A former four-star recruit who transferred to Ole Miss earlier in the offseason threw some major shade at the Florida Gators this week.
Edge rusher Princely Umanmielen, the No. 9 defensive end in the 2020 recruiting class, spent the first four years of his career at Florida before transferring to Ole Miss.
Umanmielen, who is currently going through spring practice at Ole Miss, met with reporters on Tuesday and he said he feels like he's actually getting developed with the Rebels. The Texas native suggested that Florida's coaches told him him to just "use his talent" instead of developing him as a player.
“I feel like here I’m getting coached harder for things like that (attacking the run)," said Umanmielen. “I feel like at Florida, the way I was coached it was kind of like, it was almost as if like they was just telling me to go out there and use my talent, if that makes sense.”
“Attacking the run, Coach Lou (Spanos) really goes through the progressions of the drops and the routes that are being run, when I have to go into coverage," added Umanmielen. "When I was at Florida, they would just tell me go drop to this area and I would have to figure everything else out on my own.”
That's not a great look for head coach Billy Napier and the Florida program.
Napier is already on the hot seat after underperforming in his first two seasons as the Gators' head coach. And after hearing that comment from Umanmielen, it seems unlikely that things will improve in Gainesville with Napier at the helm.
Umanmielen's comment about Florida, by the way, is reminiscent of a quote from former Tennessee Vols head coach Derek Dooley.
After Dooley was fired by Tennessee in late 2012, he took a job as the wide receivers coach with the Dallas Cowboys.
Dooley mentioned during a radio interview with 105.3 in Dallas in 2013 that his method of coaching wide receiver Dez Bryant, a superstar at the time, was to tell him to just "do that thing you do".
"Go down there about 12 yards and do that thing you do. I can’t really understand it or describe it, but it works and you’re good at it," said Dooley.
That's basically the same style of coaching that Umanmielen is describing at Florida. And the last thing any coach in the SEC should want is to be compared to Derek Dooley.
Maybe Napier turns it around in 2024. Eli Drinkwitz managed to turn things around in a huge way at Missouri last season. It's possible to make big strides in just one season.
But based on what we've seen so far in Gainesville, it feels like Napier will soon be in the market for a new job.
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