View attachment 476112
View attachment 476115
Sunbelt Billy –
Napier got his first major gig with Clemson as their OC when Swinney was promoted to HC. Napier lasted two years before Dabo fired him. Billy then hung out at Alabama as an offensive analyst for Saban during the 2011 season then joined McElwain as the QB coach at Colorado State for the 2012 season.
In 2013 Jimbo hired Billy to come to FSU but within a month Saban reached out and brought Billy back to Alabama as his WR coach. Billy stayed for 4 years in Tuscaloosa then departed to be the OC on Todd Graham’s last staff at Arizona State. Herm Edwards took over for Graham after the 2017 season and offered to retain Billy but Lafayette offered Billy the HC position with the Ragin’ Cajuns so Billy headed back south.
In 2018 Billy assembled the 5th best recruiting class in the SBC and won 7 games. The year prior to Billy’s arrival the Cajuns had the 9th best class in the conference. The following three years he would have the top ranked recruiting class in the SBC and compile a 3-year record of 33-5.
Billy was a QB at Furman in his playing days and for much of his coaching career less Alabama he’s done double duty as the QB coach. Interesting his offense favors the run and his passing yards don’t usually rank that high in the national standings. Billy plans to be the playcaller for the Gators on offense.
During his 3-year breakout performance for Lafayette a major strength of his team was his defense. His run defenses didn’t rank that high but his pass defenses and scoring defenses were pretty good. It’s the Sun Belt so maybe SBC teams run a lot and don’t pass all that much. In any event it’s the scoring that matters and the Cajuns did a good job keeping opposing teams off of the scoreboard.
The tendency of Napier’s team to run more than pass would seem to play to our favor and the tendency for his defense to not be that great against the run also seems to be in our favor. jmo.
I think it’s apparent that a major factor in the success Billy had a Lafayette was the performance of his recruiting operations. Bringing in the top rated class in the conference for 3 years running yielded a historic run for the Ragin’ Cajuns. It is likely that Billy will attempt to duplicate that recruiting success at Florida in the hopes of repeating the on field success it provided for him at Lafayette. jmo.
Florida fans are a bit unsettled that Billy doesn’t appear to be recruiting well for the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball. Their complaint is that he is stacking defensive backs but in looking at the emphasis of his defenses at Lafayette, that may make sense. I don’t know how well it’s going to work out for him as it’s generally thought that a team needs to be able to stop the run in the SEC. Time will tell. jmo.
Another concern expressed by some Gators is that Billy may not be able to handle elite recruits from Florida because they tend to be edgy, or he may just not want to deal with them. This might be an advantage for us because while Florida currently has a high BCR going for this class they’re mostly all barely blue chips. He doesn’t have a single top 100 player (>95). If a strong wind was to blow through the swamp at least half of his class would likely be revealed as 3-stars. jmo.
We’re obviously back on track relative to the rest of the East but we’re still for the moment chasing Florida and Georgia. There are only 31 prospects in the top 100 (>95) left on the board so it’s not inconceivable that Florida misses out this year entirely. It looks like we could be gaining on Florida. jmo.
