Billy Napier ‘consumed’ with Gators’ daily regimen, not future SEC scheduling

Billy Napier will make his first-ever appearance at the league’s annual spring meetings next week in Sandestin, Fla.

SEC spring meetings begin on Tuesday and run through Friday. A number of hot topics will be addressed this year, but the Florida Gators coach won’t be the one to break the ice.

“I’ll behave just like I should as a rookie head coach around a lot of veteran coaches,” Billy Napier said Thursday.

One of the items on next week’s agenda will be the future of conference scheduling with Oklahoma and Texas joining the SEC in 2025. Will the league eliminate divisions or split into pods, and how frequently should teams play each other?

“I don’t have enough bandwidth right now to even think about that,” Napier said when asked for his opinion. “If I was sitting here and it was Year 4 (maybe). Right now, I’m consumed with what’s right in front of my face here. And there’s a lot on that sheet of paper right now.”

Does Napier have an opinion on whether the SEC should play eight or nine conference games?

“I could care less,” he said. “I got thousands of problems to solve before I can have an educated opinion. I don’t have enough time in the day to think about all that. We’re just trying to get 11 on the field and get lined up the right way.

“I’ve had brief conversations with Scott [Stricklin] and he’s asked me the same question and I gave him the same answer. So, right now, I’m consumed with the Florida Gators and all the things we need to do to improve. … My day is jam-packed with other things.”

His team’s day-to-day schedule tops that list.

After the Gators completed spring ball, which is Phase 3 of their year-round calendar, they moved into what Napier calls the Discretionary Period, aka summer break. 

The team started Phase 5, Regimen, on Wednesday. It’s a nine-week training block to get the players ready for fall camp (Phase 6).

“We just finished up with the discretionary, reload period where they have some time off. They were off for 35 days. We had exit meetings,” Billy Napier said. “We have lots of work to do relative to developing a plan. Regimen is essentially a nine-week training block. It’s a four-week, 28-day workload, one week off.

“We have some time between that and training camp. We have a weekly routine Monday to Friday. What that entails is we get eight hours a week with the players. Strength and conditioning, skill development, simulated training. Film review. It’s by the minute. There’s also lots of opportunities here for ownership at the player level and for leadership at the player level as we go into this.”

During his appearance this week on the Gators Online Podcast, Florida cornerback Jordan Young discussed returning from summer break for the team’s Regimen phase.

“The first time when we got back, we had a team meal with everybody in the meeting. Everybody was all just excited to see everybody all laughs and giggles in the locker room and in the team meeting room. Everybody was ready to get back together and work,” Young said.

“And then we had our first run (Wednesday) and everybody was just ready to work getting back to it. It’s definitely challenging the first day, getting right back to it or whatever, but everybody’s got that determination in their mind. Like, everybody.”

This summer will be one for the books!

I love this team!🐊

— Edward Thompson Jr. (@EdThompsonjr_) May 27, 2022