Florida Football: 3 reasons Gators will bounce back in 2022

Florida football had a forgettable 2021 season, finishing with a losing record, but here’s why the Gators will bounce back in a big way.

After making the SEC title game behind Kyle Trask and Kyle Pitts in 2020, no one expected Dan Mullen and Florida football to part ways less than a year later.

But that’s exactly what happened.

The Gators finished 6-7 and hired Billy Napier as the new head coach after firing Mullen. It was a surprising move after a successful year in 2020, but it felt like the ceiling under Mullen had been hit.

Now with Napier in charge, the Gators will turn things around in a big way in 2022. And here’s why.

3. Billy Napier has injected new life into the program

Watching Dan Mullen’s final season in Gainesville was painful. The Gators just lacked energy, confidence, and just life in general. Florida looked like a shell of itself from the 2020 season when it made the SEC title game and it just felt like Mullen hit his ceiling.

Florida parted ways with Mullen after the regular season and then decided to hire Billy Napier from Louisiana who had been considered one of the hottest names from the Group of Five for years.

The addition of Napier was good for recruiting as the Gators seemed to finish strong in the 2022 class, landing the No. 16 class in the country which included four top-100 recruits.

There’s no life injected into the program and that’s going to result in instant improvement in 2022.