Urban Meyer urges Florida fans to ‘hang in there’ with Billy Napier
Former Gators coach Urban Meyer turned the Florida football program into a dynasty during his six-year tenure in Gainesville.
From 2006-2009, UF had two national championships, two SEC titles, a Heisman Trophy winner and an undefeated regular season in that four-year span.
Those teams are the subject of a new Netflix documentary, entitled “Swamp Kings”, which will be released on Aug. 23.
Meyer appeared on The Buddy Martin Show this week to preview the upcoming show, and it was mentioned to him that “those days can’t come back.”
Meyer disagreed.
“I think they can,” he said. “Florida’s got what it takes. They got a great coach right now.”
Second-year coach Billy Napier met with Meyer during his first offseason at UF. He received an in-person visit from Meyer in his office and picked his brain about the job.
Napier inherited a 6-7 team and finished with the same record in his inaugural season. He has since flipped the roster, adding a total of 34 scholarship players in the 2023 class to offset 35 departures (and 13 starters). ESPN’s strength of schedule rating has the Gators playing the third-hardest schedule in 2023.
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Meyer urged Florida fans to stand by Napier as he tries to rebuild the program.
“He obviously has some challenges ahead of him, but everybody’s just gotta hang in there,” Meyer said. “You know what happens at Florida and some of these other places, the world starts caving in on them when you lose a recruit or you lose a game. And sustainability is how you develop great winning programs.”
In his first full recruiting cycle, Napier signed the Gators’ best blue-chip ratio (80 percent) since Urban Meyer’s last class. Florida currently has a top-five class for 2024, headlined by five-star quarterback DJ Lagway.
The future looks bright on the recruiting trail, but Meyer understands Napier needs to win more games now to meet fan expectations. He added that Florida is one of a handful of high-pressure jobs in college football.
“I think you probably got four or five schools in America — and out of respect to all the other schools, I won’t say who — but there’s three, four, five schools that have expectations that can never be met,” Meyer said. “I used to share this with our team at Ohio State and Florida, that is, ‘Hey, that’s life in the big city, pal. You don’t have to be here.’ This is very hard. If you don’t win by more than 14 when you’re supposed to win by 14, people are critical of you. Thank God we’re at a place where losing’s not acceptable, because who would want to work in a place like that? Where it’s acceptable.’ At Florida, it’s not acceptable.”
