Florida wrapped a 6-6 regular season Friday night with a 45-38 loss to rival Florida State.

The Gators will go bowling, but Year 1 under Billy Napier was filled with growing pains as Florida’s new head coach tries to turn around a program that hasn’t won an SEC championship since 2008. Florida lost to all 4 of its rivals, including a second consecutive 20-plus point loss to archrival Georgia in Jacksonville. The Gators got a glimpse of the promise of quarterback Anthony Richardson, but in the end, the sophomore quarterback lacked the consistency of say, Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis, who shined in Florida State’s first victory over the Gators since 2017.

Florida now awaits Richardson’s draft decision, and its 2022 bowl destination, while Napier and his staff look to recruiting and the program’s long-term future.

Here are 10 takeaways from Napier’s first season in Gainesville.

1. The best sign for the future? Florida is winning a fair share of big recruiting battles again

Napier was brought to Gainesville largely due to the failures of his predecessor, Dan Mullen, to recruit at a high enough level to consistently compete for championships. To that end, Napier was provided with what by Florida standards was unprecedented administrative support, an increased recruiting budget, and the ability to hire what Napier characterized as “an army of support staff.”

It has immediately paid dividends, as Florida has won high profile recruiting battles this cycle against Alabama, Miami, Georgia and Florida State. The Gators have lost some battles too, of course, but Florida is competing on the trail in a way they haven’t since early in the Will Muschamp era.

Even Mullen’s best recruiting classes, which came with 9th ranked groups in 2019 and 2020, were filled with “risks,” where the Gators signed kids that faced the prospect of failing to qualify academically and in some cases, never arrived on campus.

Napier’s first full class ranks higher than any Mullen class, sitting 8th in the 247 composite. It contains 18 blue-chip players, all of whom are expected to qualify. At present, only Alabama, Notre Dame and Georgia have more blue-chip commitments.

Strong recruiting headwinds continue to follow this Florida staff, despite the program’s 6-6 mark on the field.

2. Anthony Richardson lacked the consistency needed to lift Florida to a special season

Quarterback is the most important, valuable position in team sports, and if you have a generational talent at the position, you can better overcome talent and coaching deficits along with a team’s inherent weaknesses and on occasion, win a championship. Look no farther than Cam Newton’s magical run with Auburn in 2010, or Joe Burrow overcoming a leaky LSU defense in 2019, for recent examples of a star quarterback changing the fortunes of a football program — and team.

In the opening game of 2022 (see below), Anthony Richardson looked like he might be that player. Richardson accounted for 274 yards and 3 touchdowns in guiding the Gators to a 29-26 opening night win over No. 7 Utah in The Swamp. The win included this spectacular 2-point conversion, which aptly sums up Richardson’s prodigious talents.

There just wasn’t enough of this from Richardson. He struggled mightily in Florida’s loss to then-No. 20 Kentucky and was poor in Florida’s narrow win over USF. And while he recovered down the stretch of the season, accounting for 17 touchdowns against just 3 turnovers in Florida’s final 7 games, he still made mystifying decisions running the offense. Richardson’s difficulty executing the zone read was especially noticeable, and his lack of willingness to run consistently cost the Gators significantly in a stunning loss at Vanderbilt in November.

Richardson’s ceiling, as demonstrated in the Utah game and in a 500-plus total yard performance at then-No. 11 Tennessee, is immense. But if Richardson opts for the NFL Draft, as many expect, his story at Florida will be one about what could have been had he stayed, not what what was in his lone season as the Florida starter.

3. The 2023 season is make-or-break for young defensive coordinator Patrick Toney

Florida finished the 2022 regular season ranked outside the top 50 nationally in total defense for the 3rd consecutive season. Until the past 3 years, Florida had never spent more 2 consecutive seasons outside the top 50 since the total defense stat was first tracked, by the New York Times, in 1982. In fact, Florida enters bowl season ranked 102nd in total defense, a 51-spot decline from the 2021 unit, and a 19-spot decline from the disastrous 2020 Florida defense that cost a team with a Heisman Trophy finalist at quarterback, a generational talent at tight end, and Kadarius Toney and Dameon Pierce on offense a shot at the College Football Playoff.

Patrick Toney was highly successful at Louisiana, fielding outstanding defenses that were the heart of Napier’s outstanding 2020 and 2021 teams, the latter of which won the Sun Belt championship. But his first Power 5 defense looked miserable throughout 2022, and the 32-year-old coordinator will need to vastly improve the Gators’ defense in 2023 if he wants to remain one of the nation’s youngest Power 5 coordinators.

The current defense, which ranks a dire 64th out of 75 teams in my success rate metric, finished 101st in yards allowed per play, and 42nd in SP+ defensive efficiency (the second worst mark in school history), is simply not going to get the job done.

4. Florida’s young linebackers need to grow up fast

Ventrell Miller, Florida’s lone All-SEC caliber defender, will be off to the NFL in 2023, leaving behind a young linebacker corps that struggled to contribute to the Gators in 2022. Florida has recruited high level talent at the position, but most of those players are more suited to playing outside than in the middle. The most natural of the middle linebackers in the group, Scooby Williams, a former high 4-star recruit, started the USF game but struggled, and played only sparingly thereafter.

Derek Wingo, who is better off the edge, played in the middle in his stead, but his grade against the run was the lowest of Florida’s linebackers, per Pro Football Focus. Another high 4-star talent, Shemar James, showed promise as a freshman but is more well-suited as an off-ball linebacker chasing off the edge or patrolling the boundary. Florida should hit the portal for help at the linebacker spot, but organic growth at the position is vital if Florida wants to build a sustainable, strong defensive future.

5. The wide receivers showed promise, but the late-season drops were maddening

Florida dropped 15 passes in their final 3 games, a gargantuan number that contributed significantly to Richardson’s numbers and the team’s 1-2 November finish. While Justin Shorter is out of eligibility and former slot weapon Trent Whittemore has already hit the transfer portal, the Gators should return the bulk of their talent at the position, and Xzavier Henderson and Ricky Pearsall will give the Gators a quality 1-2 punch. Henderson, who missed the final 2 games of the regular season with an injury, came on strong late in the year, and Pearsall, the Arizona State transfer, proved to be more than just an extra possession receiver, blossoming into a vertical threat and the team’s best route runner.

Florida will also aid Top 100 blue-chip Aidan Mizell to the mix in 2023, meaning there is a great deal of hope for the Florida passing game, regardless of who is under center in 2023.

6. Best win: Week 1 vs. No. 7 Utah

The Napier era opened with a bang, as the Gators posted what would prove to be their best 2022 win in the season’s first game. Florida, powered by Richardson and a solid ground game led by Montrell Johnson Jr., scored the go-ahead touchdown with just under 90 seconds remaining and held on for dear life when Amari Burney intercepted a Cam Rising pass in the end zone to seal the win in the final seconds. Utah went on to knock off USC and reach the Pac-12 Championship, where the Utes will face USC again.f

7. Worst moment: Week 12 at Vanderbilt

Florida’s first road loss to Vanderbilt since 1988 was the low moment of Napier’s first year in Gainesville. While the Gators outgained the Commodores by nearly 175 total yards, they couldn’t get off the field on 3rd down defensively, as the Commodores converted 7-of-14 3rd downs, extending a narrow halftime lead to a 28-12 lead in the fourth quarter and foiling a late Florida rally to upset the Gators 31-24.f

8. Best player: O’Cyrus Torrence, OG

Torrence, who followed Napier to Florida from Louisiana, graded out as the nation’s best offensive guard, per Pro Football Focus, and the nation’s best overall offensivelinemann in run blocking, with a season grade of 93.2, the highest mark for a SEC linemen in 4 seasons.

Almost certain to be a consensus All-American selection in December, Torrence was the road grater leading a Florida run game that finished the season ranked 16th in rushing offense, 14th in rushing success rate and 3rd in yards gained per rush.

9. Biggest future star: Trevor Etienne, RB

The SEC featured a handful of sensational true freshmen in 2022, and Etienne was among the best of them. Etienne broke off touchdown runs of 40 yards or more in 2 of Florida’s final 3 games, including this 85-yard house call (with Torrence opening a monster hole) against South Carolina.

Etienne finished the year with 21 explosive runs, averaging a team-high 6.4 yards per carry in the process. He also finished in the top 10 in the SEC in yards after contact, 1 of just 2 freshmen (with Ole Miss’ Quinshon Judkins) to manage that feat this season.

Elusive, strong and fast, Etienne is destined for stardom in Gainesville.

10. The FSU and LSU losses were devastating

The most painful losses of the season for the Gators came in rivalry games to LSU and Florida State.

They came by nearly identical scores: 45-35 to LSU and 45-38 to Florida State.

LSU hurt because it came at home, at night in a raucous, sold out Swamp that came early and roared until late on a night the program honored Gainesville’s native son, huge Gators fan, and rock and roll legend Tom Petty.

It also hurt because Florida played beautifully offensively, scoring on their opening 2 possessions and rushing for over 200 yards on the evening. The Gators’ defense could not hold the line, however, surrendering 45 points to an LSU team that had managed just 13 points at home against Tennessee the weekend prior to the Florida game.

The win changed the trajectory of LSU’s season under Brian Kelly, as the Tigers would win 5 of their final 6 and win the SEC West. Florida lost for the 3rd consecutive season to LSU and squandered a great chance at a signature SEC win in Year 1 under Napier.

The FSU game hurt because Florida entered with a 3-game winning streak over their in-state rivals and, given a national spotlight in a primetime Black Friday game on ABC, extending it to 4 on the road against the highly favored Seminoles would have been a huge moment for a program that needed a jolt a week after falling to lowly Vanderbilt.

The Gators played well, but oddly abandoned the run game in the third quarter, and that was just long enough for the game’s best player, Jordan Travis, to take over and help FSU end Florida’s winning streak.