Florida’s Billy Napier, longtime Gators’ admirer, ‘humbled’ to be new coach

New Florida coach Billy Napier grew up admiring the Gators from afar.

Steve Spurrier’s Fun ‘n’ Gun offense with record-setter Danny Wuerffel at the controls captured the imagination of a young quarterback. Those halcyon days in Gainesville even inspired Napier’s dad, a local coach, to bring a little bit of the Gators to north Georgia.

“Funny story, my dad actually became the head coach and he changed the uniforms of the team,” Napier recalled Sunday. “Our uniform was exactly like the Florida Gators. So my dad was a big fan for sure.”

Bill Napier Sr. passed away in 2017 after a 4-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but his oldest of four felt his presence on his first day as Florida’s new coach.

“Heck, he’s here,” said Billy Napier, a man of strong Christian faith. “That’s what I would tell you. He’s here. So he’s smiling, I’ll tell you that much.”

Napier now aims to make his late father proud and revive a once-proud program.

Athletics director Scott Stricklin introduced Napier confident he can put the program on a path of sustained success.

Florida is making a big-time investment in the 42-year-old following a decade of coaching hires that each showed promise before not panning out.

“He’s the right guy at the right time,” Stricklin said. “He has the right vision. He’s the right person. I love the character that he displays, the humility he displays, but he also has a plan. He’s very thoughtful.

“He knows what’s he doing.”

Napier will succeed Dan Mullen, whose four-year run spectacularly flamed out and led to his Nov. 21 firing. Three New Year’s Six bowls with Mullen came on the heels of two SEC East titles in three seasons under Jim McElwain before the bottom fell out amid unproven claims of death threats. McElwain replaced Will Muschamp, whose Gators finished 11-2 in 2012 but won just 10 times the next two seasons before he was let go.

Napier capped an 11-1 season at Louisiana with a win during Saturday’s Sun Belt Conference title game. The 24-16 victory against Appalachian State gave him an 40-12 mark during four seasons in Lafayette.

But having served as an assistant at Clemson and Alabama, Napier knows the challenge he faces as he leaves the Group of Five for one of the game’s blue bloods.

“These jobs will chew you up and spit you out if you let ‘em,” Napier said.

Napier instead intends to put in place a carefully crafted and high-priced blueprint.

“It’ll be the most difficult early,” he said.

Napier will need time.

Sunday was the first time he set foot in Gainesville since 2011 when he was an analyst for Alabama — a 38-10 winner that day against the Gators.

But Napier was willing to make a leap of faith after turning down opportunities to leave Louisiana. Florida rewarded him with a seven-year contract worth more than $7 million annually, a raise of more than $5 million from the $2 million he earned this season.

Napier also will have a salary pool of $7.5 million for his assistant coaches, up from $6.2 million for Mullen, and $5 million to hire a support staff of analysts and quality-control coaches.

“We’re going to hire an army of people here,” Napier said. “We’ve got a great vision for the organization that we’re going to create here.”

Stricklin sees the dollar signs yet has shown he will do what it takes to build a winner.

Case in point: An $85-million standalone football facility set to open in the spring.

The facility Mullen hoped to inherit and McElwain pushed for will help Napier and his new staff lure top talent to Gainesville, the biggest knock on the previous two regimes.

“Scott, obviously, he’s been here. He’s been observing what’s going on,” Napier said. “He’s well aware of what’s happening out there and what the University of Florida needed to do to be competitive.

“So the negotiations were very simple. They didn’t flinch.”

The Gators Napier grew up watching never did.

Napier was raised in Chatsworth, Ga., two hours northwest of Athens — home to the Georgia Bulldogs. Napier, though, rooted for Alabama. After football on Friday nights, he woke up and hunkered down to watch the SEC and could not takes his eyes off the Gators.

“I can still remember growing up watching Florida play,” he said. “Coach Spurrier throwing that ball around the park ... still remember watching Danny Wuerffel — a long list of players when I was a young person.”

All these years later, he performed his first Gator Chomp with Albert, the team mascot, upon Napier’s arrival to UF’s private air strip on an athletic department plane.

Napier would make all the right moves from there.

“The passion and enthusiasm that has been shown to myself and our family has been outstanding,” he said. “We’re so appreciative. I can’t tell you how humbled I am.”

Napier’s modest, deliberate style was a change from Mullen’s frenetic pace, McElwain’s homespun persona and Muschamp’s deadpanned delivery.

Beyond Gainesville, Napier’s introduction unlikely made much of a ripple amid a tidal wave of football, including College Football Playoff pairings, bowl assignments and December’s NFL postseason push. Even in the Sunshine State, Miami’s pursuit of native son Mario Cristobal five hours south dominated the conversation.

Napier had much bigger concerns than headlines.

“I’m drinking water through a firehose right now.,” he said. “But it’s part of it. And we’re going to make the best of the situation one day at a time, one person at a time.

“That’s the approach we’ll take.”

This article first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email Edgar Thompson at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com or follow him on Twitter at @osgators.