Billy Napier did not fully understand how to best approach NIL during his three-, almost four-year tenure at Florida. Fortunately, the Gators are paying him a lot of money to do exactly what he failed to do in Gainesville while at James Madison.
The 46-year-old head coach learned from his mistakes.
The Dukes are now in a great position to remain at the top of the college football world on a small school scale. Napier has a lot of extra money at his disposal and will put people in place to manage it.
Billy Napier did not capitalize on NIL at Florida.
Napier was fired by the Gators in the middle of October after a narrow victory over an abysmal Mississippi State team. He finished his stint at the University of Florida with an overall record of 22-23. He was hired at James Madison in December.
Seeing that Billy Napier had great success at his last “Group of Six” program, there are high expectations for success. The Dukes are on the heels of a conference championship and College Football Playoff appearance. This is now considered the standard.
As his first year at the helm quickly approaches, Napier finally took the time to reflect on his last four years. He told Wilson Alexander that he should have delegated more of his responsibilities to his staff and sooner. Especially when it comes to NIL.
“I think that we really struggled to manage the workload that came with NIL, that came with the portal. I think in general there, the work continued to be loaded up in terms of my responsibility to our team and to our entire organization. So, for me, in general, if I can sum it up, I would say the ability to delegate and hire exceptional people in certain areas and hand over more responsibility to those guys and empower them to do their job at a high level.”
With that being said, NIL was still in its infant stages when he arrived to Gainesville so it was something he had to figure out in real time and it never quite clicked. With that being said, his replacement, Jon Sumrall, kept a large portion of his staff in tact… so they must’ve been doing something right!
James Madison will get a financial boost with increased knowledge.
Billy Napier is able to learn from what he did not do well at Florida and take a new approach at James Madison. It sounds like he plans to prioritize player compensation in recruiting and increase focus on the transfer portal. He will continue to build a team around him that can handle the day-to-day operations. That will help to better position his program to acquire top talent.
As will the money he is still getting paid from the Gators.
The University of Florida is required to pay Napier his full buyout because he was fired. That allows him to put all of the extra money that he would’ve received from James Madison right back into his program. He essentially took a pay cut at his current school that is being subsidized by his former school. It puts the Dukes in a great spot when it comes to NIL.
More simply put, the Gators are paying Napier to bank NIL money at his new program. And now he will have other people in place to help him manage that cash. James Madison is now in a great position because Florida decided to fire its head coach.