Steve Spurrier on Billy Napier calling plays, UF's offense: ‘We need to toss more deeper balls’

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — One of the biggest talking points right now with the Florida football team is Billy Napier calling plays. Some fan podcasts and reporters have called for him to relinquish play-calling duties, but Napier said Monday that he’s still running the Gators’ offense.

Steve Spurrier shared his opinion on the subject Tuesday. During his radio show on WRUF, the Head Ball Coach was asked if and how Napier can become more aggressive with his offensive scheme and throw the ball more.

Spurrier didn’t disagree with the question.

“Well, that’s up to him,” Spurrier. “I mean, you can come out wide open or you can say we gotta get the ball to [Trevor] Etienne. Obviously, Tennessee was our best game. I think he had about 172 yards rushing. So you can’t do both. Can’t throw it deep three times and punt, and run Etienne. So, you gotta mix it up. That’s what we all try to do. We try to mix the pass and the run.

“But I do think we need to toss more deeper balls. You look all over the country, teams are scoring a bunch of points, like Southern Cal the other day and Colorado. I mean, they create plays where they throw it down the field, they got guys flying all over the place.”

USC and Colorado have the nation’s No. 4 and No. 5 passing offenses, respectively, after their 48-41 shootout between Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and Heisman candidate Shedeur Sanders. Graham Mertz has been one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the country this season (79.1%), but to Spurrier’s point, Florida isn’t taking many deep shots with him.

Of Mertz’s 139 passes, just 15 attempts (10.9%) have been over 20 yards (9/15 for 284 yards, 3 TDs) and 27 attempts (19.6%) have been between 10-19 yards (20-27 for 384 yards). Through five games, 64.5% of his pass attempts have been behind the line of scrimmage (32.6%) or less than 10 yards (31.9%).

“I think we do need to air it out a little bit more,” Spurrier said. “And then if you’re successful doing that, Etienne will have more rushing yards also I think.”

Like Napier, Spurrier served as the head coach, quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator throughout his head coaching career. At times during his South Carolina tenure, he delegated some play-calling duties to his son, Steve Spurrier Jr., and others on his offensive staff, but the HBC took back full control during his final year with the Gamecocks in 2015.

Napier was an offensive coordinator at Clemson (2009-10) and Arizona State (2017) before getting hired by Louisiana in 2018, and he’s been running his own offense ever since. His success as a playcaller led to his first head coaching gig and then a bigger job at Florida.

Spurrier doesn’t expect Napier to change what got him there — at least not yet.

“He’s done it his whole head coaching career,” He said. “So, I used to always say if you’re offensive coordinator, head coach, playcaller and you get another job, that’s the reason you got it because you’re pretty good at doing that. So, obviously we thought he was very good at it — as a head coach and as a playcaller — and that’s why we hired him. So, I don’t think he’s gonna change anything soon right now.” 

During Tuesday’s show, host Steve Russell mentioned that Missouri’s Luther Burden III leads the SEC in receiving with 43 receptions for 644 yards and five touchdowns. Spurrier chimed in.

“Now there’s a guy in Coach [Eli] Drinkwitz, he gave up play-calling and hired him an offensive coordinator and they’re 5-0 and certainly everybody’s applauding what he did,” Spurrier said. “And Jimbo Fisher gave it up and brought in [Bobby] Petrino, who’s an excellent playcaller.”