What Florida Players Have Said About New Gators HC Billy Napier

A new era of Florida Gators football has officially begun now that the 2021 season is in the books following the team's Gasparilla Bowl loss against the UCF Knights.

2022 … pic.twitter.com/KsfbvwCq5G
— Gervon Dexter SR (@GervonDexter) December 27, 2021

With head coach Billy Napier now fully in charge, and the past staff set to step aside for the new coaching staff, players will need to get familiar with the new man in charge.

Last week, several players, including cornerback Kaiir Elam, running backs Malik Davis and Dameon Pierce and defensive tackle Gervon Dexter were asked about Napier.

While some of the players, including Pierce, who has accepted an invite to the 2022 Senior Bowl and heavily implied that the team's contest against UCF was his last at the program, will most likely not be in the program soon, their first impressions and the idea of what Florida could look like in the future under Napier are intriguing.

The program is slated to be very player-friendly, and interpersonal, something that is needed after the last regime couldn't get everyone on the same page at the same time. Pierce said it all starts with trust, something that needs to be built up.

"You’ve got to have trust," Pierce said of what the new staff would need to bring that could be a difference between the previous regime and this one.

"You’ve got to have connections. You’ve got to have relationships. You’ve got to be someone. As a leader, you’ve got to be someone that you want to follow. You’ve got to be someone that someone wants to follow. Starting with the interpersonal relationships with everyone on the team is a great way to start – a great way to establish his role as a future leader of the Gators.”

Napier met with the players as a team on a Monday, Pierce said, likely when he was for introduced officially as the program's next head coach. He's heard from various people within the staff that he's very "people-oriented," something that likely will be a breath of fresh air for Florida.

"He just wants to know you personally, and that’s a lot," he said. "Especially me, coming from a player, that means a lot, seeing that a coach is taking extra effort to know you personally, to know your background, to get a vibe of you. You know he’s probably going to take that from what he learned about you and apply that to his coaching style."

That appeared to be a similar sentiment shared by Elam, though he didn't go into much detail when asked about Napier just prior to the Gasparilla Bowl last week, stating that he's a "really great guy," meeting the coach at practice. He listed to what Napier had to say, and had to offer.

Elam is one of the top cornerbacks in the country and is widely expected to declare for the draft, but he has yet to do so. As a true junior, he could come back to Florida for a variety of reasons, including raising his draft stock and finishing his schooling if he hasn't already done so.

"I feel like his plans are very detailed and precise and how he takes his time with everything, I feel like that's pretty cool," Elam added.

For Davis, a redshirt senior running back for the program, he echoed both Pierce and Elam, re-enforcing the idea that Napier is very much "all about the people." That appeared to be the overarching theme of the first impression that Napier has given his players.

"So, he wants to come in and build relationships with the players, the staff and everyone around him."

But the message that Napier sends to players like Dexter, who is certain to return next season, not yet draft-eligible, will be the most important part of the transition process moving forward. According to Dexter, the transition has been smooth.

For some reason, Dexter says, he gets the feeling from him that Napier is an honest person, which will pay dividends for the program moving forward, continuing to build trust within the program itself.

“I like him. I can’t say I love him yet but I like him,” Dexter said.

Well, that's a good start.

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