Nick Saban had an interesting explanation for why the Florida Gators have struggled so much in recent years.
He passionately defended head coach Billy Napier and his predecessors on ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Saturday after being asked how to turn the struggling program around.
“I think maybe the problem isn’t the coaches,” Saban said. “They’ve been through four coaches since [Steve] Spurrier and Urban Meyer, who both created a tremendous culture of winning there. Sometimes the fanbase can just think ‘we can just show up and expect to win’ and not make the commitment to the program that you need to make to be able to continue to make the changes and the investments you need to make to keep up with changing times.
“Things change. They should’ve taken advantage of building better facilities when Urban Meyer was there. What’s their [NIL] 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 you haven’t had success, there is something else that people should be looking at.”
Napier is in his third season with the Gators and finished below .500 both of his first two seasons before starting this season 1-2.
They were trounced by Miami in their opener, 41-17, and lost last week, 33-20, to Texas A&M with a win over lowly Samford in between.
Overall, Napier entered Saturday’s clash against Mississippi State with a 12-16 record in charge of the Gators.
He had enjoyed four successful seasons at Louisiana before leaving for the Florida job.
Saban pointed to Florida’s NIL infrastructure as what is most holding the Gators back.
“You gotta have a vision for ‘how are we going to create value for players?’ That’s what you have to have,” Saban said. “And if you’re gonna have a successful program, you have to create value for players.
“Why would a guy come to your school if he’s not gonna be a better person, he’s not gonna have a better chance to be successful in life, if he’s not gonna have a chance to go to the NFL.”
