From my column at Gator Bait
Tennyson wrote, “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” Obviously, Tennyson was not a college football coach. This is that time of year in the weeks that precede spring football practice that coaches grab their players by the nose and then lead them – some of them kicking and screaming – through a rather tortuous time that has become known as “mat drills.”
Billy Napier has another name for it. He calls it his “identity program” which is the second of his eight-phase plan for University of Florida football. It is 25 days total that will prepare the players he inherited plus the three early enrolled high school kids and five transfers for the 15 practices allowed by the NCAA that will begin on March 15. Specifically, the identity program is implemented to not only toughen up the roster but to figure out who leads, who follows and perhaps who either needs a change of attitude or a change of location.
Napier explained this part of his “process” at a Friday press conference in which he outlined what he is looking to gain prior to the time when his main concern is football practice.
“We’re moving into phase two, the identity program,” Napier explained. “It’s 25 days total. It’s 23 days prior to spring break and then two days once we get back, and I think we’re trying to, really want the players to have 100 percent focus and attack the work, right? We kind of define this for the players. Identity is the qualities and beliefs that make a group different than other people. I think every team around the country does an offseason program. We would like to think that ours is an advantage, that we do it better and that we have a very specific plan in this area. So the key here is that the players make a commitment to the prescribed work the right way, really believe in the power of routine, structure, discipline. And certainly this workload will challenge self-discipline for the players.”
This is a herd mentality approach, but it has a specific purpose because while individual talents can certainly lift a team to victories, the game requires cohesion. The team is the sum of all its parts and if all parts are incapable of working together, then the team struggles and probably loses. The best teams work best together.
The teams that lack discipline typically break down. If you wish to point fingers at the staff that ran the program the four years prior to Napier arriving on the scene in Gainesville, then look back on all the games that were lost because of breakdowns in discipline, mental toughness and focus.
Napier’s identity program at Florida is about getting minds and bodies in synch to create the kind of change that will eliminate the breakdowns in the fall.
“We need to control the controllables and we need to work hard to create the identity of our team and that starts inside out,” Napier said. “It starts with the players as people. We all know that significant change is always made from the inside out. So, we’ll start this process today. This is No. 1. We’ll do 15 of these, so we look forward to it.”
Old school coaches would call this separating the wheat from the chaff. In so many ways, Napier is an old-school coach who learned his values from his high school football coach dad whose core belief was if you win the hearts and minds of the kids you coach, the bodies will follow and do the right thing.
Of course, what Napier does and how he does it is his own adaptation of the foundation that his dad put in place. Along the way, he’s added the influence of coaches he’s worked under like Dabo Swinney and Nick Saban to create a process that is uniquely his.
At his core, Billy Napier is old school, but he’s adapted his approach to today’s game. Napier grew up in North Georgia, the product of a two-parent home. Most of his teammates were from similar backgrounds, but as he’s moved up the football chain the circumstances of the kids has changed. So many of these kids are from one-parent or broken homes. Coaches become surrogate fathers and there is importance to pass along fatherly values.
Some might call the identity program tough love because it involves pain and there is a punishment-rewards system in place. Kids who are being pushed to their limits don’t always think that this has anything to do with love but every successful dad knows that it takes a strong measure of discipline and a set of proven, well-grounded values to get a kid to follow a straight and narrow path.
“We're trying to teach a set of values here,” Napier said. “Integrity is important, right? This program will challenge your integrity because you have to tell yourself the truth, right? You're always having to answer that question: Am I doing the very best that I can do? Am I cutting a corner that nobody knows about or not right about living a lie or whatever the case may be?
“I think honesty is a big component here. I think that we want to have a team that's together, a group that selfless, want to have guys that are known as being great teammates. I think this game gives you that opportunity, discipline, effort, toughness, and then a certain level of belief, right? I think that's what we're trying to establish here is our identity as an organization, as a football team. We want to compete with those things in mind. When people talk about our team, we like to think they would talk about those traits.”
At his initial press conference at the University of Florida, Napier talked about turning the Gators into the team that nobody wants to play. This is where that begins. It is also the place where coaches discover who their leaders are.
Some guys talk the good game. In Texas they call this “all hat and no cattle.” For a talkative type to be a real leader, he has to back up his words with actions. Quiet guys can be leaders, too, but they have to be maximum effort types who never take the easy way out. When the coach says “give me five” they give ten in response.
When Tim Tebow was an early enrolled freshman back in January of 2006, he embarrassed some of the veterans when he slid head first on concrete to finish first in a drill. Tebow wasn’t afraid to get in the face of an upperclass teammate but everything he said, he backed up with his own actions.
Even though he was just a freshman, a leader was born who would help Florida win a national championship in 2006, win a Heisman trophy in 2007 and lead the Gators to a national championship in 2008.
Billy Napier is searching for alpha male types who quite naturally carry the Tebow traits. He knows that for the Gators to have success in this first year transition from one head coach to another, he will have to have leaders who understand that their example sets the tone for the rest of the team to follow.
When asked if he’s found his alpha males, Napier responded, “We spent a lot of time talking to the team about the way you put yourself in position to be a leader is you do that with your example. It’s the most powerful tool that we have for them to be consistent, for them to establish some credibility so down the road here when they do speak up and we do give the opportunity that they can be impactful. We’re in the process of figuring all that out. I don’t know that I’m ready to say that specifically. I think we’re going to learn that during the next 25 days.”
That’s why it’s called the identity program. Over the next 25 days Billy Napier will know who he has who is a capable leader, who is a gung-ho follower and who might not be a good fit in the Florida football program.
The more Billy Napier talks, the easier it is to understand what are his expectations and how he plans to change the mindset of his entire team. He has championship aspirations but he understands that championship teams are built the same way you build a house. With a house, the foundation and walls go up before the roof goes on. Shoddy workmanship will build a house that will collapse when storms arise.
A football team built without a strong foundation and shoddy coaching will never win a championship. The team that has the foundation, the values and the attention to detail can hoist championship trophies.
The last time Gators hoisted a championship trophy was in Miami in 2008. Since then the foundation of Florida football has eroded. Billy Napier’s plan is to rebuild that foundation, this time so strong that it won’t crumble.
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