By BJ Bennett
SouthernPigskin.com

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Billy Napier is one of the hottest coaches in the game as he has currently won eleven contests in a row.

Florida made a great head coaching hire in Louisiana’s Billy Napier.

The Gators added a candidate with championship-level executive success, experience from the nation’s top programs, a record of offensive production, regional familiarity and, at just 42 years old, a recent playing career. In an era where timing, nearing the Early Signing Period, means a lot, Florida made an impressive hire and did so the day after the regular season ended. Mere hours following their win over Florida State, the Gators continued to get better. They did so by adding one of the most accomplished and prepared coaches on the market.

What Napier has done at Louisiana is downright historic. Taking over a program that just had three consecutive losing seasons prior to his arrival, Napier led the Ragin’ Cajuns to the Sun Belt Conference Championship Game in his very first year. Napier, who will coach Louisiana in the league title game this Saturday versus Appalachian State, has promptly gone 32-5 since then. In that span, the Ragin’ Cajuns have become a fixture in the national polls, the standard in the Sun Belt West and one of the top Group of Five programs in the country.

Ahead of competing in the SEC East, Napier has a proud precedent on which to build. While at Louisiana, he did not lose a single game in-division, going 16-0 against his peers. The Ragin’ Cajuns promptly moved to the top of their division, then stayed there. They have advanced to the conference championship game in each of Napier’s four seasons.

Napier’s signature win with Louisiana shook up college football. The Ragin’ Cajuns promptly introduced themselves on the national stage by opening the 2020 season with a resounding 31-14 win at Iowa State, the very-same Cyclones, coached by hot-candidate Matt Campbell, who went to the Big XII Championship Game, played in the Fiesta Bowl and finished the year ranked in the national top ten.

An opportunity at another statement performance awaits for Naper and Louisiana this weekend; one more win and he will head to Florida with a resume that includes one more ring. Napier already has two national championships from his stint as an analyst at Alabama in 2011 and his 2015 season with the Crimson Tide, then coaching the wide receivers. Titles and trophies will follow Napier to Gainesville. He doesn’t just expect to compete for championships, he has.

Many programs have made it a point to target candidates who worked with either Nick Saban at Alabama or Dabo Swinney at Clemson. Napier did both.

After beginning his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Clemson, then debuting as a quarterbacks coach at South Carolina State, Napier returned to the Tigers under Tommy Bowden and stayed on staff under Swinney, working in various roles, including offensive coordinator. Napier was then an analyst at Alabama before becoming an assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach at Colorado State. Returning to Tuscaloosa, Napier coached wide receivers for Saban for four seasons. He was then Arizona State’s offensive coordinator.

Multiple wide-ranging statistical milestones have been metrics for the proficiency of Napier’s offenses at Louisiana. This season, the Ragin’ Cajuns rank in the top ten nationally with a 72.55% redzone touchdown rate. Louisiana, a year ago, was seventh in the country in sacks allowed per game. The Ragin’ Cajuns ranked 8th in all of college football, also in the top ten in scoring, in total offense in 2019 with 494.1 yards per game. In Napier’s first year, Louisiana had three different players top 750 rushing yards.

Born in Tennessee, then having played high school football in Georgia and college football at Furman, Napier is well-traveled across the southeast. He has coached in Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and, if you count a brief few weeks with Florida State in 2013, Florida. Napier is a well-established and well-respected name throughout the region.

After an all-state prep career for his late father Bill at Murray County High School in Chatsworth, Georgia, Napier starred as a signal caller for the Paladins. He started his junior and senior seasons at Furman and was named All-Southern Conference both years. Napier, among other accomplishments, helped pace the Paladins to two league titles and the 1-AA National Championship Game in 2001. Setting multiple records as a team captain, the new coach of the Gators is one of the all-time great players at Furman.

Napier, a former standout player, already has a spotlight legacy as a head coach. And he is just now getting started.

With a chance at a championship in Lafayette on Saturday, Napier has still hit the ground running at Florida, prioritizing recruiting at his new job while also preparing for one final game at his current one. Even before this weekend or the ones that follow, Napier is one of the hottest coaches in the game as he has currently won eleven contests in a row. Saban and Swinney, for example, are at that same total, combined. The only P5 coach on a longer winning streak is Georgia’s Kirby Smart — and you can bet Napier is coming for him, too.

Florida has the program. Napier has the perspective. His story now adds to the Gator Standard.