David Pollack reacts to Billy Napier being at Georgia practice

Former Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier made waves earlier in the week, getting spotted at a Georgia Bulldogs practice. That, of course, raised some eyebrows around the sport about just why he was there.

Besides the rivalry, some fans were concerned Napier was sharing information on Texas, a team Florida beat and Georgia plays this week. However, as former Georgia star and current analyst David Pollack said on See Ball Get Ball, it’s not a big deal because of the circumstances, but it could have been.

“This is something that really needs to be talked about,” David Pollack said. “This is a phenomenal question. So, I’m not the least bit worried about Billy Napier. Like, Billy Napier happens all the time. The only way if Billy Napier and that story would be relevant is if Georgia was playing Florida.”

Notably, Napier was fired before the Florida-Georgia game. However, he only appeared at a Georgia practice later. So, the presumption is that he wasn’t sharing any secrets against the Gators themselves. That’s the key distinction that matters for Pollack.

“Like if Georgia was playing Florida this week, we could talk about Billy Napier being there,” Pollack said. “Because the insider trading there would be absolutely dirty. You could tell there it would be a vendetta. Not good. Interesting, this is the day and age, by the way, that Ty Simpson is helping Arch Manning. That’s where we are because of Elite 11s and social media and everybody being friends as opposed to, it used to be everybody being enemies. So, sure, they’ll pass information. I’m not sure it’s that helpful.”

All of this is, in fact, relatively common. Coaches talk during the season and have relationships with one another. It’s about how this is handled.

“But here’s the thing to understand during the season. Coaches have relationships with other coaches. If you have a good relationship with somebody, you’re absolutely going to inquire and you’re going to find out week to week, ‘Okay, you played them. What went down? How was it? How’s their tempo? How’s their personnel?’ Thoughts on just coaching against them. Things that stuck out that were better than the tape or that in the moment that you really, really learned. That’s cool,” Pollack said.

“Now, it’s an unwritten rule. An unwritten rule, like you don’t want to share this. This is a keep your mouth shut kind of a deal. You’re going to talk to — and especially in conference opponents that are playing each other in and out. That’s a really big no-no… I was shocked to find out how much coaches are willing to help coaches week to week. Because your competitive nature. You just wonder, how is that possible? But it does happen.”

One thing is clear: Napier and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart have a good relationship. Besides coaching on rival teams, they used to coach at Alabama together. Now, they’re friends and Smart defended having him at practice.

“Billy’s a good friend of mine, we coached together for years, I’ve known him [a long time],” Smart said Wednesday. “People don’t understand relationships between coaches. Coaches have a brotherhood and fraternity together, and his dad was good friends with my dad, his dad was really good friends with [Mike] Bobo, and we all grew up in the state of Georgia with our fathers coaching high school football, were real respected people, and he’s been a friend for a long time. So he dropped by [Tuesday’s practice], yeah, but that was really it.”

For now, just what Napier was doing at the Georgia practice is purely speculation. However, it’s clear that it left plenty of people with some concerns about what did happen.