There might not be basements in rural Central Florida, but there sure is trouble regarding Power Four football in the Sunshine State (excluding Miami). With the University of Florida and Florida State University in a lot of trouble (just a combined 1-5 entering Saturday), it’s worth taking a global view of each program.
Who better to diagnose the problems than Coach (Dr.) Nick Saban?
“Well, I think maybe the problem isn’t the coaches,” said Saban of the Gators. “They’ve been through four coaches since (Steve) Spurrier and Urban Meyer, who both created a tremendous culture of winning there. And sometimes the fanbase can just think, ‘Well, we can show up and expect to win,’ and not make the commitment to the program you need to make to be able to contiune to make the changes and investments you need to make, to keep up with changing times.
“And things change. They should’ve taken advantage of building better facilities when Urban Meyer was there. What’s their collective been like? How have they adapted to this new model of college football? So, it’s not just the coaches. When you’ve been through four coaches and haven’t had success, there’s something else that people should be looking at.”
Perhaps this is Saban’s most robust defense of Billy Napier yet.
The embattled Florida Gators head coach served as an analyst on Saban’s staff in 2011, and after a brief stint as the assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach at Colorado State, returned to Tuscaloosa to be Saban’s wide receivers coach from 2013-16.
Now, the former Crimson Tide head coach wasn’t getting on his soapbox to save Napier’s job, but he wanted to point out that the issues under him extended prior to his stint in Gainesville with the likes of Dan Mullen, Will Muschamp, and Jim McElwain.
Saban then turned his attention to Mike Norvell and the Florida State Seminoles.
“Now, when it comes to Florida State, they’ve always taken the microwave fix, I call it, to take a lot of guys from the portal,” says Saban. “Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t, especially when things go bad. Those guys were all in the portal for a reason. So, now you take these guys out of the portal, things don’t go the way you thought they were going to go. And maybe you don’t have the kind of culture and leadership on your team and the people buying into the leadership that you need to be successful.
“So, this is a real challenge for Mike.”
Saban followed his major points by tying it back to the transfer portal.
“You got to have a vision, but how are we going to create value for players? That’s what you have to have, and if you’re going to have a successful program, you have to create value for players,” he added. “Why would a guy come to your school if he’s not going to become a better person, he’s not going to have a better chance to be successful in life, he’s not going to have a chance to play in the NFL, because you’re gonna develop him.
“So, how are you going to create that value? And that should be the vision that every program has and that will fix these two programs if they go to that vision.”
Saban astutely points out that the issues plaguing Florida and Florida State run deeper than coaching changes or short-term fixes. Both programs face a crossroads where only a commitment to long-term vision, player development, and adapting to the evolving college football landscape will restore them to their former glory.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.