The Billy Napier era kicks off on Sept. 3 when No. 7 Utah visits The Swamp (7 p.m., ESPN). The game marks Florida’s first home opener against a top-10 opponent since 1969, when No. 7 Houston visited The Swamp. Florida will be hoping for a similar result as that game, which saw an unranked group of Gators rout the Cougars, 59-34, behind Cuban Comet Carlos Alvarez’s national player-of-the-week receiving performance.  Whatever happens, the game against the Utes, one of college football’s most disciplined, well-coached outfits, will serve as a tremendous barometer for where Napier’s program is as he begins his tenure at Florida.

Another excellent barometer will be whether the Gators can reverse a handful of statistical trends that have haunted the program over the past few seasons. Here is a look at 5 statistical trends Florida must reverse in 2022.

1. A run defense ranked in the bottom 5 of the SEC

Todd Grantham’s final 2 defenses at Florida ranged from middling (2021) to awful (2020), and nowhere was the problem more obvious than in run defense. The Gators ranked 71st overall and 10th in the SEC against the run in 2020 and 85th and 12th in 2021. How bad was it last season? LSU ran for a season-high 321 yards against the Gators, upsetting Florida, 49-42, in Baton Rouge, despite having a lame-duck head coach and a host of injuries. South Carolina, featuring a D-II transfer making his 1st career start at quarterback, ran for a season-high 284 yards in walloping Florida, 40-17. Dan Mullen was fired just more than a week later. If Florida hopes to be better than the 6-win outfit the program fielded a season ago, it had better get back to basics, fit gaps and make clean tackles against the run.

2. Special teams that are once again “special,” not among the SEC’s worst units

Heading into the 2020 season, the Gators were the one of the SEC’s best programs from a special teams standpoint. Over the last decade, Florida has produced multiple All-SEC punters and All-SEC kickers and 1 All-SEC return man, and it ranked at the top of the SEC in special teams efficiency, per SP+, 3 out of 10 years. Last season? The Gators finished a program-worst 97th in SP+ special teams efficiency.  Florida had the worst kickoff coverage team in the SEC from a net yards standpoint, the first time that has occurred all century. And while the field goal unit was expected to take a step back after the departure of future Bengals legend Evan McPherson for the NFL, the Gators had a kick blocked and returned for a game-winning touchdown at Kentucky, capping off their season of woe. But hey, at least Jeremy Crawshaw didn’t finish last in the league in punting. His 44.1-yard average landed him on the All-SEC freshman team, even if the net was only 38.3 due to a punt coverage unit that ranked among the SEC’s worst (11th). Florida isn’t a deep team, which often hurts special teams units, but Napier and the Gators’ staff have to figure out how to coax more from this group in 2022.

3. A minus-9 turnover margin differential

Florida must finish better than 115th in the country and 13th in the SEC (ahead of just Kentucky) in turnover margin in 2022. The Gators came up empty in producing turnovers in losses to Alabama, LSU, Missouri and South Carolina. They weren’t much better at taking care of the football, and turnovers doomed them in the blowout loss to Georgia (3 turnovers led directly to 17 Georgia points) and at LSU (4 turnovers, including a 4th-quarter Anthony Richardson interception to kill Florida’s final drive). The Gators have averaged 24 takeaways a season this century, the SEC’s best number, and Florida’s 22.2 takeaways ranks 3rd in the SEC over the last 10 years. Revert to the mean and Florida is fine, but the Gators must be better in this area in 2022.

4. 70.6 yards of penalties per game

The Gators ranked 13th in the SEC (ahead of Ole Miss) and 119th nationally in penalty yardage per game in 2021. That’s hall-of-shame stuff and a trend that must be reversed in Year 1 under Napier. To emphasize better discipline, Napier’s staff has had SEC officials at practices — not just scrimmages — all preseason and handed players video of all their individual penalties in 2021. The players have, to a man, said that the penalty videos were illuminating and, in some cases, embarrassing. It should be noted this is a recent trend — Mullen’s 2019 and 2020 Florida teams, which won an Orange Bowl and advanced to an SEC Championship Game, respectively, ranked in the top 3 in the SEC in fewest penalties committed. Discipline ran amok last year, and Napier, likely cognizant of these numbers, should see a quick fix here.

5. Another year outside the top 50 in total defense and success rate defense

There’s hardly anywhere to go but up for a Florida defense that spent a 2nd consecutive year outside the top 50 in total defense. Florida finished 51st last year, marking the 1st time since the statistic was measured that the Gators spent back-to-back years outside the top 50.

How bad was the Grantham era from Florida’s standard on defense?

From 1990 to the end of the 2017 season and Grantham’s arrival, Florida finished in the top 20 nationally in total defense 22 times, more than any program nationally other than Alabama and Ohio State. Grantham’s defenses finished in the top 20 twice, then fell off a cliff in 2020, when it finished 83rd and Florida managed to lose 4 games despite boasting one of the best offenses in Florida history.

Florida’s success rate defense (which measures the number of plays, from a down and distance standpoint, the opposing offense has which can be deemed successful in terms of the next down being a 1st-down, touchdown, or favorable down and distance) wasn’t much better: the Gators ranked 61st (out of 76) in success rate defense in 2020 and 55th in 2021. Yuck!

Patrick Toney is considered one of the game’s brightest young minds. He and co-defensive coordinator Sean Spencer must improve this unit’s production in 2022, or a bowl game will be a tall order.