By Franz Beard
A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:
NAPIER DOES SEEM LIKE THE LONG TERM SOLUTION
Billy Napier is Florida’s football coach. The way he’s going about the process of organizing the entire program and making sure all loose ends are tied up, it seems the Gators have found the guy who can re-establish the University of Florida as a football power that the rest of the country automatically pencils into the short list of national championship contenders.
A fine line separates the good football coaches from the great ones. Steve Spurrier, a great football coach, was an innovative swashbuckler who turned the Southeastern Conference and all of college football on its ear. When we think of Spurrier we think of those everybody out for a pass offenses but overlook the fact that in 1997 when he didn’t have the personnel he did things like alternate quarterbacks and let Fred Taylor run the ball. Remember the win over Penn State in the 1997 Citrus Bowl when Fred carried the ball 43 times for 234 yards?
Steve Spurrier was able to handle the CEO aspects of the job as well as the coaching and the recruiting. Recruitaholics swear to this day that he could have been greater if he had ever embraced recruiting, but the Gators still went 122-27-1 in his 12 years on the job (only Nebraska and FSU won more games). Spurrier won six SEC titles including four in a row (1993-96), one national championship (1997) and had the Gators in the national championship picture for all or most of 10 seasons.
Contrast what Spurrier accomplished with the coaches who have followed him.
Ron Zook was a good man, an exceptional recruiter and totally ill-prepared for all the responsibilities of being a head coach. Zooker had no head coaching experience and obviously no one gave him an owner’s manual to take him step-by-step through handling all the off-the-field situations that popped up on a regular basis or dealing with the alumni. Three years and he was gone. I don’t blame Zooker for taking the Florida job when it was offered – how do you turn down a million dollar deal (2002 money) when you’re an NFL assistant coach? – but he should have spent at least three or four years learning the ropes of head coaching in the Mid-America Conference or the Sun Belt before taking on a job the magnitude of Florida in which he was charged with following one of the great coaches in the history of the game.
Urban Meyer was a great coach until the pressure of the monster he created got to him. Meyer won national championships in two of his first four years on the job and had the Gators on track for a third in 2009 when Alabama and Nick Saban won the SEC Championship Game. Meyer melted down, resigned one day, then two days later rescinded his resignation. The emotional stress of the monster he recruited got to him and it showed the next year. His health wasn’t the same and the Gators went 8-5. He resigned again.
Since Meyer, the Gators have gone through three head coaches – Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen – all of whom were fired before their final season came to an end. Muschamp was a great defensive coordinator who should have taken a cue from Ron Zook by getting some head coaching experience. Muschamp can recruit and he’s great with the kids he coaches, but the head coaching job requires far more time as a CEO and less time to coach and be with the players. Jim McElwain was a fine coordinator for Nick Saban, but that does not mean he was ready to be a head coach in the SEC, even if he had success at the Mountain West level at Colorado State. Old Yeller – if you’re making more than $4 million a year you can afford to get your teeth whitened – just wasn’t cut out for being a head coach in the SEC. I’m convinced to this day that his death threats story was completely made up because he wanted out. He’s at Central Michigan now and he’ll be successful at that level.
I’m still miffed about Dan Mullen, but I tend to agree with my friends Rob Browne and Jimmy Hodge of the very successful “Sidelines” podcast that Mullen is the Peter Principle personified. Dan was at the peak of his head coaching abilities at Mississippi State where winning eight or nine games a year thrilled the base to the marrow. He should have stayed in Starkville although I was convinced Mullen had Florida on the right track through his first 35 games on the job at UF. When Mullen was 29-6 we could overlook the lack of success on the recruiting trail, but that began to catch up with him. At 29-6 we could overlook the inadequacies of his coaching staff. When the Gators started losing games it was obvious that Mullen lacked the personnel and the staff to play at a championship level. When he started losing, for all practical purposes he checked out. Although he didn’t lie his way into a firing as did Old Yeller, like his predecessor, it seems clear that Mullen wanted out and got his wish.
That brings us to Billy Napier. He hasn’t coached a single game at Florida but there is a far different feel to this situation than there has been in years. What convinced me that Scott Stricklin had found the right guy was watching Napier tackle issues that had been festering for years such as parking problems, bad food for the players and lousy living arrangements. One by one Napier has systematically eliminated the issues that the three previous coaches either couldn’t handle, wouldn’t handle or weren’t given the resources to handle. Whatever the case, he's a can do kind of coach who has won the trust of the players and is going about the business of winning the trust of the boosters who pay the big bucks to support Florida athletics. Players love him and the boosters I’ve talked to think he’s the real deal.
Based on the success he had at Louisiana – 40-12 record in four years – I am convinced he has the coaching part of the job figured out. Add that to what we’ve seen of his first six months on the Florida job and it’s not outlandish to think Florida may have finally found that Spurrier-like coach who can be both CEO and head coach without melting down or checking out. What a concept.
RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY: GATORS, AGGIES RESCHEDULED
As if a six-hour weather delay before the Gators (36-20) got their opening game of the Southeastern Conference Tournament with South Carolina played wasn’t enough, the Gators’ second round game with Texas A&M (35-17) Wednesday night was delayed because of a weather front passing through Hoover. The game has been rescheduled for 10:30 a.m. this morning.
The one-day delay may actually prove a godsend for righty Brandon Neely (3-1, 3.38 ERA) as well as the entire Florida pitching staff. Neely, who struck out 10 and allowed just three hits in seven innings against South Carolina back on Friday, will be pitching on a full five days of rest. Closer Ryan Slater (5-3, 4.66 ERA, 4 saves), who got the win Tuesday in 1-2/3 innings of relief of Brandon Sproat also gets a day of rest. Against the Gamecocks in their series last weekend the Gators went to the bullpen eight times, so Kevin O’Sullivan has well-rested relief ready to go.
UF SOFTBALL: THE ROAD TO OKIE CITY GOES THROUGH BLACKSBURG
The Gators (46-16) find themselves in the unusual position of having to go on the road for NCAA super regional play Friday when they journey to Blacksburg to take on No. 2 seed Virginia Tech (45-8). The Gators have made an NCAA regional every year since Tim Walton took over in 2006 with the exception of the 2020 COVID season when the season was canceled at the midway point. This is, however, the first time since the 2007 season that the Gators have had to earn their way to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City away from Gainesville.
The Gators go to Blacksburg having won six of their last seven games including a 3-0 record to win the Gainesville NCAA regional when they outscored Canisius, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin by a 28-2 margin. At the SEC Tournament, the Gators clobbered Kentucky, 9-3. That’s the same Kentucky team that forced Virginia Tech to come through the loser’s bracket to win the Blacksburg regional. Kentucky beat the Hokies once and then blew opportunities to win the championship game.
UF MEN’S TENNIS: SHELTON, RIFFICE IN NCAA QUARTERFINALS
Although the Gators saw their hopes of winning a second consecutive NCAA team championship end last week, Ben Shelton and Sam Riffice are still very much alive in the individual and doubles championships. Shelton, the overall No. 2 seed, advanced to the singles quarterfinals with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Ohio State’s JJ Tracy, while Riffice, the No. 28 seed, advanced to the quarters with a 6-4, 6-3 win over LSU’s Ronnie Hohmann. In doubles play, the 5th-seeded team of Riffice and Shelton beat Ohio State’s Justin Boulais and James Trotter in a third-set tiebreaker to advance to the quarterfinals.
Today, Shelton will take on 15th-seeded Arthur Fery of Stanford and Riffice will face Virginia’s Inaki Montes de le Torre. In doubles, the Riffice-Shelton team will face Cleve Harper and Richard Ciamarra of Texas.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Besides keeping Jimbo and Nick separate at the SEC Spring Meetings which begin in Destin on Tuesday, one of the priorities for Greg Sankey will be to move closer to a decision on what the league will do from a scheduling basis once Texas and Oklahoma join the league, whether that’s the 2023 season as some predict or 2026. At issue will be keeping or ditching divisions and moving from an 8-game schedule to nine games.
I’ve had conversations with Sankey and while the commish has been non-committal, I’m left with the opinion that he favors a 9-game schedule, ditching the divisions and going with a system of three permanent opponents that will allow every team in the league to play home and home at least once every four years. Although going nine games will eliminate a paycheck game that is almost certainly a guaranteed win, the added league game with a pod system will eliminate the ridiculous current scheduling. When Florida hosted Alabama in 2021, it was the first time the Gators and Tide had met during the regular season since 2014. When we talked at the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa, Sankey pointed out that game as one of the problems of the current system that has to be eliminated.
Instead of divisional champions, the teams with the two best records will play for the SEC championship. That would eliminate a 3-loss or 4-loss team making the SEC Championship Game, scoring an upset and then winning the automatic berth when the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, which you can bet the farm it’s going to do. Sankey wants to be sure the best team in the league gets in the playoff, not a team that perhaps won on a fluke.
Here is one look at a 16-team SEC with the three permanent opponents for each team and preserving traditional rivalries:
Alabama: Auburn, Tennessee, LSU
Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
FLORIDA: Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina
Georgia: Florida, Auburn, Kentucky
Kentucky: Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia
LSU: Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri
Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Auburn, Vanderbilt
Missouri: Arkansas, Texas A&M, LSU
Ole Miss: Mississippi State, LSU, Vanderbilt
Oklahoma: Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas
South Carolina: Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Florida
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Florida
Texas: Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Arkansas
Texas A&M: Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri
Vanderbilt: Mississippi State, South Carolina, Ole Miss
A few thoughts to jump start your Thursday morning:
NAPIER DOES SEEM LIKE THE LONG TERM SOLUTION
Billy Napier is Florida’s football coach. The way he’s going about the process of organizing the entire program and making sure all loose ends are tied up, it seems the Gators have found the guy who can re-establish the University of Florida as a football power that the rest of the country automatically pencils into the short list of national championship contenders.
A fine line separates the good football coaches from the great ones. Steve Spurrier, a great football coach, was an innovative swashbuckler who turned the Southeastern Conference and all of college football on its ear. When we think of Spurrier we think of those everybody out for a pass offenses but overlook the fact that in 1997 when he didn’t have the personnel he did things like alternate quarterbacks and let Fred Taylor run the ball. Remember the win over Penn State in the 1997 Citrus Bowl when Fred carried the ball 43 times for 234 yards?
Steve Spurrier was able to handle the CEO aspects of the job as well as the coaching and the recruiting. Recruitaholics swear to this day that he could have been greater if he had ever embraced recruiting, but the Gators still went 122-27-1 in his 12 years on the job (only Nebraska and FSU won more games). Spurrier won six SEC titles including four in a row (1993-96), one national championship (1997) and had the Gators in the national championship picture for all or most of 10 seasons.
Contrast what Spurrier accomplished with the coaches who have followed him.
Ron Zook was a good man, an exceptional recruiter and totally ill-prepared for all the responsibilities of being a head coach. Zooker had no head coaching experience and obviously no one gave him an owner’s manual to take him step-by-step through handling all the off-the-field situations that popped up on a regular basis or dealing with the alumni. Three years and he was gone. I don’t blame Zooker for taking the Florida job when it was offered – how do you turn down a million dollar deal (2002 money) when you’re an NFL assistant coach? – but he should have spent at least three or four years learning the ropes of head coaching in the Mid-America Conference or the Sun Belt before taking on a job the magnitude of Florida in which he was charged with following one of the great coaches in the history of the game.
Urban Meyer was a great coach until the pressure of the monster he created got to him. Meyer won national championships in two of his first four years on the job and had the Gators on track for a third in 2009 when Alabama and Nick Saban won the SEC Championship Game. Meyer melted down, resigned one day, then two days later rescinded his resignation. The emotional stress of the monster he recruited got to him and it showed the next year. His health wasn’t the same and the Gators went 8-5. He resigned again.
Since Meyer, the Gators have gone through three head coaches – Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen – all of whom were fired before their final season came to an end. Muschamp was a great defensive coordinator who should have taken a cue from Ron Zook by getting some head coaching experience. Muschamp can recruit and he’s great with the kids he coaches, but the head coaching job requires far more time as a CEO and less time to coach and be with the players. Jim McElwain was a fine coordinator for Nick Saban, but that does not mean he was ready to be a head coach in the SEC, even if he had success at the Mountain West level at Colorado State. Old Yeller – if you’re making more than $4 million a year you can afford to get your teeth whitened – just wasn’t cut out for being a head coach in the SEC. I’m convinced to this day that his death threats story was completely made up because he wanted out. He’s at Central Michigan now and he’ll be successful at that level.
I’m still miffed about Dan Mullen, but I tend to agree with my friends Rob Browne and Jimmy Hodge of the very successful “Sidelines” podcast that Mullen is the Peter Principle personified. Dan was at the peak of his head coaching abilities at Mississippi State where winning eight or nine games a year thrilled the base to the marrow. He should have stayed in Starkville although I was convinced Mullen had Florida on the right track through his first 35 games on the job at UF. When Mullen was 29-6 we could overlook the lack of success on the recruiting trail, but that began to catch up with him. At 29-6 we could overlook the inadequacies of his coaching staff. When the Gators started losing games it was obvious that Mullen lacked the personnel and the staff to play at a championship level. When he started losing, for all practical purposes he checked out. Although he didn’t lie his way into a firing as did Old Yeller, like his predecessor, it seems clear that Mullen wanted out and got his wish.
That brings us to Billy Napier. He hasn’t coached a single game at Florida but there is a far different feel to this situation than there has been in years. What convinced me that Scott Stricklin had found the right guy was watching Napier tackle issues that had been festering for years such as parking problems, bad food for the players and lousy living arrangements. One by one Napier has systematically eliminated the issues that the three previous coaches either couldn’t handle, wouldn’t handle or weren’t given the resources to handle. Whatever the case, he's a can do kind of coach who has won the trust of the players and is going about the business of winning the trust of the boosters who pay the big bucks to support Florida athletics. Players love him and the boosters I’ve talked to think he’s the real deal.
Based on the success he had at Louisiana – 40-12 record in four years – I am convinced he has the coaching part of the job figured out. Add that to what we’ve seen of his first six months on the Florida job and it’s not outlandish to think Florida may have finally found that Spurrier-like coach who can be both CEO and head coach without melting down or checking out. What a concept.
RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY: GATORS, AGGIES RESCHEDULED
As if a six-hour weather delay before the Gators (36-20) got their opening game of the Southeastern Conference Tournament with South Carolina played wasn’t enough, the Gators’ second round game with Texas A&M (35-17) Wednesday night was delayed because of a weather front passing through Hoover. The game has been rescheduled for 10:30 a.m. this morning.
The one-day delay may actually prove a godsend for righty Brandon Neely (3-1, 3.38 ERA) as well as the entire Florida pitching staff. Neely, who struck out 10 and allowed just three hits in seven innings against South Carolina back on Friday, will be pitching on a full five days of rest. Closer Ryan Slater (5-3, 4.66 ERA, 4 saves), who got the win Tuesday in 1-2/3 innings of relief of Brandon Sproat also gets a day of rest. Against the Gamecocks in their series last weekend the Gators went to the bullpen eight times, so Kevin O’Sullivan has well-rested relief ready to go.
UF SOFTBALL: THE ROAD TO OKIE CITY GOES THROUGH BLACKSBURG
The Gators (46-16) find themselves in the unusual position of having to go on the road for NCAA super regional play Friday when they journey to Blacksburg to take on No. 2 seed Virginia Tech (45-8). The Gators have made an NCAA regional every year since Tim Walton took over in 2006 with the exception of the 2020 COVID season when the season was canceled at the midway point. This is, however, the first time since the 2007 season that the Gators have had to earn their way to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City away from Gainesville.
The Gators go to Blacksburg having won six of their last seven games including a 3-0 record to win the Gainesville NCAA regional when they outscored Canisius, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin by a 28-2 margin. At the SEC Tournament, the Gators clobbered Kentucky, 9-3. That’s the same Kentucky team that forced Virginia Tech to come through the loser’s bracket to win the Blacksburg regional. Kentucky beat the Hokies once and then blew opportunities to win the championship game.
UF MEN’S TENNIS: SHELTON, RIFFICE IN NCAA QUARTERFINALS
Although the Gators saw their hopes of winning a second consecutive NCAA team championship end last week, Ben Shelton and Sam Riffice are still very much alive in the individual and doubles championships. Shelton, the overall No. 2 seed, advanced to the singles quarterfinals with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Ohio State’s JJ Tracy, while Riffice, the No. 28 seed, advanced to the quarters with a 6-4, 6-3 win over LSU’s Ronnie Hohmann. In doubles play, the 5th-seeded team of Riffice and Shelton beat Ohio State’s Justin Boulais and James Trotter in a third-set tiebreaker to advance to the quarterfinals.
Today, Shelton will take on 15th-seeded Arthur Fery of Stanford and Riffice will face Virginia’s Inaki Montes de le Torre. In doubles, the Riffice-Shelton team will face Cleve Harper and Richard Ciamarra of Texas.
ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Besides keeping Jimbo and Nick separate at the SEC Spring Meetings which begin in Destin on Tuesday, one of the priorities for Greg Sankey will be to move closer to a decision on what the league will do from a scheduling basis once Texas and Oklahoma join the league, whether that’s the 2023 season as some predict or 2026. At issue will be keeping or ditching divisions and moving from an 8-game schedule to nine games.
I’ve had conversations with Sankey and while the commish has been non-committal, I’m left with the opinion that he favors a 9-game schedule, ditching the divisions and going with a system of three permanent opponents that will allow every team in the league to play home and home at least once every four years. Although going nine games will eliminate a paycheck game that is almost certainly a guaranteed win, the added league game with a pod system will eliminate the ridiculous current scheduling. When Florida hosted Alabama in 2021, it was the first time the Gators and Tide had met during the regular season since 2014. When we talked at the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa, Sankey pointed out that game as one of the problems of the current system that has to be eliminated.
Instead of divisional champions, the teams with the two best records will play for the SEC championship. That would eliminate a 3-loss or 4-loss team making the SEC Championship Game, scoring an upset and then winning the automatic berth when the College Football Playoff expands to 12 teams, which you can bet the farm it’s going to do. Sankey wants to be sure the best team in the league gets in the playoff, not a team that perhaps won on a fluke.
Here is one look at a 16-team SEC with the three permanent opponents for each team and preserving traditional rivalries:
Alabama: Auburn, Tennessee, LSU
Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma
Auburn: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State
FLORIDA: Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina
Georgia: Florida, Auburn, Kentucky
Kentucky: Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia
LSU: Alabama, Ole Miss, Missouri
Mississippi State: Ole Miss, Auburn, Vanderbilt
Missouri: Arkansas, Texas A&M, LSU
Ole Miss: Mississippi State, LSU, Vanderbilt
Oklahoma: Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas
South Carolina: Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Florida
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Florida
Texas: Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Arkansas
Texas A&M: Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri
Vanderbilt: Mississippi State, South Carolina, Ole Miss
Last edited:
