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Time to pull the plug?
What history tells us about Billy Napier, Patrick Toney and the Gators defense

Will Miles
Billy Napier coming through the tunnel of the Swamp

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With the Florida defense wallowing in the 100s nationally after seven weeks, it’s reasonable to ask what in the world is going on?

After all, this defense – warts and all – ranked 39th in yards per play last year and returned a bunch of starters for defensive coordinator Patrick Toney to work with. But instead of seeing those players take steps forward in their first year in Toney’s system, we’ve seen a major step backwards.

If you’ve been reading or listening to any Gator media or social media this past week, you’ve likely heard words like “unacceptable” or “unprecedented” thrown around. But whenever I start hearing those sorts of things over and over, it makes me wonder whether these things really are unacceptable or unprecedented.

It also makes me wonder whether there are historical examples of programs that had to take one step back in order to take a few giant steps forward. So let’s take a step back in time to see whether we already know that Patrick Toney needs to be fired, or whether those calling for his head are going to be assuring us they knew he’d be a success all along in a year or two.

THE historical examples

Anytime you talk about coaches struggling in their first year, Nick Saban’s 2007 Alabama team immediately comes up. After all, that team went 7-6 and lost to Louisiana Monroe.

Of course, the 2006 Alabama team went 6-7 the year prior and was pretty average on both sides of the ball, placing 65th in yards per play gained and 53rd in yards per play allowed. Saban is a defensive genius, so you would expect him to have an immediate effect on the defense, right? Well, the 2007 Alabama squad placed 47th in yards per play allowed, so essentially no difference.

But it is the offensive side of the ball (not Saban’s expertise) that should catch our attention. The 2007 Alabama team dropped 29 spots to 94th in yards per play gained.

So how about the other behemoth of college football: the Kirby Smart led Georgia Bulldogs?

Well, Georgia went 8-5 in 2016 after going 10-3 the year prior under Mark Richt. The Bulldogs also dropped from 18th to 35th in yards per play allowed (Kirby’s expertise) and dropped from 45th to 84th in yards per play gained (not his expertise).

If you go back further to the 2004 and 2005 Gators under Ron Zook and Urban Meyer, you see something similar. Florida was 13th in yards per play gained in 2004 under Zook and dropped to 63rd in 2005 while seeing just a modest improvement on the defensive side of the ball (30th to 22nd in yards per play allowed).

But what is interesting is if you then watch what happened in the second year for each of these coaches. In Meyer’s case, the offense improved to 18th while the defense improved to 12th and the Gators won the title. In Smart’s case, the Bulldogs improved to 9th on offense and 7th on defense and came one blown coverage against Alabama’s backup QB (Tua Tagovailoa) from winning the national championship. In Saban’s case, his team improved to 47th on offense and 5th on defense and he lost to the Meyer, Tebow and the Gators in the SEC Championship Game.

Other than Dabo Swinney – who I don’t think it’s fair to make this comparison with since he was an interim coach who was promoted at Clemson – Meyer, Saban and Smart are the best college football coaches of the past two decades. I think it says a lot that each of them saw major regression on one side of the ball when they took over their programs.

That doesn’t guarantee that Patrick Toney is going to succeed, but it does make me more sanguine that that the first seven games don’t definitively tell the story.

What about the others?

Clearly though, just because Saban, Smart and Meyer saw regression doesn’t mean that others didn’t see regression and not turn into those guys. You actually don’t have to look too hard to find those examples.

There were 11 Power-5 coaching changes that took place after the 2018 season. Of those, there were four coaches who saw either their offensive or defensive units get worse by more than 50 spots in yards per play metrics. Those programs were:

If we look at the same metrics for the 12 Power-5 coaching changes after the 2019 season, we again see four coaches who meet those same metrics.

But here’s the thing. If we ignore Colorado (which is correct since Mel Tucker left after his first year there), five of the seven programs took major steps forward on that side of the ball in year two.

Georgia Tech’s offense jumped 54 spots to 66th (still not where it was when Collins took over). Maryland’s offense jumped 87 spots. West Virginia’s offense only jumped 19 spots, which is the least improvement on this list.

Baylor’s offense improved 81 spots. Florida State’s defense improved 92 spots. Mississippi State’s offense improved 29 spots (and Mike Leach’s offense doesn’t emphasize efficiency). Missouri’s defense improved 71 spots.

If Toney’s defense improves just the average of these seven programs (again, minus Colorado), we’d expect an improvement of 62 spots, which would put the Gators at 49th in the country.

Sustainable Improvement

Obviously, Florida isn’t seeking to be Maryland or even Florida State. But let’s look at the programs they are aiming to be and see where Patrick Toney’s strengths are already starting to show. Of course, that means I’m talking about recruiting.

It’s no secret that Alabama and Georgia under Saban and Smart are the gold standard for recruiting in the SEC. It’s also not a secret that they brought in elite recruiting classes in their second or “bump” recruiting classes in 2008 and 2017, respectively. After all, both of their bump classes were ranked 3rd nationally.

But I think how they built those classes is instructive.

Smart realized he needed help on offense and recruited heavily in that direction. Of his top-10 recruits, seven of them were on the offensive side of the ball. That includes tackles Isaiah Wilson and Andrew Thomas (both first round picks), running back D’Andre Swift (2nd round) and QB Jake Fromm (5th round).

Those guys formed the core of the Bulldogs teams that kept coming up just a little bit short, but were a big reason Georgia took a huge leap on the offensive side of the ball  in year two.

Saban took a more balanced approach, with only four of the top-10 recruits in his bump class on the offensive side of the ball. 5-star offensive tackle Tyler Love didn’t work out because of injury, but you might remembers the names Julio Jones, Mark Ingram and Barrett Jones.

Those top-10 recruits also included names like Mark Barron and Courtney Upshaw with Saban also hitting on mid-range recruits like Marcell Dareus (233rd overall), Dont’a Hightower (303rd overall) and Terrence Cody (Juco, but around 450th nationally).

Taken in tandem, this is why Alabama’s offense improved in year two, but only slightly, while the defense took a major step forward. It wasn’t until the 2009 class that Saban got Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy and A.J. McCarron and the offense really started to take off.

Those are very different approaches, so it’s interesting to look at what choice Florida and Billy Napier have decided to take. It’s clearly the Kirby Smart approach, but this time focusing on the defensive side of the ball.

Of the Gators top-10 recruits in the 2023 class thus far, 8 of them are on the defensive side of the ball with five of them on the defensive line. The only offensive players in the top-10 are wide receivers, an obvious area of need for the Gators.

Combine that with the fact that Florida appears to be the leader for 5-star (and the second ranked overall recruit) cornerback Cormani McClain and that the Gators are pursuing 5-stars Keon Kelley (Edge), James Smith (DL) and Qua Russaw (Edge) and there’s the prospect of Florida putting together a truly elite recruiting class on that side of the ball.

My main complaint with Todd Grantham was that he was an average defensive coordinator. I know Gators fans thought he was terrible – and the 2020 and 2021 defenses were hard to watch – but that wasn’t what worried me about his track record when he came to Gainesville. Instead, it was that he didn’t seem to make defenses all that much better than his predecessors and he certainly didn’t recruit any better than his predecessors.

What that meant was that Grantham wasn’t going to make a difference schematically and he wasn’t going to have elite players to overcome his schematic disadvantages either. The LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma stretch in 2020 certainly proved that out.

That really bears itself out – and gives us reason to be optimistic about Napier and Toney – when you look at each’s respective bump classes on the defensive side of the ball.

Mullen and Grantham signed 10 defensive players in their 2019 recruiting class. Of those 10, four were ranked in the top-100, one was ranked 101-200 and two were ranked 201-300 for a total of seven top-300 players. Without anyone else right now, Napier and Toney have 11 defensive commits with two in the top-100, four ranked 101-200 and three ranked 201-300 for a total of nine top-300 players.

The 10 players in the 2019 class had an average star ranking of 3.8, and an average national ranking of 236. The 11 players in the 2023 class so far have an average star rating of 4.0 and an average national ranking of 198.

As you would expect by looking at the top-100 players, the place where Mullen and Grantham could perhaps claim victory would be with the truly elite defensive players. But when you consider that Chris Steele never saw a fall practice for Florida and that McClain seems like a lock, the top-end talent for both defenses is going to at least be even with Florida having a chance to add even more.

Beyond that, the only real contributors from that 2019 class were Kaiir Elam, Ty’Ron Hopper and Mohamoud Diabate. That’s the downside to having a top-heavy class without much in the 101-200 range. The 2023 class has three defensive linemen ranked between 161-196. None of those guys may turn out to be stars, but there’s almost zero chance that Florida will need to bring in three players at defensive tackle through the transfer portal just because of numbers.

Obviously, Napier and Toney need to seal the deal with McClain and hopefully another 5-star, get everyone in this class to sign and see continued development from Kamari Wilson, Shemar James and Chris McClellan.

But the recruiting class coming clearly shows they are taking the Kirby Smart approach to a deficient unit, and hey, it worked for Kirby.

Takeaway

I have no idea whether Patrick Toney can be an elite defensive coordinator. After seven games, neither do you. He clearly has an imperfect roster and hasn’t done a lot with it so far.

I’d like to see him simplify what he’s asking his team to do and start to form an identity on that side of the ball. I’d also like to see less simulated pressures with defensive linemen dropping into coverage leaving giant holes in zones. But we have to remember that these are not his defensive linemen and that the ones he has are not exactly winning one-on-one battles on a regular basis.

The other thing to consider is that if you were to ask me what the most important characteristics for a defensive coordinator in modern-day college football are, I’d tell you there’s only really one: recruiting.

This is a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but it’s amazing what talent can do to help you overcome a misalignment or a poor angle. It’s amazing how 5-star guys seem to tackle much better than mid-range 3-star players.

What history tells us is that Florida’s defense is going to take a major step forward next year. That will be partly because defenses in the 100s rarely stay there year-after-year, but also because historically, units that have underperformed in year one under a new regime have bounced back in year two.

Combine that history with a defensive recruiting class that has the potential to be a monster and you have to give Toney time. After all, he’s the guy who is building the relationships to bring these players to Gainesville. As much as Corey Raymond has an impact, Toney is the guy who’s scheme is going to be run and who will ultimately determine playing time.

That does probably leave us flailing a little bit as fans in 2022. This defense may get slightly better, but the odds that it flips any sort of script against Georgia is exceedingly miniscule. Instead, the team is going to have to rely on Anthony Richardson playing elite-level QB and hopefully not turning the ball over, along with getting a turnover or two that can flip the game.

Some of that happened against Utah, Missouri and USF. It didn’t against Tennessee and LSU.

The good news is that with Texas A&M’s struggles this year, every game on the schedule for the rest of the year except for the Cocktail Party is likely winnable. The bad news is that when you have a defense that’s a sieve, every one of those games is losable as well.

But the truly good news is that when we look at history, both year two on-field performance and recruiting histories, Florida’s defense is going to be a lot better in 2023.

Now we just have to make sure Anthony Richardson stays one more year to take advantage.

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