- May 31, 2022
- 19
- 168
The biggest reason I think Napier succeeds is that I have come to learn that he's going to be adaptable.
Let me first start by saying I thought that about Dan Mullen to the extent of coaching offense when he was able to be successful on that side of the ball via a high octane passing offense and then had the ability to change to a pretty good run offense instead given a change in personnel. We have had plenty of offensive coaches around here that haven't been able to. But Mullen was too loyal to bad assistants. He never had answers on the defensive side and totally didn't want to deal with anything when it came to the program itself outside of really just coaching the kids.
Well the change I see is that Napier and his desire to surround himself with an army of people, is doing everything he can to mitigate any issues like that. Mullen didn't want to coordinate a staff of 60 or more people so even given the resources to do so he didn't do it. Napier is the coordinator of many coordinators around the program. I am sure he has some loyalty but I don't see him sitting around and allowing an assistant not to prove himself. They have every resource necessary to do their job at a high level.
But the biggest thing for me is that the army of people he has will allow for easy change to situations and change is one of the biggest things going on in college football. NIL, the SEC adding teams, transfer portal, dealing with scholarship counters, the things are relentless and he has an army of people to help with all of that.
And we are seeing it play out in Destin at the SEC spring meetings right now with his comfort level with these things. Outside of the SEC schedule for a 16-team league of which they are so many dizzying formats that they are considering and are very split on, the NIL is a huge issue as we saw play out between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher last week. And there are several different things that programs and coaches are bringing up about it this week and not many can agree on.
And then there is Napier. All cool, calm, and collected about the matter and seemingly ready to make a move one way or another if he needs to...
“There’s a ton of grey area relative to what you can do and what you can’t do," Napier said in Destin Tuesday. "There’s no manual, there’s no parameters, guidelines. I’m using the term, ‘We’re living in a land with no laws.’ I think it very much continues to be a very fluid situation. You hear something new each day.”
“I’m a firm believer that this is a positive. We’re living in a different era,”
“If you go back to 1990, and I did some research the other day, each SEC institution got like $1.3 million a year from the league. Just 13 years ago, I think it was around $6 million or $7 million, and I think this (2024 TV) deal is in the high 60s or low 70s per year.
“One of the things about my career is I’ve been in the profession and observed this explosion. It’s foolish to say the players don’t deserve a piece of the pie. If there are no players in these stadiums, nobody’s showing up to watch, and they’re certainly not sitting at home watching it on TV. It all leads back to the money and I think the TV industry has the key to the castle. You’ve got to get a lot of people to the table and there’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of conversations that have to happen.”
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That's a confident dude talking, not some sniveling 10 million a year coach that has been doing it under the table for who knows how long and doesn't like when everyone plays by the rules and some can match. Or the other coach that acts like it's not happening at all.
It seems like Napier's implying that there probably needs to be a revenue share here, but I also know that he's been hitting the state and finding some big time money people to lean on like those in the Gator Guard.
This guy is going to have a plan for all of this stuff because he makes sure to surround himself with people that can help him with whatever comes his way. And he's going to let the others just fuss about it.
Let me first start by saying I thought that about Dan Mullen to the extent of coaching offense when he was able to be successful on that side of the ball via a high octane passing offense and then had the ability to change to a pretty good run offense instead given a change in personnel. We have had plenty of offensive coaches around here that haven't been able to. But Mullen was too loyal to bad assistants. He never had answers on the defensive side and totally didn't want to deal with anything when it came to the program itself outside of really just coaching the kids.
Well the change I see is that Napier and his desire to surround himself with an army of people, is doing everything he can to mitigate any issues like that. Mullen didn't want to coordinate a staff of 60 or more people so even given the resources to do so he didn't do it. Napier is the coordinator of many coordinators around the program. I am sure he has some loyalty but I don't see him sitting around and allowing an assistant not to prove himself. They have every resource necessary to do their job at a high level.
But the biggest thing for me is that the army of people he has will allow for easy change to situations and change is one of the biggest things going on in college football. NIL, the SEC adding teams, transfer portal, dealing with scholarship counters, the things are relentless and he has an army of people to help with all of that.
And we are seeing it play out in Destin at the SEC spring meetings right now with his comfort level with these things. Outside of the SEC schedule for a 16-team league of which they are so many dizzying formats that they are considering and are very split on, the NIL is a huge issue as we saw play out between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher last week. And there are several different things that programs and coaches are bringing up about it this week and not many can agree on.
And then there is Napier. All cool, calm, and collected about the matter and seemingly ready to make a move one way or another if he needs to...
“There’s a ton of grey area relative to what you can do and what you can’t do," Napier said in Destin Tuesday. "There’s no manual, there’s no parameters, guidelines. I’m using the term, ‘We’re living in a land with no laws.’ I think it very much continues to be a very fluid situation. You hear something new each day.”
“I’m a firm believer that this is a positive. We’re living in a different era,”
“If you go back to 1990, and I did some research the other day, each SEC institution got like $1.3 million a year from the league. Just 13 years ago, I think it was around $6 million or $7 million, and I think this (2024 TV) deal is in the high 60s or low 70s per year.
“One of the things about my career is I’ve been in the profession and observed this explosion. It’s foolish to say the players don’t deserve a piece of the pie. If there are no players in these stadiums, nobody’s showing up to watch, and they’re certainly not sitting at home watching it on TV. It all leads back to the money and I think the TV industry has the key to the castle. You’ve got to get a lot of people to the table and there’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of conversations that have to happen.”
*********************************************************
That's a confident dude talking, not some sniveling 10 million a year coach that has been doing it under the table for who knows how long and doesn't like when everyone plays by the rules and some can match. Or the other coach that acts like it's not happening at all.
It seems like Napier's implying that there probably needs to be a revenue share here, but I also know that he's been hitting the state and finding some big time money people to lean on like those in the Gator Guard.
This guy is going to have a plan for all of this stuff because he makes sure to surround himself with people that can help him with whatever comes his way. And he's going to let the others just fuss about it.