Florida Football needs to go at least 8-4 to be "on schedule" in 2024

SEC Media Days have come and gone for Florida Football and for the most part Billy Napier kept things close to the vest. He praised his strength coach Tyler Miles, he highlighted the amount of returners on the roster, and he painted a picture that Florida isn't intimidated by their daunting 2024 schedule.

Napier was also asked what would be fair expectations for the Gators in 2024. His response made it seem like Florida isn't far away from climbing back to the top of the mountain.

Florida Football: Be On Time

Prior to stepping on the podium for his 30 minute press conference in Dallas, Napier met with a handful of writers in a smaller setting. In a video posted by Andy Staples of On3, Napier was asked about expectations for the Gators and whether he felt Florida had met those expectations to this point in his tenure with the team.

"Change doesn't happen overnight. Timing is everything. When we took the job, what we inherited, the work that needed to be done, we are on schedule to some degree. Should we have won a couple of games down the stretch? Would I have liked to close some of those games out in the fourth quarter? Absolutely, but the reality is from a systems standpoint, in house, culture, I think we have made tremendous progress"

- Billy Napier

Napier was then asked during his podium segment a follow up question to this idea that Florida is "on schedule" heading into the 2024, given that the Gators are 11-14 under Napier.

"I think you've got to get consumed with the process, not the outcome, to some degree, and the thing that I would say with conviction is we have been very close. We've played in a lot of close games. We've got to learn how to close those games out, and I think that's where the leadership and experience of this team -- we have to leverage that experience, the lessons that we've learned, get in position in the fourth quarter and close those games out consistently."

- Billy Napier

And here is where we here at Hail Florida Hail interject with commentary we made two weeks ago about this very idea of where the Gators should realistically be by the end of the 2024 season. We made the point that while Florida has one of the most challenging schedules in college football history, it doesn't absolve Napier and the Gators from expectations.

The truth is that anything short of 8-4 for the 2024 season means that Florida is losing to at least one or two teams that Florida shouldn't be losing to by year three of Napier's tenure. Napier's philosophy of being "consumed with the process" is a reasonable one and he came to Gainesville with the idea of building a foundation that was never built under Dan Mullen. But at some point that process needs to turn into wins.

The hamster on the wheel is consumed with their process too, that doesn't mean their process is getting them anywhere.

Napier is correct that Florida has been much closer to turning the ship around than they have gotten credit for. Part of why they have fallen short has been due to self-inflicted wounds that shouldn't have happened for a team that claims to be process oriented.

While Napier may be "consumed with the process, not the outcome, to some degree," he needs to also be consumed with outcomes in 2024 in order for the Gators to emerge on schedule.