Napier hammers home vital message: Clean up the penalties

GAINESVILLE—The first play of the Billy Na pier Era at Florida looked a lot like the beginning of the end of the Dan Mullen’ s tenure as Gators coach.

A holding penalty during the opening kickoff against Utah was all too familiar. By the time officials flagged

four times for 33 yards in 26 plays, little seemingly had changed despite the new staff ’s laser focus on curtailing mental errors.

Following the sloppy start, the Gators generally cleaned up their act, drawing three flags but just 5 penalty yards the rest of the game.

“We’ ll work hard to improve in that area,” Napier said.

Saturday night’s visit against Kentucky provides the ideal opponent and opportunity for progress.

Last season’s 20-13 loss in Lexington featured Florida 15 penalties, including eight false starts — three occurred the final two drives and inside Kentucky’s 20-yard line.

The performance accelerated the program’s free fall under Mullen and continued a longstanding trend. The 2021 Gators ranked 13th in the

14-team SEC and 119th nationally among 130 teams with an average of 70.9 penalty yards. Florida led the SEC in penalties in 2018, 2016, 2012 and 2011.

Last Saturday, officials called three procedural penalties on Florida, a total Napier will not abide as he rebuilds the Gators.

“I think we had four undisciplined penalties. We had three false-start procedures, one on the center, one on the right tackle and one on the quarter back ,” he said .“And then we had 12

(men on the field) on defense. Those are all controllable.”

Napier sets a lofty goal of just one penalty per 30 plays.

“We’ve always taken great pride in not giving the other team anything,” Napier said more than once leading up to the season.

Napier’s final team at Louisiana squad averaged 49 yards in penalties

in 2021—48 th nationally of 130 teams — en route to a 13-1 finish and No. 16 ranking in the final Associated Press Top 25.

Florida center Kingsley Eguakun understands his coaches’ expectations.

Flagged for a false start against Utah, the redshirt sophomore said the responsibility ultimately falls on the player.

“It’s more us not wanting to do it than the coaches chirping on us about not doing it,”Eguakun said .“We’ re not out there lolly gagging around ,‘ Oh, we get to play football.’ When we’re out there it’s business.

“We clean it up and do what we’re supposed to do, we can take this thing far.”

GARY MCCULLOUGH /AP Florida coach Billy Napier, who runs a tight ship when it comes to discipline, didn’t like how last week’s game vs. Utah began because of penalties.