By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Billy Napier is entering his second season as the head ball coach in Gainesville and he’s already on the hot seat. Is that fair or do Florida fans have unrealistic expectations?

Napier went 6 – 7 in his first season. Anthony Richardson was his quarterback and he was the fourth player selected in the 2023 NFL Draft. This raises a question about the Gators.

Typically, when a team has a very talented quarterback they have more success. They started the 2022 season with an upset of #7 Utah but it was all downhill after that.

By comparison, last season was Brian Kelly’s first season at LSU. He led the Tigers to a 10 – 4 record. One of those wins came against UF. This success has led to a very solid recruiting class.

Hugh Freeze was hired by Auburn at the end of November and he got talented players to transfer to Auburn.

So far, Napier has not snagged a talented recruiting class. Fans have to wonder, why are coaches at other SEC schools having immediate recruiting results?

Napier knows Florida has a lot to prove and needs the fan base to understand patience is key under a new regime.

The fact that Georgia won two consecutive national championships has to add to the pressure. It does not look like Florida will be able to compete with them anytime soon. Tennessee won eleven games last season, so they are also stiff competition.

Georgia has the No. 1 recruiting class of 2024 and Tennessee’s class is ranked No.8. The Gators are currently sitting at 11^th, which is not bad. That is lower than the top two teams in the SEC East though.

Napier did speak about future success.

“We’re going to be successful here, it’s just a matter of how fast it’s going to happen, that’s what I would tell you. I would be hopeful it would happen faster than fast, quickly, but reality is it may take us a little bit of time to get it done. We’re going to have to get … the ball’s got to bounce the right way here or there. Think about last year, we lost five games by essentially by one score. If we could play a little bit better at the end of the half, beginning of of the third quarter, play a little better on defense in terms of giving up explosive plays. There’s a number of variables that we weren’t good at all. Third down defense, red zone offense, lot of areas on our team where we know we sucked. It is what is. We did a lot of things great. We created a lot of explosive plays.”

If they get off to a slow start this season he’ll be in trouble. They do open the season at #14 Utah.