Can The Gators Get Out Of The Gate Fast?

By FRANZ BEARD

GatorBaitMedia.com

We have been down this road before. Three times in fact since Urban Meyer abruptly “retired” after suffering the first and only five-loss season of an otherwise brilliant coaching career. Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen were all met with enthusiasm. Each had pockets of success but each of them hit a speed bump that earned a pink slip.

Muschamp lost to Georgia Southern in 2013 and when he didn’t respond with at least eight wins in 2014 he was terminated. Jim McElwain inherited what amounts to an NFL defense from Muschamp that produced 19 wins and two SEC East titles in 2015-16, but when Muschamp’s defense graduated to the pros and he was left to his own devices, he concocted a story that he and his family had been recipients of death threats. When he failed to back up his accusations with any measure of truth, he lost his job. Dan Mullen did three straight New Year’s Six bowls but at some point in the 2021 season he completely lost his bearings and became a casualty.

Now Billy Napier takes over. In a little more than five weeks, he will coach his first game at Florida against a Utah team that will arrive in Gainesville ranked in everybody’s top ten with the expectation of a repeat Pac-12 championship. There is no shortage of enthusiasm for Napier. Since arriving on campus back in December after leading Louisiana to a Sun Belt championship that is the crown jewel of a four-year, 40-12 resume, Napier has said all the right things and done all the right things in a quiet, efficient manner that lends itself to confidence.

Maybe it’s the quiet demeanor or perhaps the way Napier stands in front of the podium with note cards in hand to ensure he delivers his message without any slips of the lip. He is careful to offer praise without heaping it on the Gators. It’s not one of those Lou Holtz I don’t know if we stand a chance against Western Walla Walla Technical Institute and Catering School when we play them at homecoming assessments.

It's just efficient. Organized. Straight to the point. No frills. Billy Napier sounds like someone who knows exactly where he’s going and how long it’s going to take to get there.

The experts who write for the preseason magazines as well as the throngs of media who descended upon Atlanta for SEC Media Days last week seem to think this Florida team is destined to go 6-6 or 7-5 and yet they concede that it’s possible the Gators might win eight. The schedule is brutal, but with the way it’s front loaded with home games it doesn’t take an eternal optimist to see the possibility that the Gators might just prove the experts wrong.

It is the schedule that might be the gift that will keep on giving provided, of course, the Gators get off to a surprising start and avoid the injury bug. Take a look at those first seven games. Six will be played in The Swamp. Should the Gators make it through those first seven relatively healthy and catch a break or two along the way, they may already have hit the six-win threshold by the time the UF buses reach the crest of the Hart Bridge on their way to the stadium in Jacksonville for the Georgia game.

Here are Florida’s first seven games:

September 3, Utah The Utes went 10-4 last year, won the Pac-12 championship by beating Oregon, and then lost to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. They return 12 starters (7 offense, 5 defense) including quarterback Cameron Rising (2,493 passing yards, 20 TDs; 499 rushing yards, 6 TDs) and tailback Tavion Thomas (1,108 rushing yards, 21 TDs). Everybody and his brother has the Utes repeating as Pac-12 champs. They will certainly be top ten when they arrive in Gainesville. Here is a stat worth remembering: Since 2009, Utah has played five games east of the Mississippi River, none of them in the South. Temperature at game time expected to be between 88-90, humidity somewhere in the 80-85 percent range. The Swamp will be a sauna and there is no way for Utah to prepare for it in the dry Utah heat (9 percent humidity on July 27). This is a game the Gators could win, perhaps very big.

September 10, Kentucky

The Wildcats went 10-3 last year and beat the Gators in Lexington, a game UF gave away with 15 penalties and a blocked field goal that was returned for the game-winning TD. Florida had a bad defense last year yet the Gators held Kentucky to one offensive touchdown and just 224 total yards, less than 150 after UK’s only TD drive. Kentucky touts QB Will Levis (2,812 yards, 24 TDs but 13 picks) as a potential first round NFL draft choice. Running back Chris Rodriguez (1,379 yards, 9 TDs) is a grinder who must be stopped. The Wildcats return nine starters (4 offense, 5 defense). UK is predicted to finish second in the SEC but with so many newbies in the lineup and playing the Gators in Gainesville the second week of the season, this is a game that UF could steal. Heat and humidity will factor in this game, too.

September 17, South Florida

After consecutive games against teams that will arrive at The Swamp ranked, the Gators will get a break against South Florida, which is 3-18 in the last two seasons. The Gators hammered USF in Tampa last year, 42-20, a game in which Anthony Richardson passed for 152 yards and two TDs while running for 115 on four carries, one for a TD. The Bulls return 16 starters (8 offense, 8 defense) so they should be improved, but they’re at least two recruiting classes from being able to hold their own with even the SEC bottom feeders.

September 24, at Tennessee

Optimism is through the roof in Knoxville after Josh Heupel guided the Vols to a 7-6 record in his first year on the job. The Vols return 13 starters, the most important of which is QB Hendon Hooker (2,945 passing yards, 31 TDs; 613 rushing yards, 5 TDs), who some experts believe will be the second best QB in the SEC behind Bryce Young of Alabama, who won the Heisman Trophy in 2021. The Vols scored 39.1 points per game last year, but they managed only 14 in a blowout loss to the Gators. This game is circled on every UT calendar as Vol fans believe they can challenge Georgia for the SEC East title. Two big red flags: (1) The possibility the NCAA will drop the hammer on the UT program for 18 Level I violations under the Jeremy Pruitt regime; and (2) only two of their seven wins last year came against teams that finished with a winning record. This will be Florida’s only road game among its first seven. It’s a game most experts have the Gators losing, but it should be noted that Florida is 16-1 against Tennessee since 2004.

October 1, Eastern Washington

This is a game that was scheduled as a favor to former UF coach Jim McElwain, who played football at Eastern Washington. The D1AA Eagles of the Big Sky Conference went 10-3 last season when they lost in the second round of the NCAA playoffs. Quarterback Eric Barriere graduated, taking his 46 touchdown passes with him. He will be replaced by Gunner Talkington, who has thrown 64 passes in his career. This game will be played in the hottest stadium and the biggest crowd Eastern Washington has faced since the Eagles lost to Texas Tech before a crowd of 54,000 in 2017. Florida should win this by 20 or more points.

October 8, Missouri

Missouri sprung the upset on the Gators in Dan Mullen’s final game as the UF head coach last season in Columbia. This year the Tigers come to Gainesville without an experienced QB and without stud running back Tyler Batie. The Tigers, who went 6-7 in 2021, return 12 starters (5 offense, 7 defense) from a team that is the preseason consensus No. 6 team out of seven in the SEC East. It’s a rebuilding year for HBC Eli Drinkwitz, who pulled off a recruiting coup when he landed Luther Burden, the No. 1 high school receiver in the country last year. The question is who will throw it to him? Brady Cook who threw 58 passes and two TDPs last year emerged in the spring as the likely starting QB. Mizzou will arrive at The Swamp after back-to-back games against Auburn and Georgia.

October 15, LSU

Florida’s season has gone south the last two years after losing to LSU. The Gators lost to the Tigers 37-34 in The Swamp in 2020 in the infamous “Shoe-gate” game and last year the Tigers pounded the Gators between the tackles for 321 yards and a 49-42 win. After losing in 2020, the Gators lost the SEC Championship Game to Alabama a week later and to Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl. After the loss to LSU last year, the Gators lost four of their last six games to finish with a losing season. Coach O has been replaced at LSU by Brian Kelly, formerly of Notre Dame. He brought in more than 15 transfers to bolster both sides of the ball as the Tigers return only five starters (2 offense, 3 defense) from last year’s 6-7 team. The QB is likely to be Arizona State transfer Jayden Daniels, who threw for 6,205 yards and 32 TDs while running for 1,288 and 13 TDs at ASU. Daniels will have one of the SEC’s most dangerous receivers in Kayshon Boutte, who caught 38 passes for 509 yards and nine TDs last year in only six games before he was injured. Before the Tigers make it to Gainesville, they have to play Auburn on the road and Tennessee.

Those first seven games will be the key to Florida’s entire season. This is the kind of schedule that could see the Gators going 3-4 if they get off to a bad start against Utah and Kentucky, but if UF goes 2-0 out of the gate, a 6-1 or even 7-0 start is conceivable. And, if the Gators start out with six or seven wins they will have momentum heading into that two-game gauntlet of Georgia and Texas A&M (in College Station).

Playing at home will certainly be a key factor for UF, particularly for the development of quarterback Anthony Richardson. Richardson may have more raw talent than any quarterback in the Southeastern Conference. He is a Body by God physical specimen who has an NFL arm and elite speed when he tucks and runs. The question is consistency. Can he harness all that ability to become the dual threat QB that nobody in the SEC wants to face?

As talented as Richardson is, he won’t have to go it alone. Florida has one of the more underrated stables of running backs in the SEC in Louisiana transfer Montrell Johnson along with Nay’Quan Wright, Lorenzo Lingard and true freshman Trevor Etienne, younger brother of former Clemson All-American running back Travis Etienne. They will be running behind what is probably Florida’s best offensive line since 2009 when the Gators featured Mike and Maurkice Pouncey, Marcus Gilbert, Mo Hurt and Xavier Nixon, all of whom made it to the NFL. Florida returns five linemen with starting experience – LT Richard Gouraige (6-5, 308), LG Ethan White (6-4, 331), C Kingsley Eguakun (6-3, 301), RG Josh Braun (6-6, 351) and RT Michael Tarquin (6-5, 295) – and they’ll be joined by Louisiana transfer O’Cyrus Torrence (6-5, 347), who has made some preseason All-America lists, Louisiana transfer Kamryn Waites (6-8, 373) and juco transfer Jordan Herman (6-8, 370). There is plenty of talent but do the Gators have the depth? O-line coaches Rob Sale and Darnell Stapleton have to find at least two more ready to go players to have the kind of depth it takes to survive in the SEC.

Receiver has been a question mark mostly because none of the returnees has shown elite speed in the past. Justin Shorter has caught 66 passes for 818 yards (12.4 per catch) and six TDS in two seasons while Xzavier Henderson has 35 catches for 425 yards (12.2 per catch) and three TDs while Trent Whittemore has 29 catches for 338 yards (11.7 per catch) and two TDs. Those aren’t exactly the kind of stats that keep defensive coordinators up at night. Florida added Arizona State transfer Ricky Pearsall, who caught 61 passes for 794 yards (13.0) and five touchdowns in three seasons. The question on everybody’s mind is were these guys handicapped by a system that rarely launched deep passes or was it a case that they couldn’t get open deep? If they can stretch defenses, then Florida’s running game is going to be hugely successful. Tight end Dante Zanders was a real find in the spring when he lit up defenses. He will have to be a factor in the middle of the field.

There is reason to believe that if the Gators can find some tackles the defense will be the best it has been since the 2016 season when the Gators finished fifth nationally. Patrick Toney brings the creeper defense to the Gators. That’s the invention of Ron Roberts, who taught it to Dave Aranda (Baylor head coach and former LSU DC) and Toney when the two were on Napier’s Louisiana staff. Toney has an all-star staff with D-line coach Sean Spence, inside linebackers coach Jay Bateman, outside linebackers coach and former Gator All-American Mike Peterson, and corners coach Corey Raymond. This will be the best coached Florida defense in years.

The concern at DT is because Gervon Dexter is Florida’s only proven commodity. Help has to be found in the trenches if the Gators are going to hold their own in the first two games (Utah and Kentucky), both of which prefer ground and pound style. If Desmond Watson (6-5, 415) can hold his own in the middle, the Gators should be good against the run. The Gators have an exceptional edge rusher in Brenton Cox Jr. (12.5 career sacks), who can have a monster season if he can stay healthy.

It's the back seven that raises expectations for this defense. Getting Ventrell Miller (166 career tackles) for one more season at inside linebacker may have been Napier’s best recruiting job. The secondary will be exceptional with Jason Marshall at one corner and either Avery Helm or Georgia transfer Jalen Kimber at the other. Trey Dean III is expected to have an excellent season.

There will be reason for great optimism if the Gators can establish themselves in the first seven games and avoid injuries. Every team in the SEC has 22-30 players. The teams that win 4-5 games have 30-36 players. Teams that win 6-8 games have at least 44 good players, but they have a small margin for error. One or two injuries can prove costly. Florida has at least 44 players. Can Napier find at least 6-8 more who can contribute in August?

If he can, then the Gators might just get off to a faster start than anyone might have dared predict. The Gators have what it takes to be a better than average team. Do they have what it takes to be a very good team? A team capable of challenging for at least second place in the SEC East? A 6-1 or even 7-0 start is possible. Do that and the Gators might be the surprise team of the SEC.