they wanted to be there, and it wasn’t the Florid Gators.
Florida’s problems today were the exact thing we warned about yesterday. Last season, the Gators had massive wins over Utah, Texas A&M, and USC, only to lay eggs against Kentucky, USF, and Vanderbilt.
Worse, the problems today were some of the very problems anyone paying attention has been highlighting.
Special teams once again took a backbreaking penalty when it took a personal foul on a punt return to give Kentucky the ball back. The Wildcats scored on the next play.
The offensive showcased it could move the ball at times, but when it needed the tough yards, the playcalling was either a super predictable run up the middle or a passing concept that had two guys standing in a flat route with two guys going deep on a steak.
Combined with the defense looking mortal for the first time all season, allowing career-high rushing yards to Kentucky running back Ray Davis, and you wound up with a performance that Billy Napier can’t defend.
As a reminder, Vanderbilt held Davis to 78 yards on 17 carries.
We have been as big of Billy Napier defenders as there have been. We wrote after the Tennessee win to stop writing his obituary. But we also aren’t blinded by our faith, and today’s disaster of a performance can’t be blamed on anyone but Napier.
Tennessee showed what the ceiling could be under Napier.
Today is a reminder of what the floor can be.
These next two weeks against Vanderbilt and USC could be early make-or-break moments in the Billy Napier Era.
Kentucky was Billy Napier's first true test. dark. Next