Nick Saban sounds off on Billy Napier's 'culture' at Florida
GAINESVILLE, Fla — It’s been a long week for Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier. Following a 41-17 loss to rival Miami, he had trouble opening a water bottle at the postgame press conference podium, and then a bad choice of words alienated a fanbase that already had picked up its pitchforks.
On College Gameday, introducing a segment to talk about Florida, LSU, Clemson, and Florida State, host Rece Davis eviscerated Napier and Florida.
The conversation focused on the four teams who are all 0-1 or 0-2 in Florida State’s case and aimed to see if those teams should panic or if they would figure things out. The Gameday panel unanimously praised LSU and Clemson, expressing confidence those programs would figure it out. That was not the case for Napier and the Gators.
“In Florida, they’re 11-15 under Billy Napier,” Kirk Herbstreit said on the show. “They’ve lost six games in a row. That one feels very different than the rest of these, for me.”
That was not the case for Florida. Former Alabama head coach, Nick Saban, had a comment that wouldn’t have sounded bad if it were said in December of 2021 but is damning for a coach more than 1,000 days into his job.
“I think he’s gotta change the culture. I mean the culture there is not what it needs to be in terms of the intangible things that you play with. The toughness, the discipline. To control the line of scrimmage. They’re just not doing those types of things. I know he took over a tough situation but hopefully, you can establish that culture in year three.”
Saban was also asked if Florida has the skill position players to compete by Herbstreit, who offered that he doesn’t see it on film.
“The one thing that I look at with all these teams, the first thing I look at is what kind of quarterback they have, can you win with the guy and what kind of skill players do they have to make explosive plays. Other than turnovers, explosive plays equal outcome of games better than anything else. I don’t see that at Florida.”
