A former quarterback at Furman who led the Paladins to a national title game, Napier is a career offensive coach, though he’s known more as a program builder and relentless recruiter who has impressive organizational skills. He will aim to bring his energy, passion, leadership and structure to a Gators team that appeared to lack all of it at times throughout the 2021 season.

The hiring of Napier is considered a coup for Florida, which not only landed its top target but inked a coach who has been one of the hottest names bandied about over the last couple of cycles. Napier has reportedly turned down a half-dozen Power Five opportunities — a number of them in the SEC — for various reasons, though the UF gig is the best he’s known to have been offered.

Napier’s status as athletic director Scott Stricklin’s top candidate was reported earlier this week by OnlyGators.com, while his impending hiring was first reported Sunday by Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel. The Orlando Sentinel‘s Edgar Thompson reported Sunday that Napier met with Florida prior to the Missouri game two weeks ago.

The expectation is that Napier will remain with Louisiana through the 2021 Sun Belt Championship Game next week prior to joining Florida full-time. The Cajuns have advanced to four straight league title games under Napier, losing their first two appearances with the 2020 game canceled amid COVID-19 complications. Louisiana was 15-22 in the three seasons prior to his hiring and had never won 10 games in a season until Napier took over.

Napier will spend limited time building his Gators staff and calling recruits over the next week while focusing on a monumental game for the Cajuns program. When he fully takes over at Florida, he will have 11 days until the start of the early signing period to save a recruiting class rated No. 31 in the 247Sports Composite team rankings.

In addition to working with Swinney and Saban, Napier served as associate head coach at Colorado State under Jim McElwain in 2012, lasted one month as tight ends coach at Florida State under Jimbo Fisher in 2013 (before being hired away by Alabama after a month) and commanded Arizona State’s offense under Todd Graham in 2017.