Please Read: Welcome to the new-look Inside the Gators
- The Big Board: One month to go
- October Superlatives
- Former Florida Player Feedback: 10 Observations
- Recruit Reaction: I thought the atmosphere was electric
- Parental Perspective: Florida Football Commits Parental RoundTable
- What names are on your Coaching Hot Board
- OTM: Is there a path to a fourth year
- Ranking UF’s commits from least to most likely to jump ship
Inside the Gators first published this Florida head coach comparison seven years ago in order to grade former Florida head coach Jim McElwain 20 games into his stint leading Gators’ football. We then followed up a couple of years later in order to take a closer look at where Dan Mullen stood after completing his first 20 games as Florida’s head coach. We added a 25 game look last year with Billy Napier.
- 20 Game Report Card: Mullen’s start similar to Spurrier and Meyer
- 30 Game Report Card: Mullen on par with Spurrier
- 25-Game Report Card: Napier’s numbers don’t look good
As you can see in the above links, a fast start doesn’t necessarily equate to continued success. So, will a slow start eventually turn into a program-changing turnaround?
We don’t know. What we can do though is look at where Napier currently stands compared to recent Florida head coaches.
Today we are looking back at Billy Napier‘s first 35 games to see how he compares to Steve Spurrier, Ron Zook, Urban Meyer, Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, and Dan Mullen at the same point in their tenure piloting the Gators’ football program.
I have long held that to be considered a successful head football coach at Florida you don’t have to win the National Championship each season. If that were the case, with the Gators only doing so three times in their 100-plus year history, that would mean that there were over 100 years of futility.
No, you don’t have to win the big prize every year to be a success at Florida. However, in my opinion, you have to accomplish these five things:
Win in the Swamp
This is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy in that the more you win, the more intimidating the Swamp becomes, making the home-field advantage an even bigger advantage. As much as a loss hurts – at least some are forgivable when it happens on the road. Florida travels to some incredibly hostile environments – places no team should expect to enter and leave with a win consistently. Plus, the bottom line is it just hurts more to lose at home. You feel as though your personal space has been invaded.
Quick Take: As was confirmed this past weekend with the victory over No. 21 LSU, nothing beats a quality Florida win in the Swamp. To have 85,000 plus fans into the game and leave on a high, is a high that is hard to replicate in college sports. Steve Spurrier never lost at home during his first 35 games. Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen barely lost. Only Ron Zook and Billy Napier turned in subpar results at home over their first 35 games.
Beat the teams you are expected to beat
When things are going well recruiting-wise at Florida, realistically the Gators only play a 3-4 game schedule in even the most difficult of strength-of-schedule years. Now, notice I said when Florida is recruiting at the level it should be recruiting at. When they are, the Gators should be able to simply out-talent all but a couple of schools on the schedule. From a historical perspective, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, and then Tennessee to a degree, and of course if Alabama is the opponent in the SEC Championship, are the only teams the Gators face regularly who recruit at a high ‘Florida like’ level year in and year out. Yes, now and then you’ll have a South Carolina or Kentucky rise-up that you have to deal with, but for the most part when UF is recruiting on the level it should be, 8-9 teams on the 12-game schedule shouldn’t be able to match-up to Florida talent-wise.
Quick Take: How do we define this? Is it based on beating opponents that you should be better than (such as Vanderbilt and Arkansas), or beating opponents you had on the ropes (Missouri, Tennessee, Florida State)? Florida has failed on each account the last couple of seasons. Steve Spurrier was a master of beating the teams he should have beaten. Dan Mullen started out that way. An interesting aspect to his numbers below is that his 35th game – the cutoff for this update – was the win before Florida’s slide began against LSU – the 36th game he coached.
At least split with ranked teams
In most years the Gators are going to face 4-5 teams ranked in the Top 25. If you can at worst split with those teams, that would mean 9-10 win seasons. You would like to win them all, but that’s not realistic. At least walking away with a win half the time is acceptable. Losing two out of three or worse is unacceptable.
Quick Take: Both Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen cleared this hurdle, but at this point in his third season, Steve Spurrier was even one game below .500 against ranked teams. The two worst coaches were Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain, both winning 31 percent of their games against ranked opponents. As bad as that sounds, they’ve almost doubled up Billy Napier‘s 17 percentage against ranked foes. It’s to the point that even if Napier were to win the next 10 straight against ranked teams, he would still hold a losing record.
Win two out of three against Florida’s traditional rivals
If you do well enough against Florida State, Tennessee, Georgia, LSU – and Miami in the years they are on the schedule – Florida fans will be forgiving in some other areas. A loss, any loss, huts badly enough, but to lose to one of the Gators’ traditional rivals is 10 times worse. Depending on where you live, you might have to put up with a Bulldog, Seminole, or Volunteers fan holding bragging rights for a full 365 days. That can become unbearable.
Quick Take: Nearing the end of his third season Billy Napier currently has two wins over traditional rivals, with the opportunity to add another against a pitiful Florida State squad. That means that at best Napier will be 3-10 against traditional rivals at the end of his third season. That is unacceptable.
Run an exciting offense
When Jeremy Foley hired Ron Zook, one of my first comments was wondering how a special teams/defensive-minded head coach would fit in at what was then known as a wide-open offensive-minded school. The answer was, not very well. Foley then doubled down on that mistake by hiring Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp a decade later. Somewhat because of the athletic playmakers available to the Gators – but mostly because of what Steve Spurrier was able to accomplish – Florida fans simply do not want to see a boring – three-yards and a cloud of dust offense that leads to a low-scoring affair. Honestly, though many may not admit it publicly, there is a significant portion of the fan base who would rather go 9-3 with an exciting, high-scoring offense, than 10-2 with a grind-it-out, cure for insomnia, type of offense. No, to be fully accepted by the Gator Nation, you have to play an exciting brand of football, and airing it out is the preferred method of moving the ball.
Quick Take: Pre DJ Lagway, the offense was anything but exciting. Yes, there were moments in 2022 thanks to Anthony Richardson‘s legs and big arm, UF was second in the SEC in gains of 50 or more yards but was an average offense overall. Then, with Graham Mertz under center, UF was the epitome of dink and dunk. Lagway has added some excitement with his generational type of arm talent. Getting him to the next level will be coaching him to fare better in the short and intermediate passing game. One concern here is that it’s beginning to feel a lot like Jimbo Fisher and Jameis Winston in that Fisher could only win big with a generational quarterback. Is that the Napier way as well? There are pieces in place that can make chunk plays, but they aren’t always utilized over the more safer bet.
GRADING BILLY NAPIER
(Turn your smartphone horizontally for the best view)
| Category | Comment | Grade |
| Coaching Staff | As has been the case since the beginning, Napier continues to have one of the oddest organized staff in all of P4 football. From having four coordinators, and some coaches seemingly out of position, there have been a couple of hits as of late such as Will Harris at cornerbacks. Had Ron Roberts been hired as the defensive coordinator over Austin Armstrong a year earlier, the defense would likely be further along by now. | C- |
| Program Building | When he arrived he implemented various changes – player parking, better food, better housing, GatorMade, etc… that vastly improve the player experience, which not only helped in recruiting and with the Transfer Portal, but also plays a major part in why the team has stuck with Napier despite his overall record. | B |
| Media Interaction | During his introductory press conference, I tweeted how measured he is with every word. He doesn’t really give any information, coming across as almost robotic. I said that because of that, nothing would be off the cuff, and he wouldn’t be forced to walk anything back. That of course changed with his comment about fans in central Florida tweeting from their basement. I would have thought that three years in he might open up a bit more, but that hasn’t happened. | C+ |
| Fan Interaction | This is a category where Napier’s likability and genuineness really should be taken advantage of more often. He has a down-to-earth personality that plays well in front of crowds. When he makes it personal, is when he connects best with the fanbase. A couple of weeks ago on his Thursday show he told the story of how his three children are getting of the age to have a pet, so he and his wife told them that if they all got all straight As during a reporting period, they could get one. A couple of times they came up one grade short. That is the kind of sharing that buys goodwill. UF needs to utilize that more often. | B+ |
| Game Day | The most important category here – what happens on Saturdays is the absolute bottom line. To this point Napier has been underwhelming on game days. That isn’t just record-based, but also the way too many mistakes are factored in as well. | F |
| Recruiting | Because of the player experience he has built and because of his demeanor, I do believe that Napier is a top-end recruiter. Not from a rah-rah standpoint, but what he does comes off as genuine and players relate to it. What has held Florida back from fully realizing its recruiting potential is the product on the field and not having the NIL resources of several other top programs | B |
| Roster Management | This has been hit-and-miss. There are a couple of positions where UF can stand up to anyone in the SEC or are on their way to getting there. Then you consider that UF had to start a walk-on Ivy League transfer because of the quarterback room that the current staff built, and it raises valid questions about the roster they have built. | C- |
| Overall | If this were year one, the D- to the right would be a B- or maybe even a little better. But three years in the record is the record, and it isn’t like there’s been steady improvement. Of the five blowout losses UF has suffered under Napier, two came in the first 20 games, three have come in the last 15 games. Inconsistency and the inability to build any sort of momentum has become a staple of the Napier ear. Only three in almost three full seasons has he beaten FBS programs back-to-back. Of those six teams, only one had a winning record. To this point, at best, it has been a case of one step forward, one step back. | D– |
UF HEAD COACHES FIRST 35 GAMES
(Turn your smartphone horizontally for the best view)
| Category | Spurrier | Zook | Meyer | Muschamp | McElwain | Mullen | Napier |
| W/L | 27-8 | 21-14 | 25-10 | 22-13 | 22-13 | 29-6 | 16-19 |
| W/L SEC | 19-4 | 15-8 | 16-7 | 13-10 | 16-8 | 19-6 | 9-14 |
| W/L Rivals | 8-4 | 4-9 | 8-3 | 5-8 | 5-6 | 8-3 | 2-10 |
| W/L R Teams | 7-8 | 5-11 | 11-5 | 4-9 | 4-9 | 6-4 | 3-14 |
| W/L UR Teams | 20-0 | 16-3 | 13-5 | 18-4 | 18-4 | 23-2 | 13-5 |
| Home | 18-0 | 12-6 | 17-1 | 15-3 | 13-3 | 15-2 | 13-6 |
| 1 Score Games | 7 | 17 | 13 | 10 | 12 | 8 | 9 |
| W/L 1 Score Games | 6-1 | 8-9 | 9-4 | 5-5 | 9-3 | 6-2 | 4-5 |
Legend
Wins/Losses against ranked teams
Wins/Losses against unranked teams
1 Score games are games decided by 8 points or less
| Category | Spurrier | Zook | Meyer | Muschamp | McElwain | Mullen | Napier |
| 35+ pts | 13 | 8 | 14 | 8 | 5 | 21 | 13 |
| 21 or less pts | 9 | 13 | 9 | 15 | 19 | 5 | 12 |
| Blowouts | 13 | 7 | 12 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 4 |
| Blown out | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| AP Top 25 Weeks | 34 | 28 | 35 | 26 | 27 | 31 | 5 |
| AP Top 10 Weeks | 19 | 5 | 26 | 10 | 4 | 21 | 0 |
Legend
Games scoring 35 or more points
Games held to 21 points or less
Wins of 21 or more points are blowouts
Losses of 21 or more points are blowouts
Game Weeks ranked inside AP Top 25
Game Weeks ranked inside AP Top 10
We didn’t include recruiting rankings because we have used Rivals in the past, but because it looks like they are updating theirs with transfers in and out they aren’t as accurate as when there wasn’t a portal
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