Why Billy Napier keeps passing up Power 5 jobs

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

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Why Billy Napier keeps passing up Power 5 jobs

By BRANDON MARCELLO  9 hours ago

 

 

Billy Napier had opportunities to travel east in December, but he preferred to stick to the roads of Louisiana.

The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns head coach knows what he wants and what he needs to be successful in big-time college football, and so far the supposed allure of SEC jobs such as South Carolina and Auburn have not provided adequate space and freedom to house and expand his operation.

The 41-year-old Napier might be the hottest name in college football, but why won’t he move? His name has been tied to more than a half-dozen job openings in the Power 5, and yet he remains in the bayou. How could a coach, in only his third season in the Sun Belt, turn down feelers from a blue-blood football program like Auburn and another with a rabid and hungry fan base in the SEC East?

After all, Auburn has won two national titles and is in the national spotlight nearly every season. South Carolina has proven it can be a top-10 program, too, with the right coach and homegrown talent.

Neither program fit Napier’s blueprint. The opportunities were not perfect, and Napier quickly realized he is just fine waiting for the perfect job.

“He doesn’t want to take a job that already has immediate disadvantage built in before you play a game,” a person close to Napier told 247Sports.

Napier’s plan is both complex and robust, and for anyone familiar with the Alabama Crimson Tide, very familiar. There is one difference, however: Napier is methodical and smart like many of his colleagues, but he’s not anxious or paranoid like most. He is not concerned about time or an opportunity passing him by in the night. He will not sacrifice his vision for a bigger paycheck.

In a land of hungry wolves stalking every job opening, Napier instead remains still, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

Many coaching searches have crossed paths with the roots of the Nick Saban coaching tree. It’s Saban’s “Process” at Alabama, where countless support staffers and analysts work in unison to fuel a championship-program. Not every machine can replicate “The Process,” but some have attempted with varying levels of success. It’s why Georgia hired former defensive coordinator Kirby Smart, who has since led the Bulldogs to an SEC title and a loss to Alabama in the national championship. It’s why Jeremy Pruitt, Jim McElwain and Will Muschamp (twice) have landed SEC coaching gigs after coaching for Saban. It’s also why a strength coach (Scott Cochran) is now an on-field assistant at Georgia, and a one-time head coach such as Tennessee’s Butch Jones worked for next-to-nothing as an analyst for two years.

Everyone wants to know Alabama’s secrets. They want to copy and paste “The Process,” and implement it whatever they learned at their next gig. The latest model out of the Alabama machine: Jones, now the coach at Arkansas State; and former analyst and offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, the new head coach at Texas.

Napier is among that fraternity of insiders, and it’s why he’s been one of the hotter names on the coaching carousel over the last two offseason. Napier admits he copied and tweaked the Saban plan at Louisiana. It’s not “The Process” in Lafayette. He calls it “The Journey.”

His offices are not as full or busy as Alabama — the Wall Street of the SEC — but Louisiana likely has the largest staff in the Sun Belt Conference. He revamped the entire recruiting staff when hired in December 2017, secured more money for analysts and nutritionists, and implemented new strength-and-conditioning calendars similar to those posted in Tuscaloosa.

Louisiana is proud to call itself the mini-Alabama, but with a coach with a much different personality running the company.

Napier has made it work with gusto, compiling a 28-11 record in three years, including a 21-4 mark in the last two seasons. He’s won two bowl games and has owned at least a share of a conference or divisional title every year.

SEC programs have taken notice of the Georgia and Tennessee native’s success. Ole Miss and Arkansas asked to speak to him in 2019 about their job openings, but he told the programs to wait for his season at Louisiana to end. They grew impatient, moved on and hired Lane Kiffin and Sam Pittman, respectively. Mississippi State showed brief interest as well. Then came South Carolina and Auburn, which were both non-starters for implementing his plan.

Again, Napier isn’t one to act quickly. If a program wants him, they must be patient, supportive and, more importantly, willing to provide the infrastructure he requires to run his type of program.

South Carolina didn’t have all of the pieces or the environment for that type of growth. Neither did Auburn.

So, Napier moved on without regret by staying put in Lafayette, issuing statements each time the rumors grew to a roar in December.

He loves coaching and wants to be in the SEC some day, but only if he can do it his way (the right way). He will stay still as long as he must (as long as he’s successful) in the Sun Belt. He knows his process works. He’s not perfect, but that’s also why he records every success, failure and mundane activity in a notebook. He’s always learning, and forever tweaking his plan.

He he can tell you what went right or wrong on any date of his coaching career since he became part of the Saban coaching tree — whether it was a run-of-the-mill day as a quarterbacks coach at Colorado State on Nov. 3, 2012, or the afternoon Louisiana lost to Coastal Carolina on Oct. 14, 2020. Provide Napier a few minutes and he will dig up a notebook with every lesson learned, every conversation had, and the details of every win or loss from any day in his coaching life. He catalogues every day, and has a mini-library of journals packed to the margins with lessons from each day as a coach.

It’s a practice he learned at Alabama, where he watched Saban fill notebook after notebook with information cataloguing every day of the Alabama operation in 2011 as an analyst and again from 2013 through 2016 as the receivers coach.

Writing helps retention and provides easy access to pinpoint an idea or conversation from three years ago he may only have a faint recollection.

Meticulous? Yes. But that’s the “Journey” for Napier, whose plan just seems to work everywhere he goes.

Still, many wonder about Napier’s future. If he received interest from five SEC teams in two years, wouldn’t word spread that he’s unwilling to play within their boundaries? Wouldn’t SEC programs in the future nix him from consideration before his name is uttered by a big booster or search firm?

No.

There are jobs that interest Napier, particularly in the SEC, but if those programs are not willing to listen and give him what he wants — a staff that rivals Alabama and the freedom to run his program his way without much interference — the coach is more than happy to win championships with the Ragin’ Cajuns in the Sun Belt.

Napier is a man of faith, a strong believer in God’s plan. He will not sacrifice or cut corners. Instead of asking for big pay raises when Louisiana has been willing to renegotiate his contract, he asks for more money for assistants and support staffers. He knows what it takes to maintain a championship program.

Until a Power 5 program trusts him implicitly, he is content to stay somewhere that does believe in the journey.

 

Brandon Marcello is a national college football reporter for 247Sports. You can follow him on Twitter (@bmarcello).

https://247sports.com/Article/Why-Billy-Napier-didnt-take-Auburn-or-South-Carolina-job-158565851/

[cctiger 571]

34 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

https://247sports.com/Article/Why-Billy-Napier-didnt-take-Auburn-or-South-Carolina-job-158565851/

What a crock of bull! Marcello is a loud mouth deadbeat.

[jw 4 au 526]

The one thing that I got out of that article is that Saban’s coaching tree is full of failures. Outside of Kirby at UGA, who else is that successful as a head coach?

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

7 minutes ago, jw 4 au said:

The one thing that I got out of that article is that Saban’s coaching tree is full of failures. Outside of Kirby at UGA, who else is that successful as a head coach?

Does Jimbo Fisher not count? 

Cristobal has had some success at Oregon, he certainly hasn't been a failure.

[aubiefifty 16,766]

On 1/5/2021 at 6:49 PM, cctiger said:

What a crock of bull! Marcello is a loud mouth deadbeat.

i agree. did he not come on here a few years back whining about something? it might have been the rant but i think it was here and he was complaining about something.

[aubiefifty 16,766]

also i believe he wanted a ton of money?

[jw 4 au 526]

3 hours ago, Auburnfan91 said:

Does Jimbo Fisher not count? 

Cristobal has had some success at Oregon, he certainly hasn't been a failure.

I thought Jimbo was from the Terry Bowden coaching tree. Haha. Very few branches out there. 

[CleCoTiger 1,957]

7 hours ago, Auburnfan91 said:

Does Jimbo Fisher not count? 

Fisher is from the Bowden coaching tree. Terry Bowden. Saban was much later. By that time, Jimbo was a good sized sapling.

[oracle79 3,569]

Are we looking at him for WR coach? I thought it was said that we never offered him for HC.

[aub4life 33]

I cannot believe that Coach Harsin did not want and demand the same things that Napier talks about being a requirement for him to move to the SEC/Auburn.  I call BS on the insinuation.

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

1 hour ago, CleCoTiger said:

Fisher is from the Bowden coaching tree. Terry Bowden. Saban was much later. By that time, Jimbo was a good sized sapling.

Fisher counts for both. He was QB coach at Auburn under Bowden. Saban gave Jimbo his 1st big OC job at LSU

[Mikey 16,578]

That Marcello article is total nonsense. He should be fired for submitting such tripe.

[AUwent 3,748]

17 hours ago, Mikey said:

That Marcello article is total nonsense. He should be fired for submitting such tripe.

I wouldn’t go that far but yeah I’ve decided to discard anything he says. Lol

[boisnumber1 2,818]

In coaching, you strike while the iron is hot. Napier will eff around and lose his opportunity. I'm not convinced he is as good as he thinks he is.

[Randman5000 4,226]

Bama or bust.. 

[bigbird 60,512]

11 hours ago, boisnumber1 said:

In coaching, you strike while the iron is hot. Napier will eff around and lose his opportunity. I'm not convinced he is as good as he thinks he is.

I think he's a really good coach who is very smart and driven. It may be that he understands that he's not quite ready yet for the SECw and is honing his craft.

[PoetTiger 1,896]

Billy if you waiting on the LSU job just say that 

[ChristoThor 70]

I think it is hard to say that Napier passed on Auburn because he would not have the control he wanted. It seems like Harsin is getting to hire who he wants. I could definitely be wrong about that, but the hires made by Auburn look like a HC making the calls that he wants to me. Napier may be willing to pass up a job since it isn't what he wants, but I do feel referencing Auburn this way is disingenuous. I can't speak for the other programs though. 

Also, “He doesn’t want to take a job that already has immediate disadvantage built in before you play a game,” Out of curiosity, what program is this referring to? I am all for waiting to make the right career move, but I just don't really see who he is waiting on to call.