As the news broke that Will Harris was leaving Florida Football to head down south to join the Miami Hurricanes, there were two pathways Gator fans could choose to react:
- Losing Harris isn't a big deal, as assistant coaches always come and go.
- Losing Harris is a massive blow as an up-and-coming coach made a lateral move to a rival.
As is the case with a lot of things surrounding Florida, the truth is somewhere in the middle. But the departure of Harris continues what was an eyebrow-raising trend for the Gators since the arrival of Napier.
Florida Football: You Need Indeed
Recently, Napier talked about how he feels Florida is in a great place when it comes to retaining players and not having as many guys hop into the transfer portal:
"We're getting better. I think we have the resources to retain. I think that's No. 1. And I also think that we have relationships with the players. We recruited the players. We know the families, we know the dynamic."
Whatever Napier is doing to better retain players hasn't quite made its way over to his coaching staff.
It may seem that all we do at times is nitpick at Napier, but coming into the 2024 season, his staff had already undergone more turnover than most. In 2024, just three assistants on staff were also on staff during the 2022 campaign (Rob Sale, Mike Peterson, and Jabbar Juluke).
Within the SEC, and not counting the four teams who switched head coaches between 2022 and 2024, only Ole Miss and Arkansas had more churn among assistants in that timespan.
Whether or not losing Harris in a vacuum matters is a different debate, but even heading into 2024 Florida had more coaching staff changes than most compared to their 2022 staff. pic.twitter.com/lgCOxZQZng
— Hail Florida Hail (@HailFloridaHail) February 14, 2025
So, to some extent, losing Harris, as well as Austin Armstrong, this offseason is just part of doing business in the SEC.
But when Napier preaches about sticking to a process, it feels like it's harder to build the machine he wants when he is constantly swapping out parts more than most.