Monday, December 06, 2021

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with bullshit

New coaches almost always "win the press conference," it is not uncommonly the last thing they win. But not BillyNaps. He lost his press conference, bombed. This is from a Florida fanzine.

I’ve been through six of these introductory press conferences for the head coaching position at Florida...
...
The man has plenty of coach-speak when he talks about not recruiting to stars and ‘we’re going to take our time and do it right’...But I think that stuff is clearly coach-speak...he is being deliberate, In case they get a player or two that aren’t rated very high with the recruiting services...he had a “there are going to be good days and bad days”. 

He's setting up excuses. He's being "deliberate" in lowering the bar of expectations. Think: How many high school kids in Florida or elsewhere are jumping up and down to sign letters-of-intent with FU because they have "Billy Napier" of Lou-La as their head coach?

...Napier is organized. I am sure this is one big reason he was able to convince the administration to pony up so much money for off-the-field staff and extras for the program...Napier was able to show the organizational skills to make Stricklin understand the massive amounts of changes that he would need...[the] $5 million for “other support staff members” which should allow him an army of extras that we haven’t seen around these parts.

...he talked a lot...He quickly broke down his eight phases of the calendar year for his program which were “foundation, identity, spring practice, discretionary period, summer regimen, training camp, in-season and postseason”.  ...He mentioned six phases to each recruiting cycle as well.

Not sold on him having so many responsibilities

...I really didn’t care for Napier saying he was going to call plays and be the quarterback coach, basically the HC, OC, and QB coach...

That really is strange. Why all the assistants and analysts then?

I actually assumed he would be a CEO type here...[Me too] But he seems to want to be able to control the outcome on the offensive side of the ball.

My biggest concern will be that if it isn’t working out, will he make a change?  I guess I am all for a guy with the confidence that Napier has in doing it. But what if it doesn’t work out? I will try and reserve judgment on that.

Yes. That is well-stated, measured, and concerned lol.