The Godfather Joins the Master Carpenter. Can Napier And Raymond Build It Together?
“The news that Napier and Florida had just hired one of CFB’s best defensive minds, ace recruiter Corey Raymond from LSU, broke the sound barriers Wednesday like a shot heard around the SEC World.”
The faster I go, the behinder I get. Like Dickens wrote, “The best of times, the worst of times.” Technology is my friend, technology is my curse. I spend a minimum of 30 minutes per day updating programs for my computer or TV, or having to assure somebody at Google that I am who I say am, or agreeing to a new set of terms (again), or wondering why in the hell I can’t get ESPN-Plus when I’ve signed up for it three times? And by the way, why can’t I also get Netflix or Amazon Prime anymore when I’m paying for it? Exhausting!
I won’t even go into crapshoot of doing a live sports streaming sports show four nights a week and what happens to all the changing of all protocols because the provider insists I “update” the software, which means I just lost my audio. I can’t keep this up!
Thank goodness for a refreshing respite from the frenzied pace, courtesy of Billy Napier. All of which is to say is, I totally get Napier’s preference of deliberate pace, which is why I picked out the adage “MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE” to describe his demeanor in my first blog about him. In the parable of the tortoise and the hare, Napier ain't no rabbit.
Napier emphasized that deliberate style in Florida's introductory presser, saying while he intended to deploy “an army” of aides in his quest to build UF football into an SEC powerhouse, but in the fullness of his time. He warned he might not have many – if any – new commits for his current recruiting class. When the number in the 2021 class dropped to six this week, total Twitter hysteria broke out among Gator recruitniks. Included in the decommits was the highly rated quarterback prospect Nick Evers. Surely the world was coming to an end!
Adding to the Twitter frenzy was the angst over Jacob Copeland, Jeremy Mincey and Kris Bogle entering their names in the transfer portal (although there are reports at least two of them may yet play in the Gasparilla Bowl.)
Patience Grasshopper! Slowly, the Billy Napier train is beginning to pull out of the station. Photos of him in living rooms with top players all across the South emerged on social media. One of them was a five-star QB from Louisiana who was previously headed to Louisiana Lafayette. Hmmmm.
“He’s done more recruiting in four days than Dan Mullen did in four years,” chirped one Twitter-er. This message of assurance was a call-out to downtrodden Gators to come in out of the cold and rain -- and not to jump off the ledge. Help is on the way, and a good portions already in place.
For those who did not hear Napier’s repeated reference about his intended cautious approach, listen up: He knew some people wouldn’t understand the importance of trusting his own personal evaluation over the stars-system of recruiting services; his preference for relationship-building over one-night-stands in living rooms.
Then, BOOM! The news that Napier and Florida had just hired one of CFB’s best defensive minds, ace recruiter Corey Raymond, as the new assistant head coach/recruiting whiz broke the sound barriers Wednesday like a shot heard around the SEC World.
Full disclosure: I don’t cover other SEC programs or follow their coaching staffs, so I don’t know Corey Raymond -- recruiting not being an area of my expertise. But Raymond is already a big rising star among coaches, currently making 600G or more, known as “The Godfather of DBU.” Even I know that much.
Unlike a certain coach who tried to act like he just walked off the set of Gone With The Wind after a personal conversation with the dialect coach for Clark Gable, I’m not going to fake it. But I’m not immune to reading and listening to my friends’ reaction to the news about Raymond’s impact on LSU and why he might be a home run for Florida football.
This is a huge upgrade for the man in Gainesville, who’s busily measuring and soon to be cutting more. He also just dropped a bomb. An example of the shock waves coming out of The Bayou was this You Tube report from After Further Review host Matt Moscona of ESPN Radio in Baton Rouge/New Orleans:
So was Brian Kelly telling the truth that he hadn’t yet “made any decisions”? It makes you wonder why Kelly, the newly self-appointed pseudo Rhett Butler of The Bayou, didn’t attempt to stop Raymond’s exit out of Baton Rouge. My sources say Kelly disrespected one of the best defensive coaches in CFB. Matt Moscona wrote: “The Godfather of DBU is headed to the enemy.” Moscona called Raymond’s loss to LSU “devastating” and the acquisition by SEC rivalry – or “enemy” -- a huge get.
Who is Corey Raymond? The official UF statement read:
“Raymond, who played six years in the NFL, spent the last 10 seasons at LSU where he coached defensive backs (2012-17) and cornerbacks (2018-21). Most recently, Raymond also served as the recruiting coordinator (2020-21) for the Tigers, in addition to his duties a cornerbacks coach. Raymond's secondary produced seven first team All-Americans during his time at LSU, including Eric Reid (2012), Jalen Mills (2015), Jamal Adams (2016), Tre'Davious White (2016), Greedy Williams (2018), Grant Delpit (2018 and 2019) and Derek Stingley Jr. (2019, 2020). Additionally, Delpit claimed the 2019 Jim Thorpe Award as the nation's top defensive back.”
Some of my friends say losing Raymond already means two strikes on LSU’s new coach Kelly and that if this keeps up, we may soon be witnessing an exodus of Louisianans moving to Gainesville. If so, maybe someone should start a new Cajun subdivision on Archer Road. With the number of coaches coming from Lafayette already, I’m thinking it might also be time to start a new food store in Gainesville specializing in Louisiana hot sauce, gumbo, boiled crawfish and jambalaya for the new Cajun colony’s 2022 tailgate parties.
Meanwhile, it’s getting pretty interesting up in here. You can sense that “The Master Carpenter” is building something special. And only age 42, this could bode well for the future of Florida football. Scott Stricklin kept using the word “sustained” success. Now we can begin to understand what he was talking about. Might Napier become the longest-tenured coach since Steve Spurrier logged in 12 seasons?
Finally, for those who might have wondered why Napier wasn’t breathing fire like a Southern Baptist preacher at his initial press conference, do not mistake this man for a low-energy, conservative play-caller who has no pulse.
Anybody who has ever ventured out over their skis on a wager -- once or twice getting above your pay grade as a gambler -- you will completely understand the meaning of his un-intentionally adopted battle cry: “Scared Money Don’t Make Money.”
Napier just placed a bet on Corey Raymond, who made a big dent in that $7.5M salary pool for assistant coaches ponied up by Stricklin. In case you didn’t know by now, they are serious about their commitment. Get ready to see the stars falling on Florida – just as they said in the song, “Stars Fell on Alabama.” I believe Stricklin and Napier just pushed all their chips to the middle of the table, without flinching.
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