Try and picture a gator away from its natural habitat.

Maybe you’ve seen one on a golf course. Even there, gators usually have the comfort of some nearby water. The same could be said for those who have seen them in their waterfront backyard. There might be the initial shock of seeing a gator in the wild, but more likely than not, it’s not very far from home. But a gator spotted in unfamiliar surroundings is a viral video waiting to happen.

Take the modern-day Florida Gators away from their natural gridiron habitat and they’ll stick out there, too. They’re sloppy, they don’t look like they belong and perhaps above all else, they invoke widespread panic.

Sooner or later, that’ll have to change. It seems like this weekend in South Carolina is as good a time as any.

For what it’s worth, that’s strictly related to football. Lord knows I’m not expecting actual gators to be a comforting sight in South Carolina.

Billy Napier’s Gators haven’t just been bad away from The Swamp. They’ve been a downright disaster.

Since Napier took over, here are Florida’s numbers in the 8 games away from Ben Hill Griffin Stadium:

  • Record: 1-7
  • Wins vs. bowl-eligible teams: 0
  • Points/game: 23
  • Points allowed/game: 33.4
  • Rushing yards/game allowed: 200
  • Yards/play allowed: 6.3
  • 3rd down offensive conversion percentage: 34.5%
  • Penalties/game: 9.3
  • Penalty yards/game: 65.5
  • Double-digit losses: 4
  • 25-point scoring games: 3
  • Games allowing 30-plus: 6

I’ve never coached a game in my life, but my analysis is that it’s extremely difficult to win away from home when you can’t score, you can’t stop the run and you can’t stop committing penalties. Call that a suboptimal blueprint for success. Florida has been following it since Napier’s arrival.

Well, it goes beyond that. Florida went 1-6 in games away from The Swamp in 2021, and it’s hard to say 2020 featured a real road slate because of COVID-impacted attendance. If you eliminate 2020, the last time that Florida beat a bowl team in a road game in front of normal attendance was 2019 at Kentucky. That’s when Feleipe Franks suffered a season-ending injury and Kyle Trask saved the day.

(It’s worth noting that Florida did win the Orange Bowl that year, which was technically played away from The Swamp … but still in the state of Florida.)

So basically, the last time Florida picked up a semi-impressive road win, Franks was the starter. Oh, and it was against a team that up until 2018, the Gators held a 31-game winning streak.

If you’re telling me that Florida winning at Texas A&M last year should qualify as “semi-impressive,” let’s not forget that the Aggies were riding a 4-game losing streak, which didn’t even include the Week 2 home loss to Appalachian State.

Since that game, Florida has 5 consecutive losses in games away from The Swamp. The Florida State loss — wherein Anthony Richardson failed to complete a single pass for 35 minutes and 25 seconds — was the only instance in that 5-game, post-A&M sample size in which Florida scored 25 points and hit 70 rushing yards.

In that entire 8-game sample size away from home in the Napier era, the penalty yards have been most alarming:

  • at Tennessee — 10 penalties, 47 yards
  • vs. Georgia (in Jacksonville) — 7 penalties, 53 yards
  • at A&M — 10 penalties, 39 yards
  • at Vandy — 7 penalties, 80 yards
  • at FSU — 10 penalties, 91 yards
  • vs. Oregon State (in Las Vegas Bowl) — 11 penalties, 82 yards
  • at Utah — 9 penalties, 46 yards
  • at Kentucky — 10 penalties, 86 yards

So in 75% of the games away from home under Napier, Florida committed at least 9 penalties. Whether it was “leaping over the shield” or having multiple players wearing No. 3 on the same punt return, Florida’s trend of finding new ways to shoot itself in the foot away from home continued into 2023.

The question is if it’ll continue on Saturday at Williams-Brice Stadium.

And yes, it is a legitimate question which Florida team we’ll see against South Carolina, even though the Gators rolled in a 38-6 beatdown in The Swamp last season. Never mind the fact that the Gamecocks’ lone offensive touchdown came via a fake punt, or that this year’s squad is 2-3 with an offensive line that allowed 4.6 sacks per game (2nd-worst in Power 5).

The oddsmakers have South Carolina as a slight favorite, surely as a result of Florida’s road woes. Part of that could be tied to Florida’s ground game being a bit banged up. Trevor Etienne missed the Vandy game with an injury, as did starting center Kingsley Eguakun and starting left tackle Austin Barber. It didn’t matter in a home game. Their status will matter much more this week.

The blueprint for Florida’s success under Napier has been to get off to a fast start, have a ground-heavy approach and don’t put the quarterback in 3rd-and-long. In the 2 biggest wins of the Napier era — 2022 vs. Utah and 2023 vs. Tennessee — that plan was followed.

In the 8 games away from home (480 minutes = 28,800 seconds), here’s the time breakdown of Florida playing with a lead vs. playing with a deficit:

  • Leading — 75 minutes, 58 seconds (4,558 seconds/28,800 = 15.8%)
  • Tied — 92 minutes, 58 seconds (5,578/28,800 = 19.4%)
  • Trailing — 311 minutes, 4 seconds (18,664/28,800 = 64.8%)

You probably didn’t need me to spend 45 minutes crunching those numbers to tell you the obvious. That is, Florida’s time spent playing from a deficit away from home has been costly. The Gators have been outscored 30-3 in their past 3 first quarters away from home. Hence, why they’ve been trailing or tied in their past 203 minutes and 53 seconds of football away from The Swamp.

That dates to the second half of the FSU game. That’s the last time that the Gators possessed a lead away from home. It’s easy to forget that Florida went into the locker room leading FSU, who still hasn’t lost a game played anywhere since Oct. 15, 2022 (6 of FSU’s wins in that calendar-year stretch came away from Tallahassee).

A fast start would go a long way. That’s stating the obvious ahead of a pivotal SEC East road tilt. Win on Saturday and the Gators’ likelihood of keeping their heads above water in conference play greatly increases. Lose on Saturday and Napier could be navigating treacherous waters with that remaining schedule.

Saturday isn’t about Napier’s job security. There are 31 million reasons why his job should be safe through Year 2.

Saturday is about Napier’s squad finally not looking like a gator away from its natural habitat.