BUDDY MARTIN: Napier Hopes Hidden Success Will Show Up.

What secrets are Billy and the HBC sharing? (Freddie Wehbe photo)

‘Sometimes some of your best teams don’t win championships.’ – Steve Spurrier

When history speaks and we don’t hear it, we instead choose to learn the hard way, by trial and error. Which in the end is really the only tried and true way. Confusing? Of course! Which is another way of saying that there ARE such things as good losses. Ask any successful coach. Ask Billy Napier, who’s had several so far in this 5-4 season.

What I’m hearing more and more from smart coaches is that it’s a mistake to judge progress by just the W’s. Napier himself has said it, so has Nick Saban. They want their teams to play hard and smart, believing in the end, if you do it right, success will come in the long run – even if delayed temporarily. And it will be Built To Last,

So there are these “Tweener” or “Interim” years when you’re just planting crops for the future, chopping and stacking the wood for long winters ahead, building and transitioning from one era to the next. Not all for naught.

Sometimes things start out that way. That is exactly how I view this new program under a bright, new, intelligent coach who looks to me like he’s on the right course. He’s already had his “good losses” and could be heading toward an even better-than-projected season by knocking off South Carolina on Senior Day, punctuating this “mini-run” toward a ranked FSU team and possible eight-win season.

Maybe eight wins is not the most spectacular result for impatient Gator fans who became gluttons for championships under Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer, but hold on and listen up, because it looks like the proper trajectory. Lift this season up to the light and see it through experienced eyes of wisdom.

“Sometimes we tend to undervalue some of our better teams because they didn’t win championships,” Spurrier said. Bingo! And we’d best not sidestep that valuable lesson, which comes as the celebrations will be held this weekend for two teams that didn’t make it to the top.

As winner of 6 (or 7) SECs and a natty, the HBC should know. Among his very best teams were the undefeated (regular season) 1995 squad that got squashed by the Nebraska juggernaut in the Fiesta Bowl; and the 2001 team that got hijacked out of an SEC title opportunity when their game vs. Tennessee was moved to the end of the season due the 9/11 disaster and the Vols caught the Florida rushing defense napping. Rex Grossman’s two-point conversion pass to Jabbar Gaffney was no good and the Vols scored late to win, 34-32.

That was Spurrier’s last game as Gator coach on a field that would be named after him. Napier’s final game of his first season will be on that grass and could go a long way toward defining his season and his future as Gator Coach.

One of the seasons when HBC was an SEC champion (UAA Photo)

What Spurrier is doing Saturday during the game against his old team from Columbia is paying homage to a pair of less fortunate teams which don’t have any meaningful commemoration in the trophy case.

Matter of fact, one of the two Spurrier’s teams being honored Saturday (1992 and 1997) somewhat mirrors this current 2022 Napier squad. The ‘92 team, quarterbacked by Shane Matthews, lost four games.

There is still time for Napier’s team to equal the record of Spurrier’s '92 Gators with a 9-4 mark. That team started off 1-2 before running off seven straight wins and then losing to a No. 1 ranked FSU team and to Alabama in the SEC Championship game. The effort and fight were there, said Spurrier, “and they gave it their all – but it just didn’t work out.”

There’ll be no SEC game for Napier’s team, but these Gators will have a shot at the ranked Seminoles on Friday night after Thanksgiving. Expectations were much higher after beating No. 7 Utah in the opener.

“That’s exactly how it happens sometimes,” Spurrier said. “University of Tennessee is having one of their greatest years – ever! Since ‘98 when they won everything … but not much since. But they’re not going to win anything, even the division.

“So they’re going to look back on this season and say they had a great year. They got a chance to win a bowl game and have a wonderful season. And that’s what happened to our ’92 and ’97 teams. They were on each end of those four SEC champions teams in a row. (He counts 1990 as one.) And they sort of get left out of the conversation.”

As for the comparison of the ’22 Gators’ season the nine-win team of 30 years ago – should Florida in these next three plus a bowl -- the HBC acknowledges, “it could be…it just depends on how things work out. So it’s a big one this weekend. And a big one for South Carolina.”

Make no mistake about Spurrier’s loyalties when it comes to his old team, where he became the all-time winningest coach, while he wishes the Gamecocks the best, he doesn’t wish them luck this weekend.

“They’re already bowl eligible, but if they want to win nine games this season, they’d better get ready, because they’ve got Tennessee and Clemson after us.”

How you value a season besides in just victories? There’s no stat for it, but those “good losses” matter. To go 8-4 with losses to four ranked teams – three of them currently in the seven – has to count for something.

That’s why Gator fans should be encouraged, even if a bit disappointed in their dreams for a better result.

So what has been learned this season? In listening to some of the participants in the upcoming Senior Day walk, this team has bonded in recent weeks and has helped lay the foundation to what could be a promising future. Depending, of course, on recruiting and what the old New York sports writers called “Dame Fortune.” I like her odds.