Former Florida Gators head coach Steve Spurrier had a message for current Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier this week after UF’s embarrassing 41-17 loss to the Miami Hurricanes this past weekend.
Just a couple of weeks after predicting that Florida will win between eight and 10 games in 2024, Spurrier suggested during his weekly appearance on Another Dooley Noted Podcast that Napier should make some changes.
“Obviously it was very disappointing watching the way the whole team performed, all the way down the ladder,” said Spurrier while talking about Florida’s loss to Miami. “The only suggestion that I’m going to have is that Billy Napier and his guys, they need to do some things differently. And they can choose how to do it differently, but we can’t just keep on going [with] whatever we’re doing during the week, pre games, blah blah blah. Just everything, all the way down the line.
“And you can change. I remember back in ’91…we clobbered Alabama, beat them 35-0. We thought we were hot stuff — I was the worst. We go to Syracuse, a team that barely beat Wake Forest the year before, and I’m thinking, ‘we’re going to clobber these guys, let’s open the game in a no-huddle offense, their fans won’t be very loud up there in the Carrier Dome’. So we tried this, that, and the other and they ran the ball down our throats. They ran for 280 yards or something. We got beat about 38-17 or something. So we came back and guess what? We made some changes. And I made some changes.”
“So whatever we’re doing, and that’s up to the head ball coach over there, Billy Napier, all I’m saying is do something different,” added Spurrier. “I don’t care what it is, do something different.”
Napier probably feels like he needs to stick to the plan that he came to Florida with a couple of years ago. But that plan clearly isn’t working. And while I’m sure he has a deep belief in that plan, if he doesn’t try a different approach, he’ll be taking that plan with him as he exits Gainesville.
Spurrier’s advice is obviously worth listening to when it comes to running Florida’s football program. After all, Spurrier won a national championship and six SEC championships with the Gators. I’d say he knows a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t work at Florida.
Napier came off as extremely arrogant a few years ago when he kept turning down good jobs in the SEC (like Auburn and Mississippi State) because he wanted to wait for the perfect situation. That so-called perfect situation finally presented itself at Florida and Napier, so far, has completely botched it.
At this point, “doing something different” is the only choice Napier has if he wants to have any hope of saving his job.
