Florida football: Never keep coaches just to keep their recruits

Florida football, coming off of a 5-7 season, started to make some changes to their coaching staff yesterday.

Billy Napier let go of both DB coach Corey Raymond and DL coach Sean Spencer, and it doesn’t seem like those will be the only moves made.

When the news broke about Raymond and Spencer, some recruits and current players took to social media to express their thoughts. Spoiler alert, they weren’t very happy about it.

A lot of fans are worried that the coaching turnover could lead to the Gators’ recruiting class taking a big hit and falling from where they’ve been since the summer. But teams should never keep coaches just for the recruits they bring in.

Florida football: College football is a business

It’s never fun to see people lose their jobs, especially when it’s as public as college football coaches. But that’s just how the sport, and most jobs, operate. If results aren’t there, you lose your job.

In the Gators’ case, the secondary and the defensive line seemed to only get worse as the season went on, so it seemed like the right time for a change.

Now some people will say, “But firing these coaches will lose us recruits, and then the talent and performance on the field will just get worse!”

Well, it can’t get a whole lot worse than it already was.

If some recruits feel that they want to flip because their coach is gone, that is their decision. It’s their future, and fans shouldn’t go after them for that.

But it doesn’t matter how high a player is rated if they aren’t being coached well enough to perform at a high level. The Gators had enough blue-chip guys on defense to be a very good unit. But they weren’t.

Napier knows that next season is a make-or-break year for him. He’s going to surround himself with coaches that he thinks can help bring Florida to the net level. The recruits who trust in Napier’s vision will stick.

And those are the guys you want to be a part of your program.