Before the Florida Gators ever hired Billy Napier, Derek Dooley comparisons seemed apt. Here was a former Nick Saban assistant coming from a school in Louisiana who never had any real success as a coordinator. Both of them specialized in coaching receivers and went 6-7 and 5-7 their first two years at their respective SEC programs.
What really sent it into overdrive, though, was how they described their strengths. Dooley was all about a checklist, and Napier is all about details, as we learned from SEC Media Days back in 2022. Notice that any area of expertise when it comes to actual ball was left off.
Well, just as he seemed to be breaking free from the Dooley comparisons, Napier decided to remind us all again of how their similar. The Florida head coach just named Washington Huskies safeties coach Vinnie Sunseri his new co-defensive coordinator.
If that name sounds familiar to Vol fans, it should. Sunseri is the son of former Tennessee defensive coordinator Sal Sunseri. Dooley hired Sunseri in 2012 despite no prior defensive coordinator experience after Justin Wilcox left for, ironically, Washington. It was Dooley’s make or break season, and the move was disastrous.
Sunseri installed a 3-4, didn’t manage it well, and UT wasted a historically great year on offense with a historically bad defense. They ended up repeating their 5-7 season from the year before, and in SEC play that year, they had games in which they scored 44, 31, 35 and 48 points that all ended in losses.
As if the Washington tie isn’t odd enough from Wilcox to Vinnie Sunseri, Florida’s newest defensive coordinator also has no prior experience in the role. In fact, his only on-field coaching role before last year was being the New England Patriots running backs coach from 20121 to 2023. Yes, he only has one year coaching defense under his belt.
Why would Napier make this move? He was beginning to separate himself from Dooley by actually having a winning season last year, beating a couple of ranked teams, and getting a fourth year on the job. We were all willing to finally ditch those comparisons.
To be fair, there were certain things in Napier’s favor even before that. His tenure with the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, where he went 40-12 and won two conference championships and four division championships in four years, was much more successful than Dooley’s was with the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, where and went 17-20 and had one winning season in three years.
Also, Napier at least had experience as a coordinator, as he was offensive coordinator of the Clemson Tigers in 2010 and then of the Arizona State Sun Devils in 2017. Neither were great stops, though, and he got fired from Clemson. The program took off after he left.
All in all, though, he seemed like a clone of Dooley. This Sunseri hire is only going to make it worse. Napier seems like he is in a make or break year himself and may have even saved his job with his performance in November last year. Could Sunseri be his undoing like it was for Dooley? Time will tell.
