Repetitions will get you everywhere you want to go with the right teachers. Florida Gators head football coach Billy Napier has tried to surround his new team in Gainesville with good teachers and now the task at hand is to let them teach as he tries to build the most talented team in college football through recruiting high school players and the transfer portal. His four part plan to win games is simple, but it all revolves around the team being consistent in doing the right things. They will win every game that they do well on all four parts.
Take a good look at the four parts of the plan and it’s easy to see that if the last two Florida teams were able to execute them, their fate would have been much greater than what Florida fans witnessed.
If there is anything that Napier has shown us in his brief time as the head coach at Florida it’s that he tries to leave no stone unturned in terms of the education of the student-athletes he is responsible for and in every facet of their time at Florida. Winning football games is of course a big part of it all. For that he and his staff preach four things.
Win the turnover margin
In the Gators 2021 season where they finished 6-7, the Gators were ranked 13 of 14 SEC teams in terms of turnover margin. The stat isn’t just about giving the ball away which Florida was 12th in the conference with 21, the Gators also didn’t take the ball away often enough, only nine times in 13 games.
When talking to the media after the Gator’s second scrimmage of the spring on Saturday, Napier emphasized the importance of turnover margin.
“I think we say, ‘On the ball, attack the ball.’ So the turnover margin is, obviously, the most significant statistic relative to playing winning football.”
Importance of winning down and distance situations
If a team is going to sustain winning football not only in games, but throughout the season, you have to be able to convert first downs and ultimately score touchdowns on the offensive side of the ball. Likewise, you have to stop the opposing offense from scoring. You have to be sound when it comes to the different areas of the field that teams attack or defend and how they attack or defend within series. Napier’s second part of the formula reads:
“We want to be situation experts relative to the down and distance of the field zone, the clock.”
Master the crafts at each position and responsibility on the field in order to stay on the attack
Napier hired teachers for his players, coaches that know what they are doing and will try and put them in the best possible position to win games. He also brought in an army of people to help facilitate the learning. Each position has assistants that don’t coach on the field, but are can be there off the field to help with the players with anything. They are joined by a pretty veteran coaching staff that has been through their fair share of football wars. Part three of his plan goes something like this:
“We want to master our craft which is all about techniques and fundamentals and then we want to be aggressive in all three phases and the collective effort of all three issues being an issue for the other team.”
Just finish
The fourth and last part of his formula to win is to finish. In order to win the game you have to break it down into its smallest parts and don’t leave an opening to any of those parts for the opponent to take advantage of. That’s why every player in every moment they are on the field has to follow through to the end of every play.
“We want to finish. We talk about legendary finish and that’s finishing plays, it’s finishing possessions, and ultimately it’s finishing the game.”
Napier is very regimented in everything he does. He has a plan for everything and he wants to stick to it. His formula for winning games is something he has stuck to for the four previous years he has been a college football head coach. This team has a long way to go to be able to master the formula.
“It doesn’t change,” he said of the formula. “The formula has worked for us. Typically when you go back and look at a competition, it comes down to the basic things. We got to do the simple things well and that’s what I see we think we need to improve.”