Kirby Smart has high praise for Billy Napier, his ability to lead

Georgia faces a familiar foe this weekend, as they take on Florida in one of the SEC’s most highly touted rivalry games, but it will be their first time facing Gator’s first-year head coach Billy Napier. But Bulldog’s head coach Kirby Smart is familiar with Napier, as the two worked together in 2011 at Alabama under Nick Saban, which Smart reflected on ahead of their first head coaching matchup.

“He’s very thorough, he’s an extremely hard worker, a great husband and father, but he’s a good leader of men,” Smart said. “And I knew from the first time he got to Alabama, I don’t know what year it was but whatever year he got there, he was gonna be really good because he paid attention to detail, took a lot of notes, he is really smart.”

Napier joined the Alabama staff in 2011 as an offensive analyst while Smart was serving as the defensive coordinator for the Crimson Tide. The two helped contribute to Alabama’s 2011 team that only suffered one loss and took home the BCS National Championship.

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“He was there to learn and I think he capitalized on the time he spent there to look at football from a different perspective maybe than what he looked at previously,” Smart said.

The two went their separate ways following that season, with Smart becoming Georgia’s 26th head football coach in school history in 2016 and Napier making stops at Colorado State, back to Alabama, and Arizona State before securing his first head coaching job at Louisiana-Lafayette in 2018.

“And was really successful at ULL, which is a great school, great location, a lot of good football players but they won a lot of football games with him there,” Smart said.

Napier helped transform a program that was 5-7 the season before his arrival to a team that appeared in the conference championship and a bowl game in each of his four seasons at the helm and secured conference title wins in his last two seasons.

Napier is looking to generate a similar turnaround in Gainesville, as he currently leads a 4-3 Gators squad that will be seeking a signature win over the defending National Champions this weekend. The Bulldogs have won four of the last five matchups against Florida, and are currently 22.5 point favorites this weekend, as two familiar teams, and head coaches, will square off in Jacksonville this Saturday at 3:30 p.m.