Florida hired Billy Napier away from Louisiana on Sunday to do something Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain could not: Sabanize the Gators.
Florida State did it, winning the 2013 national title under Jimbo Fisher. Georgia has done it under Kirby Smart, whose Bulldogs are the favorites to win it all this year. But UF is 0-for-2 with Saban lieutenants after Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain flamed out.
Though coaching hires are a crapshoot, there are reasons to think Napier can make it 1-for-3 by sustaining success the way Muschamp and McElwain (and his immediate successor, Dan Mullen) could not. He already has.
Napier built the Ragin’ Cajuns into the Group of Five version of Alabama. Saban has The Process, the all-encompassing, top-down philosophy that touches every part of the most successful program of the modern era. Napier has The Journey, which is modeled closely after what he learned in his five years under Saban.
“Everything, when you walk into this building, has the Alabama backbone,” then-Louisiana assistant Rob Sale told SI in 2018.
The expectation in the industry has been that Napier would only take another job if he could bring the Alabama backbone with him. His name previously was connected in searches at Auburn, South Carolina and Mississippi State, but Napier waited for the right opportunity. The Saban model is not cheap or easy.
Before Napier arrived at Louisiana for the 2018 season, its football expenses were $8.5 million, according to figures submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. That number jumped to $11.9 in the 2019-20 fiscal year.
Florida already has started to increase its investments. Muschamp lobbied for an indoor practice facility that opened under McElwain. McElwain pushed for a standalone football complex that was being built under Mullen.
When the $85 million palace opens next year, the Gators will be one significant step closer to catching up with Alabama (and Georgia and Texas A&M) in the infrastructure it takes to become another ‘Bama. Napier will have to keep the Gators moving that way, from boosting the staff size to upgrading Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
If Napier succeeds at UF, he’ll do so by implementing a version of The Process in a way that Muschamp and McElwain either didn’t or couldn’t. Athletic director Scott Stricklin praised Napier’s program assembly from afar, which is why his week-long search was so tight and why Napier was the only candidate he met.
“Billy’s ability to bring highly-talented people together — players, coaches, and staff — along with his vision for having a strong, relationship-based culture is what made him such an attractive choice,” Stricklin said. “Add in how detailed his plan is for player development, staffing and recruiting, along with a sustained desire to improve, and it’s easy to see why he’s been successful.”
Napier’s success is a 39-12 record in four seasons, a share of the Sun Belt Conference championship last season and appearances in the league title game in 2018, 2019 and this year. He’ll formally join the Gators next Sunday, a day after Louisiana hosts Appalachian State in the conference championship game.
It’s not Alabama-level success, but it makes him more accomplished than McElwain was when he took over UF from Colorado State (22-16 record) and gives him four more years of head coaching experience than Muschamp had.
The biggest obstacle Napier faces is one that separates the successful Saban protegees (Smart, Fisher) from everyone else: recruiting.
When Smart was about to face Saban for the January 2018 national championship, then-Georgia assistant Sam Pittman said he had never worked with a head coach as invested in recruiting as Smart was. That explains why Smart has assembled a loaded roster that dismantled the Gators in Jacksonville last month.
Expect Napier to be hands-on, too. In three years as Clemson’s recruiting coordinator, he helped the Tigers compile two top-25 classes, before Clemson was the juggernaut it is now. As an assistant at Alabama, he helped land a pair of five-star south Florida receivers, Jerry Jeudy and Calvin Ridley. And at Louisiana, he has signed the Sun Belt’s top class for three years in a row.
He’ll have two and a half weeks to rescue a Gators class ranked No. 31 nationally (11th in the SEC) before the early signing period begins.
Napier’s job will not be easy. The roster he inherits lags behind Georgia and ‘Bama, the two SEC superpowers he’ll be expected to start beating. The infrastructure is behind, too. The ruins of McElwain and Muschamp show how perilous the road can be.
But Napier seems to have the backbone and skills needed to make The Process work in Gainesville, the way it did in Tallahassee and has in Athens.
Let The Journey begin.
