Hayes: Gator Nation, if you don't like Billy Napier, round up $31.9M now
Look, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but we all know where this is headed.
Florida will struggle again in 2023, possibly enough to miss the postseason. Billy Napier will be told to give up control of the offense and play-calling, and 2024 will be make or break.
If you don’t like the sound of that, Gator Nation, round up a $31.9 million buyout.
Because after 8 months of building and preparing and motivating — and declaring he liked his team and they were excited about proving people wrong — Napier produced his worst game in 14 tries as the Florida coach after a mistake-filled, humiliating 24-11 loss to a Utah team playing its 2nd- and 3rd-team quarterbacks.
And we all thought transfer quarterback Graham Mertz would be the problem. Maybe the problem is the guy coaching Mertz — the same guy who coached the No. 4 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, and won 6 games with him in 2022.
After 8 months of running off 26 players, and signing double-digits more from the transfer portal — and scouting “24 quarterbacks” from the portal and choosing the enigmatic Mertz — Napier rolled out his latest version of the Gators.
Meet the new boss, everyone. Same as the old boss.
In 1 season and 1 game under Napier, the Gators have:
- Lost to SEC tomato can Vanderbilt.
- Should’ve lost (at home) to Group of 5 tomato can USF.
- Lost to Kentucky (like the guy before him).
- Kicked a last-minute field goal in an embarrassing bowl loss to Oregon State to extend Florida’s NCAA record consecutive games without being shut out.
- Won 6 games in 2022 with Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick in the NFL Draft — and after Thursday night’s offensive performance (more on that later), it’s clear the guy coaching the quarterbacks was the problem. Not the quarterback.
In the most simplistic terms, Florida is a horrendously-coached team. False starts, illegal formations, 2 blown trips in the red zone because of poor play-calling and/or penalties that produced 0 points.
Absolutely critical self-inflicted wounds, series after series, quarter after quarter.
These are basic, Week 1 of spring practice coaching fundamentals that were ignored over and over. They weren’t in-play penalties; every penalty in the red zone was pre-snap.
But the mistakes weren’t limited to pre-snap. Check out this mistake-filled series of plays to begin the 3rd quarter that eliminated all hope:
Trailing 17-3, Florida got a defensive stop to begin the 3rd quarter and freshman WR Trey Wilson caught a punt at his own 5 instead of letting it sail into the end zone. On the ensuing series, Mertz threw an interception inside the Florida 25 when WR Ricky Pearsall expected the throw on his right side, and Mertz placed it on his left.
Utah scored 3 plays later when the Florida defense, under first-year coordinator Austin Armstrong, played man coverage on 3rd-and-goal from the 5 — and didn’t account for the quarterback, who broke containment and waltzed into the end zone untouched.
The Gators were 1-for-16 on 3rd and 4th down, and didn’t covert a 3rd down until the 4th quarter. In the 2nd half alone, 3 drives ended on downs.
The microcosm of the night of ugly was the last drive of the game, when Florida got the ball with just under 6 minutes to play and had an opportunity to make it interesting. Instead, the offense was plodding and predictable — just like last season, just like the previous 54 minutes of the game.
By the time the drive ended on downs at the Utah 30 with 100 seconds to play, Florida threw a slip screen on 4th-and-14. It was incomplete.
A slip screen.
Structurally it’s a bad offensive scheme from Napier. Mertz’s limited arm strength doesn’t help things, and essentially forces Florida to run from bunch sets and use deception in route trees.
There’s nothing at the numbers, no stretching of the defense and forcing it to cover the entire field. Those throws simply aren’t available if you don’t have a quarterback who can throw it with velocity and on time.
So the scheme becomes predictable, it’s more difficult for receivers to gain separation and there are no easy throws for Mertz to find a rhythm and build confidence. Every throw is based off deception — be it play action or naked bootlegs, which leaves Mertz susceptible to big hits.
And if you can’t run the ball because you’re getting beat up front — Napier said all offseason that the offensive line was the strength of the team — it’s nearly impossible to string together successful plays, much less a series.
The Gators had 21 carries for 13 yards — and Mertz threw 44 passes. Florida will not win a game this season when Mertz throws double the run game carries. Not 1.
Florida didn’t win 1 game in 2022 when it threw the ball more than it ran it.
Meet the new boss, everyone. Same as the old boss.
Deal with it, and hope it gets better.
Or round up those millions.