Can Billy Gonzales turn the Gators into a consistent football team?

(UAA Photo)

For a guy who has always coached wide receivers, Billy Gonzales did a rather nifty impersonation of a veteran head coach Monday afternoon. Florida’s interim football coach was poised, prepared and thorough as he took questions that ranged from preparations for 5^th-ranked Georgia to the origins of his coaching career. If you didn’t know better, you would think he had been a head coach for years.

Billy G was simply Billy G, which is what former bosses like Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen told him to be.

“I’ve talked to a majority of the coaches that I’ve had an opportunity to work for over this time and I think, one is for guidance, and I think the great thing that every single one of them said was just be you and that’s including Coach Napier,” Gonzales said.

Just be you. What a concept. With Gonzales that means focus, preparation, attention to detail and make the hard work fun. There is a reason why he’s considered one of the best, if not the best, wide receivers coach in all of college football. He stresses precision. Run the route right. Watch the ball all the way into your hands. Catch the ball with your hands and bring it in. You won’t get on the field if you are unwilling or incapable of blocking.

With five games remaining on the Florida schedule, is it possible that Billy Gonzales could transform the precision and focus of his wide receivers to the rest of the team? Despite injuries that have depleted their ranks, the Gators have as much or more talent than any team on their schedule. Talent alone hasn’t gotten the job done this season which is why Napier was dismissed and Gonzales is running the team the rest of the season.  

The problem for the Gators has been consistency. For the Gators to hold their own the rest of the way, Gonzales will have to find the consistency that has been missing this season. How will the Gators respond? Will they find renewed energy and focus that has been missing all season or will they simply show up and go through the motions.

The Gators are 3-4 so far, 2-2 in SEC play. They’re capable of going on a streak like they did at the end of 2024 when they won their last four games to finish the season 8-5. The five games remaining on the schedule – Georgia in Jacksonville, at Kentucky, at 7^th-ranked Ole Miss and home against 14^th-ranked Tennessee and Florida State – are all winnable. They are also all losable.

Saturday’s game against Georgia could tell us plenty about how the Gators are going to respond. An exceptional game against Georgia, which is a 7.5-point favorite, could be motivation to finish the season. The Gators will almost certainly be favored to beat Kentucky and Florida State. If they could win those two and find a way to win one of the other three, the Gators would be bowl eligible.

So how do they do it? How does a team that has this befuddling Jekyll and Hyde personality do what some would consider a modern miracle by getting to six wins? There is no overnight answer but Gonzales took the approach of listening to his players. He gathered the team leadership committee to hear their grievances as well as their suggestions. He thought the meeting was productive.

"I asked if there's any things that they would like to do as far as practice-schedule wise and they gave me some thoughts and ideas,” Gonzales said. “But the fundamental thing that I got out of that conversation with the leadership committee was the number one thing is we want to get back out of the grass. We want to get going. We want to start doing what we're here to do, and that's to play football.

"They want to get on the football field. They want to get out there. And I think that's as much as anything was mentally and therapeutic for those guys to get out amongst each other. And again, it's unique, the fact that college football, one of the things that I believe that's special about college football is you're around your friends, you're around your teammates, you're around each other on and off the field. You're eating together down at the lunchroom, dinner together. So that bonding that takes place. So it is important, it was important for those guys to get back on the football field together, to be around each other."

Understanding the players, what they want and what they need, is just the first step. Once back on the field, it’s about responding to the coaches. Is it possible that Billy Gonzales can get players to play better and with more consistency than Billy Napier? Players loved Napier but the results were more losses than wins.

It isn’t a question of talent. Florida has enough talent to compete with anyone in the country, but something has been missing. Despite four losses, nobody has blown the Gators out. In each of the losses, the Gators have been within striking distance into the fourth quarter only to have games slip away. Late game defensive collapses have a lot to do with injuries that have weakened the depth pool and too many three-and-outs by the offense that has forced the defense to play too many snaps.

The Gators have skill players who could start at any school in the Southeastern Conference and yet the Gators rank 12^th in the SEC, 92^nd nationally in yards per game. Florida ranks dead last in offensive plays (460). Speeding up the tempo could be one answer. For one thing a faster tempo would lessen the predictability. Opposing defensive players have boasted after beating the Gators that they knew every play the Gators were going to run as soon as they lined up. It is too late in the season to do a complete install of a new offense but not too late to change how and when plays are called. Nor is it too late to take a more aggressive approach to running the offense. The Gators have the speed and talent on the outside to throw the ball downfield more often. That would back the safeties off the line of scrimmage, which would open up the running game.

At Texas A&M, the Gators marched down the field on their first three possessions. After that the Aggies adjusted their defense and played eight in the box the rest of the game. Did Billy Napier go conservative and the Aggies responded accordingly or just a matter of predictability.

What Gonzales can do is have his offensive brain trust – QB coach and play caller Ryan O’Hara and coordinator Russ Callaway – take a more aggressive approach. More downfield shots should have the effect of loosening things up for the running game.

Only against Texas have the Gators played anything close to a complete game, but even then they didn’t score in the fourth quarter when they had a chance to blow the doors off the Longhorns. The challenge for Gonzales will be to help the Gators find the consistency that has been missing.

Gonzales believes in his players. The situation isn’t ideal but there are five remaining games to make something positive happen. A strong finish to a season gone upside down is not completely out of the question.

“I’ve said this before, they (players) don’t have quitting in their DNA and they’re going to continue to fight,” Gonzales said. “And it’s not like we haven’t been in games before. It’s not like we haven’t won games before, so I think the big thing is to focus on us, not to focus on anything else … just focus on us. And if we can, we can do our job and be the best at what we do on our job and be the best on the field, every time we take a snap I think we’ll be exactly where we need to be in the fourth quarter.”