Napier believes Gators will be better after year one growing pains

On3 imageby:Nick de la Torre•02/15/23•

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Billy Napier arrived in Gainesville to much fanfare. He had spent the last four years building Louisiana into the Sun Belt Champions. Four years of instilling his expectations and his program had the Ragin Cajuns rolling. Year one in Gainesville didn’t meet expectations.

Florida lost its last three games of the year to finish 6-7. The Gators also lost to all of their traditional rivals, pouring salt into the wound of a lost season. As the head coach, play caller, and quarterbacks coach, Napier was stretched thin in his first year. He had to build a staff, instill a culture, recruit, and coach.

“We understand expectations,” Napier said on the Stadium and Gale Podcast Wednesday. “I think year one is very much like giving a year of your life away in terms of hiring a staff, learning a new group of players, and learning a new place.”

“When you hit the ground at a new place you realize the amount of work that we had done the last four years of getting that level of efficiency. I think the growing pains of the first year, a lot of that has to do with teaching a new group of people our way of doing things.”

Year two brings change but also familiarity

Year one was about laying a foundation. The 2022 team lost 23 players to the transfer portal. It’s a clear indication that some players may not have wanted to fully buy into the system for another year. That’s part of the process. The guys that have returned know what is expected of them. They’re fully bought into Napier’s vision.

“I think we execute better. We’re in year two. We are going to do everything systematically. We’re going to be a lot better in every part of what we do,” Napier said. “We’re going to communicate better. And we’re going to be aligned properly more often, play with less mental errors. Less loafs. We’re going to have less fundamental and technique flaws. I think that we’ll be a lot better coordinated and execute better in those critical moments.”

It’s not all on the players. Napier took stock of himself after the season. It’s an exercise that he asks everyone in the program to do. After the season self evaluate. What can you do better? What did you do well? How can you improve and how can you improve the lives and development of the players?

“The big thing for me is just what I experienced in the first year is that your time is divided in the first year. Compared to what I experienced in the second, third, fourth year (at UL),” Napier said. “It kind of takes you back to that first year of being a head coach at Louisiana. A lot to do in the first year.”

With the foundation laid and lessons learned from the first year, Napier believes his team is better prepared to compete and live up to the expectations and standards at the University of Florida.

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