Billy Napier discusses Florida's revamped staff, plans for hiring

Florida is coming off of an incredibly disappointing 6-7 season. The Gators fired former head coach Dan Mullen, and hired Louisiana head coach Billy Napier as his replacement. Since taking over at Florida, Napier has made a ton of chances to the Gators’ coaching staff.

Napier hasn’t made the changes to Florida’s staff just for the sake of making changes. He understands that getting the right people in place out of the gate is the key to building a successful college football program. Napier also knows that the work is far from being over.

“I could probably tell you how many we have left to hire,” Napier said when asked if he knew off the top of his head how many people he’s hired to Florida’s coaching staff. “Probably more than we’ve hired. I know that we’ve tried to be intentional about building this the right way. I don’t know the number off the top of my head. We still have work. There’s work left to do here. We’ve tried to be really patient and thorough. A lot goes into this. It’s the most important thing that we do. So I think if you get it right in the front end, then there’s less issues going forward. So that’s what we’re trying to do.

“I’m really excited about the caliber of person that we’ve been able to attract here. Not only their character and integrity, but also their expertise in the area that we’re asking them to do work with, the team and the organization. And then obviously there’s the recruiting strategy and footprint is a big part of that as well. So each one of these is a big deal I think. There’s a lot of people that contribute your success in college football. I think we understand that.”

Napier made an addition to Florida’s staff on Monday

On Monday, it was announced that Jay Bateman was joining Billy Napier’s staff at Florida. Bateman, previously North Carolina’s defensive coordinator, was let go from his position just ten days ago. He will reportedly work as Florida’s linebackers coach next season.

Bateman has been with the Tar Heels since 2018. Prior to his days in Chapel Hill, Bateman was Army’s defensive coordinator from 2014-2018. Army had one of the nation’s top defenses multiple times under Bateman, and he was a nominee for the Broyles Award in 2016. He has also worked at Ball State and multiple other FCS and Division II schools.