A Florida reversal of fortunes will begin in the heart and mind

“I'm a firm believer that better people are better football players. I think we'll prove that this fall.” – Billy Napier

Call it an inside out approach if you will, this Billy Napier philosophy of building a football team that he can count on to do the right thing both on and off the field.

This is the third August for Napier and the Florida Gators. The first year luster wore off in a hurry. Last year, the Gators were way too young to know and understand everything in front of them. This year, as the Gators embark on year three, there is a completely different atmosphere.

Confidence? Yes, it’s there, but it’s the quiet type, the type that comes from guys who really believe in themselves and the other guys who sweat it out with them.

Accountability? That’s another thing that is obvious. Napier talked about it a couple of weeks ago at SEC Media Days. He talked about it again Tuesday when he spoke to the media ahead of fall practice beginning in earnest.

Even before Napier took to the podium, center Jake Slaughter and strength and conditioning coordinator Tyler Miles were talking about how things have evolved, about how this team has come together with a one for all, all for one attitude.

“I feel like this team has definitely shifted,” Slaughter said. He was more or less thrown to the wolves last year, but as the season progressed he became a rock in the middle of the offensive line. He’s a cerebral type who sounds like he could be standing in front of a lecture hall with 400 freshman psychology students hanging on his every word. On the playing field he gets to butt heads on nearly every play with nose tackles who would look huge even without helmets and pads.

Last year made Slaughter hungry for success but he's not alone. Going 5-7 in 2023 has created a mindset that has brought about a collective determination to treat the previous season like a necessary speed bump.

“We want to start fast and finish strong," Slaughter said. "That was a big thing this summer that we pushed. I feel like a lot of guys are ready to go out and compete. There’s going to be a ton of competition across the board.”

Competition tends to bring out the best in athletes who are focused and determined to go over and above what is asked. That has a lot to do with 60, 70 or more players on the field or in the weight room on any given Saturday. They could be doing something else, but the losing has left a sour enough taste in their mouths that they are determined to do something about it.

As the strength and conditioning coordinator, Miles spends more time with the players in the offseason than any other coach on the staff. He is a champion of hard work, a characteristic ingrained in him from his childhood in rural America. At 11 years old Miles would wake at 4 a.m. to feed the animals on the family farm. That experience has shaped a mindset that responsibility and accountability should be almost instinctive.

“It’s just every day, you have responsibilities and you do that,” Miles said. “On the days you don’t feel like doing it, you have responsibilities that you need to accomplish and get done and you don’t just go through the motions, you do it the best way you can, so that’s kind of how I think about it, if that makes sense, but my mind just works in that simple, you’ve got a job to do, and you get it done every day.”

On the farm, there are no shortcuts. Take shortcuts and the animals suffer. It’s similar to what happens with a football team. Bad teams find excuses to cut offseason workouts short or miss them altogether. Great teams understand that there are no shortcuts on the pathway to greatness. Winning attitudes are shaped by hard work, dedication and sacrifice.

Great teams do the right thing not because they have to do it, but because it is the right thing to do. Doing the little things becomes second nature, things like keeping their living space in the locker room clean. That may not sound like a big deal, but it involves discipline, accountability, responsibility, pride and care for your teammates.

“They keep their locker room spotless, they keep the indoor spotless, they don't miss anything,” Miles said. “If they get called out on not doing something right, they fix it immediately and say yes sir. They know we want the best for them. Everything they do, the little things. There's that famous video of Ed Reed talking about picking up trash in the locker room. They keep their locker room spotless and I know that doesn't sound like a big thing but to us, that is a big thing. All the little things stack up and matter and they do all the little things correct.”

The little things do add up. The Gators are 11-14 in Napier’s two seasons on the job at Florida. The record could just as easily be 19-6 but not for a blown assignment here, a missed tackle there, disorganization on the sidelines at critical moments. It wasn't always the big mistake that the guys in the TV booth kept replaying over and over again. Far too often it was some minor little detail that was overlooked.

Minor little details forgotten or overlooked too often resulted in close call losses. Too many of them.

The recurring theme of almost good enough but not quite has been a driving force in this offseason. Some of the previous disappointments can be attributed to kids being thrown into the fire well before they were ready. That is no longer an excuse.

The young guys who were at times lost balls in the tall grass a year ago are a year older and more experienced. In the Southeastern Conference there is no substitute for experience. Go back through the years and while you will find teams that had substantial contributions from young guys, typically the teams at the top have the most experience.

“We have 17 starters coming back,” Napier said Tuesday. “We’re fourth in the league in returning production. We’ve got 41,000 snaps of experience coming back.

“And I think the character makeup of our team is different. I think we have credible leadership. So culturally -- you know, I heard a guy just this past week. I was listening to a guy talk about culture, and it's really how do the players behave and go about their business when maybe the authority figure is away? I think we found out a lot about our team this summer, by far the best summer we've had.”

Character does count. The late great John Wooden offered the simplified definition that character is what you do when nobody is watching. During the summer months, when coaches have limited access to players due to antiquated rules and regulations set forth by the NCAA, the Gators were busy getting themselves in the best shape of their lives in the weight room. They were on the practice fields with their units working out.

Napier recalled the story he told at SEC Media Days about coming in to the office with his two sons on a Saturday.

“I don't know if it's January or February, I bring the boys over here, I'm trying to do some work, they're running around. We've got – I look around, and I think there's 70 guys in the building – recovery, skill development, some hypertrophy work, and ultimately time together. I think there's a brotherhood element to that. That's the player going to his position group, his unit, his class and saying, ‘Hey, let's get in here on Saturday. There's an opportunity to get better.’”

There is that old adage that you have to walk before you run. That is also the journey from 5-7 to winning and from simply winning to winning at a championship level. There was a time and not all that long ago (1990-2010) that Florida was the gold standard for winning in college football.

No more. To get back to being the gold standard – running – first the Gators have to walk to regain respectability. Playing opponents close isn’t good enough and it certainly only serves to aggravate a fan base that remembers the good old days when you could pencil Florida in for a close encounter with a championship. Between 1991 and 2008 there were three national championships (1996, 2006, 2008) and all eight of the SEC championships (1991, 1993-96, 2000, 2006, 2008) that counted.

Since 2010, there are three SEC East championships and an 0-3 record in the conference championship game in Atlanta. The fall from grace hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“Football is a game played by humans that make mistakes, right? We just try to limit them as a coach,” Joe Houston said. He worked special teams for Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots the last four years. For most of the 21st century, the Patriots were the gold standard of the NFL.  He’s at Florida now intent on helping bring back a championship mentality that permeates through the entire football program.

“The standard here is the standard,” Houston said. “When I was going to college in 2006, 2007 2008, Florida was the standard and we look forward to having high standards here. That’s why you come to University of Florida. That's why you come compete in the Southeastern Conference. You want expectations. That's why we're all here.”

With Napier, the ability to meet the high expectations that come with the Florida territory have their roots in the cultural foundation. The previous two seasons weren’t without disappointments but 25 games into this gig he believes the foundation for long term success is in place.

“You know, you have a motivated group coming back. They came back with purpose. I think we've added some really good pieces, not only talent, but I think leadership and character … The best compliment I can give this team is that all parts of our organization that work with them independent of football just say it's a different group – the academic staff, the equipment staff, the training room, the GatorMade crew, Florida Victorious, the cleaning staff, the people that take care of the building. I'm walking out of the building just the other night, and a guy walks up to me and says, ‘Hey, Coach, I don't know what's going on around here, but this group, I've never seen that locker room look like it looks right now, and I've never seen guys engage our staff, the food service staff.

“So it's healthy. Now it's time to go execute, right? We've got to get football specific.”

Getting football specific goes beyond the season opener with Miami in The Swamp August 31. Nearly every expert agrees that Florida’s schedule is a 12-week navigation through a minefield of ranked teams. To call the Florida schedule one that is fraught with danger would be an understatement, but Napier believes the struggles of the past two seasons have tempered this team and gotten them ready to face what’s ahead.

“I think every good movie, every good story has challenges,” Napier said. “We're right in the middle of this one. I'm hopeful that the things we've done to make change will help us perform better, but I'm going to tell you, I'm a firm believer that sometimes you need to go through struggles, and we've done that, and I'm hopeful that it will be rewarding when we do accomplish some things of significance.”