Napier: Evolve, adapt and if necessary, steal an idea

Obviously, whoever it was that came up with the old adage “there is honor among thieves” was not a football coach. A thief may not steal from another thief, but coaches will certainly steal from other coaches.

“Everything I’ve learned I’ve stolen from someone else,” Billy Napier said at a Friday morning press conference. “You have to remain humble enough to admit that and continue to adapt.”

Most coaches, if pressed, will admit that much or even all of what they do has its origins elsewhere. Oh sure, we have some original ideas out there, but even the original ideas have their roots somewhere else. For example, Urban Meyer arrived at Florida in 2005 with a “genius” reputation due to his newfangled spread option offense. It was new and it was funky, but when asked to break it down, Meyer explained that it was nothing more than the single wing with wide receivers and far more passing than you ever saw in the Bob Neyland era when the single wing was the predominant offense in college football.

We may not see something that looks new and original when Napier and the Florida Gators take the field this fall, but make no mistake about it nearly everything the Gators do is a hybrid of something he learned from other coaches before he landed his first head coaching gig at Louisiana.

The first lessons came from his north Georgia high school football coach father – “I grew up in the hip pocket of my Dad,” Billy Napier says. Napier’s dad taught him the importance of personal relationships with kids and since high school coaches, for the most part, can’t recruit, they live and die with the kids in their school district. If they win, they have to adapt. The influence of his dad was so great that Billy’s two brothers are high school coaches and his sister “would probably would coach high school football if you’d let her.”

Napier played quarterback at Furman for Bobby Lamb, then embarked on a coaching career that has seen him work his way up the ranks, providing ample opportunity to steal philosophy, schemes and whatever else to forge into a personal coaching identity.

“If you look my career,” Napier says, “I worked for some exceptional head coaches – Tommy Bowden (Clemson), Buddy Pough (South Carolina State), Dabo Swinney (Clemson), Jim McElwain (Colorado State), Todd Graham (Arizona State).”

And, of course, Nick Saban at Alabama – twice in fact – under whom he learned how to adapt to changing times. During Napier’s first Alabama stint, the offense was based on pounding between the tackles then throwing over the top when defenses stacked the box. The second time on Saban’s staff, the offensive coordinator was Lane Kiffin. Saban brought him to Tuscaloosa to transform and modernize the offense. The times changed. The game evolved. Nick Saban adapted.

“One of the things about Coach Saban that I really respect is he continues to evolve,” Napier said. “He continues to adapt … his ability to adjust to the current climate.”

A 40-12 record in four years as Louisiana’s head coach is a rather compelling piece of evidence that Napier was a sponge, absorbing lessons from how to run a football program as a head coach/CEO to how to surround yourself with good assistant coaches and analysts to how to adapt on the fly due to the personnel that’s on hand. How much of each of his former bosses Napier has incorporated into his own personal coaching bible we’ll see in the fall. Certainly there are bits stolen from one coach and pieces taken from another. If necessary, Napier will take a chunk of some other coach’s way of doing things and incorporate it into what the Gators need to win a game.

Coaching football is a fluid situation that requires the ability to anticipate and make necessary changes. As he learned at Louisiana, creating a winner is sometimes a trial and error procedure while figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

“Everything didn’t fit there,” he admitted. “This journey will be no different. I think we learn something every day, what works here, what doesn’t.”

In those first two seasons at Louisiana, the Ragin Cajuns went 18-10 as Napier took holdovers from the previous staff and turned them into winners. O-line coach Rob Sale says while they were figuring out what would and wouldn’t work, the Cajuns probably won a few games they shouldn’t have. As Napier replaced holdovers from the previous coach with his own recruits, Louisiana morphed into a team that went 23-2 the last two years with one Sun Belt Conference championship. Probably the best thing about working for so many successful coaches before landing the Louisiana gig is that Napier had a chance to categorize answers for every problem he would encounter.

In turning Louisiana into a Sun Belt Conference and Group of Five powerhouse, Napier became one of the hottest coaching properties in the country. He turned down Auburn, Mississippi State and Tennessee among others before accepting the Florida job. As his star has risen, there have been the inevitable comparisons to former boss Nick Saban.

A Saban clone they call Napier. More than a few who follow the Alabama program closely suggest that if and when Saban ever decides to hang up the whistle that Napier will get the first call when the powers that be in Tuscaloosa begin their search for a successor. If Napier wins big, as he is being paid to do, at Florida there will certainly be a lot of chatter that he is the obvious choice to take up where Nick left off when he decides to retire.

Napier won’t hear of anyone projecting him as Saban’s successor. For one thing, he has a monumental task ahead of him to return the Florida Gators back to the level of consistency enjoyed in the Spurrier and Meyer years. Spurrier went 122-27-1 with six SEC titles and a national championship in 12 years. Meyer went 65-15 with two SEC championships and two national championships in six years. In the 11 years since Meyer coached his last game at Florida, the Gators have had pockets of success but no SEC or national championships to show for it.

The Gators were a combined 187-42-1 in the Spurrier and Meyer years. That’s winning at an 81.6 percent level. In the last 11 years, the Gators have gone 87-52, winning at a 62.5 percent clip.

What the Spurrier and Meyer years tell us is that Florida is very capable of winning championships and staying relevant in the national championship hunt. What the last 11 years have told us is for a return to Gator glory it will take a coach who has a meticulous plan in place, an excellent staff of assistants, and infrastructure in the form of analysts, recruiting specialists and facilities to play catch up to the likes of Alabama, Georgia, LSU and even Auburn, all of whom have won at least one national championship since the last time the Gators won one (2008).

Napier has the plan, the assistants, what he calls an “army” of analysts and recruiting specialists, and now he’s about to move into the brand spanking new standalone football facility that he says is a game-changer. Those are very nice pieces to the puzzle of what Napier intends the Florida football program to become, but success will be determined by winning on the field. The best plan, the best assistants, the right people to analyze and pinpoint recruits, and the best facilities only put pressure on Napier to win.

This is where the thief in Napier will be put to the task. He has one of the more inexperienced rosters top to bottom that you will find in the Southeastern Conference. There are perhaps 35 players with SEC experience. There is a handful of transfers who gained experience somewhere else and then there is everybody else – talented enough, perhaps, but certainly not experienced enough. This might very well make Napier feel it’s déjà vu, that he’s back in Lafayette, Louisiana for a second tour of duty. Somehow, in the three weeks that remain in fall camp and the game-week preps that will take place before the Gators take the field against Utah on September 3, Napier and his staff will have to figure out who fits where as well as what will or won’t work from the previous gig.

This is where all the things learned and stolen from other coaches will come in handy.

“How to take all these things and make it your own – that’s what we’ve tried to do, our identity, our personality,” Napier said. “Take the things that you think fit you, that you think will be effective for your team.”

The personality of the team has taken shape thanks to buy-in by veteran players and carryover from the spring. From the time spring practice ended in mid-April until camp opened last week, Napier and his staff have had limited contact with the players per NCAA rules. So, it has been up to the strength and conditioning staff along with veteran leadership to get the team ready to go.

What pleased Napier during the summer months was older players taking it upon themselves to teach the younger players the right way of doing things.

“I think we’ve made a lot of steps forward during the summer,” Napier said. “A lot of that is player-led. I think the ownership at the player level – often times, I think the best way to learn and get comfortable with material is if you can teach someone else the material, right. So what you’re describing there is a veteran player be able to teach a rookie player. I think there’s a ton of value in that. We did that throughout the summer.

“My dad used to say, ‘You can talk to them all you want but if you’ve got a guy who can do it right, who you can say do it like he did it,’ there’s a lot of value in that. I do think that we’re seeing that take place. Veterans being good examples not only in terms of how they play the game but also their self-discipline in how they’re approaching training camp. I think that’s a very important part.”

Veteran-led summer workouts have been replaced by structured practices that emphasize discipline and fundamentals, things that were in short supply last year when the Gators went 6-7. It is still way too early to predict just how well the Gators will play or how many games they will win in the fall, but one thing is certain – the head coach has at his disposal resources gathered over the years from some of the best college football coaches in the country to build a foundation for long term success.

The years have taught Billy Napier that when it comes to coaching football there is no honor among thieves. Coaches regularly steal ideas and schemes from other coaches and then plug them into their own situations. Napier has certain principles and core values that will never change, but when it comes to doing what it takes to win football games, he knows there is nothing wrong with stolen ideas that work.