Billy Napier says Florida's theme is to agree to expectations

Ahead of the 2023 season, Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier knows what theme he wants to see from his team. The Gators need to agree to expectations and hold one another accountable to those expectations.

As the Gators get ready to start Fall Camp, Napier explained where this theme comes from.

“This is a critical time of the year,” Billy Napier said. “You’ve got to work really hard but you’ve got to work smart. I think, kind of, the theme here for training camp, all parts of the organization and the team, is we have to agree to an expectation.”

Last season, Florida went 6-7 with Anthony Richardson at quarterback. This season, with Richardson in the NFL, there are concerns that Florida will struggle. Their season win total is set at 5.5 wins and analysts like Greg McElroy are taking the under. Still, Napier wants the Gators to take the right approach.

“And I think that’s a big deal. I think if we can agree to what’s expected of each other, we can go into this training camp with the right attitude, the right approach, and we can say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’m up for that challenge. I’m going to put my ego aside, I’m going to put my emotions aside, and I’m going to be — coach me, tell me the truth.’ We can establish trust. We can establish respect, and I’m talking about relative to core values,” Napier said.

“I think there’s a football piece of this but more importantly, how about your integrity, your role on the team, what type of teammate you are, your discipline, your effort, your toughness — both physically but mentally, emotionally — and then do you bring confidence to the team? Do you spark belief amongst the team because of how hard you work, the attitude and approach that you take? You know we need to expose and eliminate any issues that we have, any chink in the armor that we have as we build our team.”

Billy Napier on balancing practice with a tough opening game

This season, Florida starts with a tough opening game on the road at Utah. Because of that, Billy Napier needs to find a way to balance physicality in practice with that game coming up quickly.

“I think that the workload may change depending on the players that are available practice to practice. But we’ve got a blueprint that we’ve used for a long time that’s time tested. We continue to evolve relative to the information that’s available from a sports science standpoint. So it’s got all the data. And we’ve taken a look at the last few years training camp relative to approach,” Napier said.

“We use the information we adjust and I really believe it’s not only the team practice to practice, position group to position group, but as individual players, we’ve gotten to a point where we can say hey, you know, we know the player load on this guy and we need to adjust accordingly. The scripts are built, the meeting time is built, the walkthroughs are built, the sleep you know, everything is built and we’re going to try to go execute it. We’ll adjust relative to the data practice to practice.”