Responding to a reporter’s query about an essential recruiting weekend for the Gators combined with a disappointing loss, Napier first emphasised that with every part UF has to supply academically and athletically, these choices shouldn’t be influenced by a single occasion.
As Napier continued to talk and promote Florida as a university vacation spot, he said a chilly, laborious truth that always appears forgotten or ignored by a section of followers and media. It could be probably the most essential factor Napier has stated in his 11 months on the job.
“It’s been 14 years since Florida has won the SEC and a national championship,” Napier said. “We’ve bought work to do.”
Those who are good at math and aware of the program’s history are probably saying, “effectively, duh.” Hey, we get it. No one must remind you ways lengthy it has been. You choose to rehash the great occasions.
You keep in mind the early season wins in 2008 over Miami and Tennessee, the stunning residence loss to Ole Miss, the well-known Tebow’s Promise, the thumping of LSU and Georgia, that beatdown of the HBC’s South Carolina workforce in The Swamp, the rain-soaked romp in Tallahassee, the celebration within the Georgia Dome after beating Bama, and eventually, the throttling of Oklahoma in Miami to win a second nationwide title in three seasons.
The Gators have been on prime of the world and dancing to their very own beat. Two soccer nationwide championships in three seasons. Back-to-back males’s basketball nationwide championships. Names resonated on University Avenue and much past: Urban, Billy D, Tebow, Percy, Joakim, and many others.
What a blast, even for these not inside Gainesville metropolis limits. I used to be in Tampa when the great occasions began to bounce on the court docket in late 2005, then in Tallahassee at their peak, and by the point they ended with that loss to Alabama within the 2009 SEC Championship Game, again in Tampa.
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Adversity reveals character.
? The #jOURney: Episode 7 pic.twitter.com/f2EmX5a9Tp
— Florida Gators Football (@GatorsFB) October 18, 2022
A yr later, I joined the University Athletic Association and located myself as soon as extra in Tallahassee, overlaying the Florida-Florida State recreation. The Gators misplaced 31-7 to the Seminoles that day — snapping UF’s six-game win streak within the rivalry — prompting Urban Meyer to utter these well-known phrases afterward: “It has to be fixed. It’s broke a little bit right now.”
Meyer, in fact, was speaking about this system he had constructed and returned to the highest. Two weeks later, he introduced his resignation, ending a six-year run during which he received 65 of 80 video games, two nationwide titles and two SEC championships.
And there we have been late Saturday evening, in the identical assembly room beneath the stands at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium the place Meyer used to deal with his gamers and the media, listening to Napier dance with delicate questions.
Why cannot the protection cease anybody on third down? Where is this system at midseason relative to your expectations? What’s up with the clock administration on the finish of the primary half?
Napier has confronted many pointed questions in his profession, whether or not as offensive coordinator at Clemson and Arizona State or as head coach at Louisiana. All coaches do in some unspecified time in the future. That’s a part of their job, similar to the media’s job is to ask them about what followers wish to know.
As the Orange & Blue devoted have rapidly realized, Napier is an introspective soul with one eye at all times on the lengthy street.
That’s the place one have to be when constructing a program in full reboot mode like by no means earlier than.
“When you’re in a leadership position, there’s only one answer: You’ve got to do better for the people that you’re leading,” Napier said. “Players, workers, all of the those who care and characterize this college, proper? You’ve bought to do a greater job. I can do my job higher.
“Our football needs to get better. I can say that. Lots of things contribute to that. There’s no shortcuts. You gotta go right through every single bit of adversity. It ain’t easy. I don’t like to lose.”
In at this time’s world, when feedback hit social media as quickly as they’re spoken, passionate followers hearth off typical responses. They wished him to announce drastic adjustments. They wished gamers benched and coaches tossed beneath the bus, a listing of rapid corrective measures posted on the whiteboard behind the rostrum the place he spoke.
Yes, we have been right here earlier than since that loss to the Seminoles in 2010. So has Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen. And we all know the place they’re now.
The first e mail arrived in my inbox at 10:05, inside minutes of the sport’s finish. A couple of texts adopted. A name the following day. That’s the way in which it goes. That’s big-time school soccer in 2022 when each workforce is meant to win each recreation and play completely.
We all comprehend it would not work that means, even when a few of us typically overlook.
Seven video games into his UF tenure, Napier is simply getting began.
“I want to win every single game that we play. We’re in Year 1. The big thing I would say is that we’re working hard on the people. I think we’re making progress there,” Napier said. “Working laborious on expectations and tradition, habit-building. I feel that the soccer execution half is the place we have to enhance. But when it comes to aggressive spirit, togetherness, self-discipline, I feel that we’re making progress in that half. When you are constructing a basis, that is the place you begin.”
The bye week got here at an ideal time for the Gators. They spent a lot of the week on high quality management and looking for a few of these solutions on the sector. They have No. 1-ranked Georgia subsequent, so there isn’t any ‘wait ’til subsequent yr’ mindset floating round. They shut the season at FSU, their first go to to Tallahassee in three years.
Still, as I’ve written earlier than and stated repeatedly, this isn’t your father’s or large brother’s Gators program. This is a company being rebuilt from the bottom up as a brand new period of school soccer unfolds on a weekly foundation.
It takes time. Napier has a plan. That’s why he is right here.
Signs are pointing in the precise course. On Thursday afternoon, in accordance with every of the 4 main recruiting websites (ESPN.com, 247Sports.com, On3.com and Rivals.com), Florida resided within the prime 10 within the 2023 class.
And in case you could have forgotten, keep in mind what he stated Saturday and reserve it for the remainder of the season. It has been a decade — and practically half of one other one — for the reason that Gators received a convention or nationwide title.
That is a very long time. How way back? The gamers who will creator Florida’s rebirth story weren’t even in elementary faculty and doubtless know little to nothing about Tebow’s Promise aside from the plaque on a wall outdoors The Swamp.
That’s most likely simply as effectively. They are the longer term, not the previous.
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