by Bob Redman
The Florida Gators are currently in the middle of the Regimen portion of the yearly building blocks for head coach Billy Napier’s football program. Regimen is all about structure and accountability for his team in this phase. Outside linebacker Antwaun Powell has learned to appreciate the structure that Napier’s staff has brought to the program.
We caught up with Powell at a football clinic set up by the Boys and Girls Club of Alachua County. It’s an opportunity for players on the Florida team to coach up kids in the surrounding community. The club turns around and offers up the proceeds from the camp to the players through the Gator Collective. It’s a win-win for all involved.
The club has set up six different Fridays this summer with different position groups being taught on each clinic day. Meanwhile the Florida players have been going through summer workouts and classes as well.
The workouts include quite a bit of running but also dealing with weights. It’s all about trying to build a competitive advantage.
“They’re going good,” Powell said a couple of weeks ago about summer workouts while working at the clinic. “Coach Napier and the staff they have us working. We’re running and getting the work in. Mainly just running and lifting, not too much, a lot of running.”
“We make it a competition. When we have workouts and stuff we’re out there racing with each other. Me, B-Cox, Lloyd, D-Reese, all of us, we’re out there working and making each other get better.”
Napier and his staff have made it a real purpose to incorporate the accountability and structure into the program. The Regimen piece to the football calendar is designed to make the players stay on course with everything they do. Many are even able to do things like work in the clinics for kids and fit that into their busy schedules.
They have created the Regimen standings. It’s a competition each week between nine different groups of players on the squad. And the standings are broadcast via social media at the end of each week.
Napier is determined to get the squad to grow as young men and so they are really prepared when they eventually leave the University of Florida.
“Basically be on time for everything,” Powell said about the main motto. “Making sure they’re on time for tutoring, breakfast, lunch, meetings. If there is something that you didn’t turn in (in the classroom), you get points taken off for that. Basically it’s the little things. That’s what Coach Napier is teaching us. It’s about the small details.
“It’s a lot of points you get taken off really for things that you would think are that important, but it really is. So if you see someone parking under the stadium or something, you aren’t supposed to be doing that, you get points off for that. If you have earrings at workouts you get points off for that. It’s the little things that will help us in the future.”
The new thorough approach to the off-field structure is something that Powell can see really making a difference. Along with some things that have physically improved or will improve like parking for the players and the new stand-alone football facility, structuring their daily lives is something that a lot have never dealt with before.
“I 100-percent agree with it,” Powell said about the program. “I really feel like that’s the kind of thing that we need. Bringing attention to detail will help out with everything, whether that’s the playbook, whether it’s being on time for tutoring, or whether it’s knowing what you have to do with the schedule and time management. You have to make sure you pay attention to the small things because it can mess you up if you don’t.”