If you’ve been spending any time at all reading or listening about the open Florida Gators head coaching job, undoubtedly you’ve heard the name Billy Napier.
Napier is the current head coach at Lousiana, but has deep ties to the Southeast with stops at Clemson (offensive coordinator), Alabama (analyst and WR coach) and Florida State (TE coach). He’s turned around the Louisiana program, winning 11 games in 2019, 10 in a COVID-shortened 2020 and 10 again this year.
That’s quite a feat for a program that had never won more than 9 games before.
But Dan Mullen was hired on the basis of doing something at Mississippi State (win 9 games twice and 10 games in 2014) that is perceived as hard to do. Jim McElwain was hired after a 10-2 season at Colorado State in his third year there, a program that hadn’t won more than 7 games since 2002.
So how are we supposed to believe that Napier will be any different than Mullen or McElwain? Is it just that there is always a risk when you make a coaching change, or is there something we can look at that might suggest that Florida is getting an upgrade if they are able to pull Napier away from the Ragin’ Cajuns?
Recent Florida Coaching History
It’s no secret that recruiting has been a sore spot for both Dan Mullen and Jim McElwain. But the expectation for both was that they would benefit from their coaching acumen to bring big-time athletes to Gainesville. Why didn’t that happen?
Well, if we first look at what happened at their previous stops, I think it starts to make a little bit more sense.
First, let’s look at McElwain. He took over at Colorado State for Steve Fairchild, fired after two straight 3-9 seasons. McElwain went 4-8 in his first season, but then won 8 and 10 games in the next two. But what did some of the underlying metrics say about that turnaround?
Steve Fairchild vs. Jim McElwain at Colorado State. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
If we look at the numbers, McElwain was a worse recruiter than Fairchild, and by a fairly wide margin. Not only did his national recruiting ranking go down almost 14 spots, but his conference ranking plummeted as well. The saving grace was that his team’s performance (as measured by ESPN’s football power index, FPI) improved by 20 spots, likely a reflection on both McElwain’s ability as a coach but perhaps that of Fairchild’s as well.
So what about Mullen? He obviously came from Mississippi State where recruiting is hard, particularly when you’re competing with LSU, Alabama and Auburn.
Sylvester Croom vs. Dan Mullen at Mississippi State. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
Mullen did improve the recruiting at Mississippi State at a national level, but he didn’t move the needle on a conference level. What that means is that while Mullen was improving the Bulldogs against the Michigan State’s and Nebraska’s of the world, he was falling further behind in the SEC.
The performance metric is the one I think is important, as Mullen came very close to performing (based on his FPI) equivalent to his recruiting rankings. This suggested that with better players at a place like Florida, Mullen could excel.
But what happened when McElwain and Mullen got to Florida? Well……
Recruiting and on-field performance for Florida’s last three coaches. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
What happened at Colorado State happened again to McElwain, as he was unable to replicate Will Muschamp’s recruiting success. Muschamp was on-par with other good Florida recruiters, but his on-field results lagged far behind, with significantly worse FPI finishes than his recruiting should have merited.
Mullen then came into the fold and did improve recruiting slightly, but not up to the Muschamp standard. Again, what happened at Mississippi State for Mullen happened at Florida as well, as he essentially matched his on-field performance to that of his recruiting.
Application to the new Florida head coach
So how does this apply to Billy Napier? I’ve done a bunch of these types of analyses for different coaches, but since Napier has become the seeming front-runner, I thought it would be useful to highlight that here.
Mark Hudspeth took over at Louisiana in 2011 after a 3-9 season by Ricky Bustle. He then immediately ripped off four straight 9-4 seasons, but then followed that up by going 15-22 over the next three seasons. Additionally, the Ragin’ Cajuns were forced to vacate 22 wins during those first four years due to NCAA violations.
Hudspeth was relieved of his duties and Napier was brought in. The first year under Napier brought a 7-7 record, but he has since gone 31-4 ever since. That looks a lot like Urban Meyer’s 31-5 record in the three seasons before he came to Gainesville.
But what about the same kind of underlying numbers that I showed above for Mullen and McElwain? Is there evidence that Napier will be a superior recruiter to those two? And is there evidence that he’s going to be a good on-field coach?
The answer is a resounding “yes” for both.
Mark Hudspeth vs. Billy Napier at Louisiana *ULL at 1st in conference in 2021. (Will MIles/Read and Reaction)
Napier improved recruiting compared to Hudspeth by 14 spots, which doesn’t seem like a major improvement initially. But it was enough to increase the conference recruiting average by 2 spots, including first place finishes in the Sun Belt recruiting rankings in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
It also takes into account the 105th ranked class in his first year in 2018 (which means that his transition class was about as good as Hudspeth’s average). But that means that his bump class improved 28 spots and has stabilized at that level.
From a performance perspective, Napier has far outperformed Hudspeth. Hudspeth actually finished pretty much where you would expect based on his national recruiting ranking. He finished a little bit below where you would expect in the conference, but 1.5 slots isn’t too far off.
Napier has finished 25 spots better in the FPI than his recruiting rank would suggest and has finished off better in the conference than his recruiting rankings would suggest as well. His teams have made the Sun Belt Championship Game every year he’s been at Louisiana, and with wins against Louisiana-Monroe and Appalachian State, Napier will have a second-straight championship.
Takeaway
You can say a lot about Jim McElwain, but he never won the Mountain West Championship. Dan Mullen never won the SEC at Mississippi State (though that’s an unfair standard).
Bill Napier is about to win his conference for the second time.
Not only that, but Napier has made his team much better than his recruiting numbers and he has improved recruiting at Louisiana significantly over his predecessor.
The McElwain hire should have had red flags from the start based on his recruiting and underlying performance. Those proved out on the field as he struggled recruiting, but also struggled to get his teams to match their recruiting performance (33.7 average FPI with 14.7 average national recruiting rank).
The Mullen hire is much more defensible. He improved the national recruiting profile of Mississippi State and so the thought was he’d be able to do that at Florida too. He also coached at a level that matched his recruiting, which made Mississippi State nationally relevant.
The problem is that even though (at least by FPI) Mullen was able to match his team’s performance to his recruiting ranking at Florida, that recruiting wasn’t at a high enough level to have the highs be championships. And unfortunately, a season like 2021 is what the lows can be like.
But Napier looks different.
He was clearly humbled by his experience at Clemson, getting fired as the offensive coordinator after a 6-7 2010 season. You might be bitter if you were him, as he had Kyle Parker at QB in 2009 and 2010 with the Tigers and new OC Chad Morris got Tajh Boyd in 2011. Of course, Napier also helped recruit Boyd.
But instead of going to a Group of Five school as an offensive coordinator or even a position coach, Napier went to Alabama as an analyst. He then was a position coach at Colorado State, Florida State and Alabama. Those last two stops mean full-time interaction with Jimbo Fisher and Nick Saban, two of only four coaches with championships still coaching today.
He had one year as the offensive coordinator at Arizona State before getting the head job at Louisiana, where he has increased the FPI of the Ragin’ Cajuns from 105 to 44, 36 and 48, including finishing ranked 15th in the AP Poll last season and currently ranking 22nd.
The thing that jumps out to me most about that list is the one year as an analyst. That isn’t the best move from a financial perspective, and I think suggests a coach who understood that he didn’t know everything and that the process of being successful the next time he got a chance would be aided by learning from the best.
And the reason it jumps out to me is because if we were to drill down to exactly why the Mullen era fell apart, I think we’d end up talking about flawed processes.
That means that all of the talk of Napier being a Saban clone is likely misguided. He understood that the best process for his career was to take a step back and learn from Saban. Folks who think like that aren’t clones. They are strategic thinkers who are usually well ahead of their peers when changes need to be made.
And that’s further bolstered by Napier’s decision to turn down an offer from Auburn last year (note: jobs are never offered if they’re turned down). If he learned anything from Saban, it should be that the program you choose has to be in alignment with your principles.
Add to that the stats that I’ve included above and I think Gators fans should be excited should Napier be the guy who ends up stewarding the program heading forward.
And I think they should be bummed if Scott Stricklin allows him to get away.
Florida State
There’s been one stat that has portended Florida’s results all year: QB per rush average.
In losses to Alabama, Kentucky, LSU, Georgia, South Carolina and Missouri, the Gators QBs have averaged 3.4 yards per rush. In the five wins, the Gators QBs have averaged 10.3 yards per rush. That’s in 30 less runs in wins.
You can say the exact same thing about the Seminoles, as in their six losses, their QBs have averaged 0.4 yards per rush on 70 rushes versus 5.2 yards per rush on 77 rushes in their five wins. The insertion of Jordan Travis – and freeing him up in the run game – has helped Florida State right the ship after starting out 0-4.
So that to me is the only question in this one. Can Florida stop Travis when he takes off to run? And can the Seminoles stop the Gators QB when he tries to run as well?
Note that every single one of those Florida losses has occurred away from the Swamp except for the loss to Alabama. Emory Jones has looked much more indecisive on the road, and so if he starts again, I’d expect Florida to be more efficient against Florida State than they were against Missouri.
But if Anthony Richardson gets the nod, I’d expect to see some really big runs similar to what we saw earlier in the year. That’s because Florida has had big plays set up in the read-option game over the last few games that just haven’t materialized because of Jones’ indecisiveness. If Richardson just decides to hold onto the ball, he’s going to pop a big one.
Factor in that it is senior day and the motivation of playing a rival, many of whom the Gators players played against in high school, and I expect Florida to come away with the win.
It will be clunky. Every game this season has been. But you can say the exact same thing about this Florida State team as well.
Mike Norvell has done a great job keeping things from falling apart in Tallahassee. But keeping things from falling apart isn’t enough to get a win on the road against even a down Florida squad.
The Gators (-3) win, 34-24.
Picks this year: 6-4 straight up, 4-6 ATS.
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