Billy Napier speaks on managing the Gators roster with fall camp coming

FORT LAUDERDALE — The Florida Gators football team currently has 89 players on scholarship for the 2022 season. That isn’t an issue in May, but it will become one when the calendar turns to August and the Gators look to open fall camp.

It’s an issue that most thought would sort itself out. When a new football coach inherits a team there is typically attrition. It’s not the fault of the coach or of the players. Simply, a student-athlete committed to and intended to play for a different coaching staff. They stuck around and gave it a try, but the fit wasn’t right for them and they decide to look for a new school. Transferring has never been more accessible for a collegiate athlete than it is right now.

That wasn’t the case with the Gators. Napier only lost four players to the transfer portal. Two quarterbacks (Emory Jones and Carlo Rio-Wilson), a defensive lineman (Lamar Goods), and kicker Chris Howard. They also added six players through the transfer portal in the offseason.

“I think that that is a good sign, I think that there’s some positives. I do think that every personnel decision that you make is very calculated relative to your current team and the player or players that you’re trying to add to your team and then each year is a little bit different,” Napier said. “What we try to do is evaluate all the players that are available, ones that we think can maybe help our team. If the numbers work out, we’ll pursue that player and we’ve done that to some degree. We were successful in the winter portal period.”

It may, as Napier says, be a good sign that the players on the roster wanted to stay. That shows a belief in the new system and the new coach. It does, however, leave Napier and the Gators stuck playing a numbers game before fall camp can begin.

What was the extra year of eligibility given due to COVID?

Because of the hardships that had to be endured during the 2020 season and the cancellation of games the NCAA extended an extra year of eligibility to student-athletes who were on campus. While that was in good spirit, it has created headaches from a roster management perspective.

Typically, student-athletes are granted five years to play four seasons of their sport. However, due to the non-traditional 2020-21 sports season caused by COVID-19, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) extended this eligibility to six years.

Whether the athlete competed in the 2020 season as a freshman or they were graduating that year, they were granted an extra year of eligibility.

The NCAA passed a waiver for the 2021 season, which allowed those seniors who returned to school to not count against the 85-man scholarship limit. That allowed teams to have those “super seniors” on the roster while not counting against the scholarship limit. Not having that waiver would have made for some really tough conversations with fifth-year seniors.

Napier says that won’t be the case in 2022

Prior to speaking to the Broward County Gator Club, Napier met with Gators Online. We asked Napier if there had been any guidance from the NCAA on this upcoming season.

“They definitely count against you this year. That was a one-year waiver exception there for COVID. You’re going to see — I think maybe news came out today that they anticipate the 85 number being the only number that matters for two years so they’re going to waive the 25 initial rule for two years. I think that’s a little bit of a response to the COVID-19 extra year of eligibility. It’s also a little bit of patchwork on the portal,” Napier said. “This is the first year the portal has been wide open, up and running. There are some teams out there that are in really difficult spots without that, they’ll never recover. It can give us more options, which I think is a positive, but it also gives other teams options, too. There will be some positives here relative to some of these rules that have been made.”

Florida has four players that would have counted towards that “super senior” moniker. Receiver Jordan Pouncey, linebackers Ventrell Miller and Amari Burney, as well as safety Trey Dean. If the NCAA would have grated a waiver to those sixth-year seniors, Florida would be at the 85-man limit already. With that not being the case, the Gators’ will have to have some tough conversations with some players on the roster before August.