Evaluating the vibes from Florida fans entering Year 3 under Billy Napier
As spring football practices around the country get set to kick off, many programs are looking for a complete 180 coming off the 2023 football season. Florida is one of them.
The Gators went just 5-7 under second-year coach Billy Napier last fall, the third straight season that the team has finished with a losing record. It’s starting to show in Gainesville, too.
“The vibes are apathy. Those are the vibes,” said On3’s Andy Staples on the Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s beyond anger and it’s moved to apathy and it’s kind of wait and see.”
Florida fans are a notoriously fickle bunch, with some of the highest expectations of any program around after winning three national titles between 1996 and 2008.
But the program is long removed from that high-level national success. There have been a few short spurts of success, like Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen reaching SEC Championship Games, but it hasn’t been sustained.
“And it’s interesting because you had this Florida fanbase that, I said it a lot, but I understood it, I thought they were overly critical at times,” Staples said. “I thought they were expecting too much at times when they were getting mad over 10-win seasons, getting mad over 11-win seasons. That was probably too much. But I don’t have a problem with them being mad over a six-win season followed by a five-win season. Like they should be mad about that.”
The danger for the program, of course, is that fans start to slowly lose interest with so much mediocrity over such a long period.
That’s where Staples seems to think things are at right now.
“I think they’ve moved past mad into some sort of resignation, which I don’t think that’s good,” he said. “If you’re Ben Sasse, the president of Florida, I don’t think you want to see that and you’ve been on the job less than a year and you’ve got this apathetic fanbase. Because when they’re mad at least they still care. You need to get them caring again.”
If Florida’s going to turn things around, it’ll do so against one of the most difficult backdrops in the sport. Napier is entering his third season already, so time is running short for him to produce a turnaround.
At the very least, there need to be signs of improvement. And those might be hard to spot next year.
“Billy Napier is in a tough spot, because he has to figure out how to get better against the toughest schedule in America,” Staples outlined. “And here’s the thing. I’ve seen people say if it’s 5-7 you might give him another year if they’re a little bit better because they’re playing tougher competition. No. If it’s 5-7 they’re not going to give him another year. It has to be better than that. You can’t just keep having losing seasons at the University of Florida. It has to be better. So they better figure it out.”
Florida has some pieces to work with, but after the team’s 2024 signing class took some notable defections just before the early signing period, it’s not as clear-cut an upgrade as it could have been this offseason.
The team took in a few transfers, but the transfer class isn’t as ballyhooed as some of its SEC peers, like Georgia or Ole Miss.
“You look at the way they recruited, they got DJ Lagway, the quarterback,” Staples said. “But here’s the thing: Graham Mertz is the starting quarterback right now. Graham did a good job last year. They need to fix their defense. I’m not sure they’ve fixed it. They lost Princely Umanmielen to the transfer portal. They bring back Shemar James.
“They’ve got some good pieces, but is their talent net better than it was last year when they went 5-7 against a schedule that isn’t as tough? I don’t know if the answer is yes to that.”