There have been some heated arguments about the way Billy Napier has run his program from the start. One of the biggest points of contention is the topic of offensive coordinator.
By job titles, offensive line coach Rob Sale was the sole offensive coordinator across 2022-23. In 2024, tight ends coach Russ Callaway picked up a co-OC title, and Sale's title changed to co-OC as well.
By actual job responsibility, however, the offensive coordinator in all three seasons has been Napier himself. While game planning is still a team effort even with a play-calling savant like Dan Mullen as head coach, the person with final say of the plays run on game day is what most people think of when they think of the term "offensive coordinator". And by that reasoning, Napier has always been his own OC.
Napier chose to make himself the OC (and non-analyst quarterbacks coach) to make room on the staff to have the unusual setup of two offensive line coaches. He also said at SEC Media Days in 2023 that calling plays is "as close as I can get to playing the game", and, "I really believe it's a way to keep a hand on the identity of your team". One reason practical, the other personal.
Broadly speaking, it is always controversial to do things differently than what others do. If there isn't an immediate, obvious improvement over the norm, then merely the act of trying something nonstandard will rankle some folks because, "that's why no one else does it that way". Even if almost no one else has tried it that way, and so those others largely wouldn't know from experience.
But also, Napier hadn't distinguished himself as an offensive coordinator. He was named OC in his late 20s at Clemson. It was too early in his career, and he was fired after two seasons. Nick Saban passed him over for OC while on staff in Tuscaloosa, his one year at Arizona State was fine but not outstanding, and only his second Louisiana team got out of the low 30s in points per game. The low 30s is where his successor and former co-OC Michael Desormeaux had the Ragin' Cajuns each of the past two years through his own play calling.
The Gators have scored 29.5, 28.4, and 28.3 points per game in the last three seasons, respectively. That's despite having Anthony Richardson the first year, Graham Mertz for most of the next, and a mix of Mertz, a true freshman DJ Lagway, and some Aidan Warner playing behind center this fall. One way or another, Napier is ending up in the high 20s for points per game. To be fair, UF was at 31.8 PPG in 2022 prior to the bowl that AR and a host of other Gators didn't play in.
The days of 2002 Ohio State or 2006 Florida winning a national title at a hair under 30 points scored per game are over and are probably never coming back. Even last year's Michigan, the most manball-y team to win a title since probably 2009 Alabama, averaged 36 points per game. And that '09 Bama team scored 32 a game itself. Averaging 28 or 29 points per game isn't going to cut it nowadays.
But even as that is true, it was also true that the Florida offenses of 2022 and 2023 seemed to get almost no help from the other side of the ball. Napier's first two teams lost a combined six games while scoring 30+ points, a threshold that should result in a win far more often than not. That fact led to a common refrain from those defending Napier: "but, the offense isn't really the problem". I engaged in some of that myself, before concluding with a note that I thought the offense was inadequate, in that piece I just linked to.
I looked up the national rankings in the F/+ advanced stats ratings for Florida's offense and defense for the past decade. F/+ is a combination of the play-by-play based SP+ system from Bill Connelly and the drive-based FEI system from Brian Fremeau. Both are opponent-adjusted and are among the gold standards of analytics.
The first thing that jumps out is how dreadful the offense was under Jim McElwain. The offense was way worse under him and Doug Nussmeier than the defense was in any post-2019 season, which is saying something.
However, you'll note that the blame has flipped from last year to this one. The defense really did get things turned around that much this year, which means the offense is the problem now. At least, it is provided 2024 wasn't a one-time fluke and the defense maintains or improves from here.
There are some caveats, because there always are. I can't toss out the data from when Warner was quarterback, and few teams are going to look great with a third-string, preferred walk-on transfer from the Ivy League playing his first collegiate action ever. Lagway was also a true freshman who made a lot of freshman miscues that theoretically won't happen near as much going forward.
But make no mistake, the offense lacked ambition with Mertz and consistency with Lagway. And deep shot rates aside, it really didn't look a ton different despite those signal callers being very different players. Receiver usage lurched about without much apparent rhyme or reason too.
I'm not qualified to judge scheme on a highly technical level, but the lack of tactical play-calling to combat specific defenses and a general lack of creativity have been bugaboos for years for the Gator Nation Football Podcast film reviews. There is also a Bleacher Report article from after Napier's firing at Clemson that occasionally makes the rounds that says:
"[Napier's] lack of success in 2010 was due to his predictability on offense. The play calling was conservative, and his offenses failed to develop any kind of identity at any point during the season, even when Andre Ellington was healthy. His tendencies were easy to read, as noted in the Boston College game, the players and personnel knew if the play was under center, it was a run; if it was in the shotgun, it was a pass."
The year, opponent, and player name aside from that paragraph, basically the same charges have been leveled at Napier many times during his run at Florida. The attack finally developed something of a firm identity with the runs-and-bombs offense deployed for Lagway, but it took years to get there.
If Napier is serious about being the head coach at Florida long into the future, he has to get serious about having a championship-level offense. If last year was the right time to make changes on the defensive staff, this year is the time for offense.
It's time, specifically, for a new offensive coordinator to take over play-calling from Napier.
The head coach has a ton of responsibilities on game day, and it's a hard job to perform them all even without calling plays. Napier doesn't seem to be the fastest guy at making decisions on his feet, which has resulted in all kinds of questionable game management decisions and in-game blunders over the years. Even in the just-played Gasparilla Bowl, UF had to take two timeouts in the first half because of not having the right number of players on the field for special teams.
There has never been a better time for Napier to hire an OC, because a rule change over last summer made it possible for analysts to provide direct instruction at practice and during games. Teams can still only have 11 "countable" coaches who are allowed to do off-campus recruiting, but the coach/analyst dichotomy outside the recruiting sphere is no more.
The change happened in late June, which was too late for staffs to make personnel moves based on it. The coaching carousel for assistants being in motion now allows for moves to be made in reaction to the rule change. Napier can have a play-calling offensive coordinator and still have two O-line coaches if only one of them recruits off campus. Heck, he could have five O-line coaches if he really wanted to, provided he can find five worth hiring inside his budget parameters
If the defense stays fixed -- which, again, is a big if -- the offense is the side of the ball that needs the most help in Gainesville. And no matter where the defense goes from here, the offense hasn't performed close to a championship-caliber level since 2020. Napier's offenses haven't been bad in the way that the McElwain/Nussmeier ones were, not by a long shot, but they don't inspire confidence in his ability to get a 2020-like performance from the team.
I have neither inside sources nor a crystal ball, so I can't tell you if Napier will hire someone to call the plays in his stead next year. But Florida is highly unlikely to win any titles with an offense that performs at the level that Napier's have historically. He could get a premier college football job with his own skill in that department, but that skill just isn't enough to keep it for the long haul.