“this time is different”

At least David Wunderlich hopes that’s the case for Billy Napier at Florida.

Florida is starting the 2022 season with a new head coach. It’s the sixth time it’s happened in the last two decades. Will this time be different?

Different is indeed desirable even when looking at the one success, Urban Meyer. It was a faustian bargain, winning a pair of SEC and national championships in exchange for a poisoned culture with high levels of player arrests and severe locker room dysfunction. Most fans of most schools would still make that trade, since national titles are so hard to come by for anyone not named Nick Saban. Nothing about how it happened was sustainable, however.

That’s no small thing, by the way. When Scott Stricklin discussed his dismissal of Dan Mullen, “sustained success” was a phrase he repeated in terms of what he wanted out of the football program. I’m sure all Gator fans would agree that such is preferable to the roller coaster the program’s been on since Steve Spurrier left for the NFL.

Is this time different?

Well, as he admits, Florida’s hiring track record since Spurrier left hasn’t been a story of sustained success.  Add to that your Gator fan’s typical perspective…

No one wants it to take three or four years to get there, though, especially in the transfer portal era. Napier’s contract is long and lucrative enough to give him a little extra leash, but Florida fans are demanding. Uncharitable commentators may call fans impatient instead, but enough Gators remember the ’90s and the mid-2000s that they know what excellence looks like.

… and you have to wonder how long they’ll go with Napier if things aren’t moving upwards quickly enough.  That doesn’t sound too different to me.