Billy Napier's attention to detail started with addressing penalties

On3 imageby:Nick de la Torre08/06/22

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Billy Napier wasn’t the Florida Gators‘ coach in 2021. He probably didn’t even see a single UF game while leading the Ragin’ Cajuns to the program’s first-ever Sun Belt Championship. When he took the job it was full bore on recruiting and assembling a staff. When that dust settled, it was time to turn his attention to the team he was inheriting.

For anyone that watched the 2021 Florida Gators, the first thing that jumps out are penalties. The Gators were penalized 104 times, second worst in the SEC and 119th in the country. Prior to the start of fall camp, Napier reminded the team what they did to themselves last season.

“Coach Napier came in and (preached) discipline. He showed us the other day before we went out to practice all of the penalties that we had last season. He was just showing us that it wasn’t big penalties that hurt us. It was just all undisciplined penalties — offsides, holding, things that we can learn not to do,” tight end Dante Zanders said. “He handed out a piece of paper and it had all the highlights of all the penalties we had and the lost yardage that we had. Which ones were undisciplined and which ones were holding, offsides, stuff like that.” 

“It was shocking and embarrassing.”

Looking at the Gators’ undisciplined penalties in each game

Gators Online went through each box score from the 2021 season to look at all 104 of Florida’s penalties. We broke down the undisciplined penalties by game. We counted all false starts, offsides, procedural penalties, as well as unsportsmanlike penalties in the count. In total, Florida had 75 undisciplined penalties, including an incomprehensible 29 false starts in 13 games.

The list is not for the faint of heart but we endeavored to go through the box scores so you wouldn’t have to.

FAU: 

Delay of game (3)

Holding (2)

USF: 

False start 

Alabama: 

Holding 

Substitution Infraction 

False start 

Tennessee:

False start (2)

Delay of game (2)

Holding

Kentucky: 

Late hit out of bounds 

False start (8)

Delay of game

Offsides 

Holding (2)

Vanderbilt: 

Illegal formation 

Holding (4)

False start

LSU: 

No penalties 

Georgia:

Offsides 

Holding (2)

False start (4)

South Carolina: 

Holding

Offsides

Unsportsmanlike conduct 

False start

Samford: 

Offsides (4)

Holding (2)

False start (3)

Missouri: 

False start (2)

Offsides (2)

Holding (2)

FSU: 

False start (3)

Unsportsmanlike conduct (3)

Offsides (4)

Holding

UCF: 

False start (3)

Holding

Unsportsmanlike conduct 

Game# of Penalties – yards
FAU9 – 91
USF4 – 45
Alabama7 – 67
Tennessee6 – 45
Kentucky15 – 115
Vanderbilt8 – 80
LSU0 – 0 (0)
Georgia7 – 45
South Carolina6 – 64
Samford12 – 94
Missouri9 – 80
FSU 13 – 107
UCF8 – 85
TOTAL: 104 – 918

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