Whether Florida coach Billy Napier is on the hot seat depends on who you ask entering his third season with the Gators. Athletic Director Scott Stricklin insists Napier’s job is safe. National media and casual fans assume the heat is on after consecutive losing seasons. The truth lies somewhere in between.

Napier is unfazed.

“Every year you’ve got a set of problems,” he said July 30 at UF’s Media Day. ‘Whether you lack momentum or you have momentum, whether you’ve had a great offseason and you’re coming off of a fantastic year or maybe you struggled and didn’t quite perform the way you’d like.

“You’ve got to view each team as its own entity, and you’ve got to try and be objective about how you make decisions.”

While Napier’s job security remains in flux he spent the offseason making decisions to curb speculation and position the Gators for a better future, beginning Aug. 31 against Miami.

Napier overhauled his defensive staff, led by co-coordinator Ron Roberts, 56, along with the strength and nutrition programs. Napier also moved tight ends coach Russ Callaway to co-offensive coordinator and hired Joe Houston from the New England Patriots to direct special teams.

New voices and fresh perspectives have been a welcome change.

“The biggest thing that stands out to me is the attention to detail,” veteran linebacker Derek Wingo said. “When you look at the past couple of years … we had players leave, we’ve had new coaches come in and everyone was like, ‘What’s different this time? What’s different this time?’

“Coach Napier has done an amazing job with putting the right people in the places for leadership roles.”

Wingo is a fifth-year senior playing for his third coordinator and third position coach. The 22-year-old also has 36 new teammates, including 20 true freshmen and 16 transfers.

The Gators are deeper, more talented and more seasoned than in 2022 and ’23.

Napier now aims to capitalize.

During the second week of fall camp, he asked former Florida men’s basketball coach Billy Donovan, who led the Gators two a pair of national titles and four Final Fours, to offer insight into team building and championship success.

“We have more experience than we’ve had maybe last couple of years, but it’s only valuable if we use the experience,” Napier said. “That’s the big message, and he hammered that home. We have to apply the things that we’ve learned, and we have to make the necessary changes to try to get a different result in the future.”

Some differences are already easy to see.

The Gators’ offseason gains under new strength coach Tyler Miles include 575 pounds of muscle, as well as 475 pounds of lost fat.

“Everybody is getting faster, more explosive, everybody is feeling good about their weight, checking themselves out,” said sophomore star receiver Tre Wilson, who at 5-foot-10, 183 pounds has added more than 10 pounds. “We got a big ol’ mirror in the locker room.”

At the same, the Gators hope to push aside individual goals and interests.

Espousing culture and brotherhood has become cliché this time of year in college football. Napier has taken additional measures, however, to build a genuine bond.

Rather than retreat to a nice hotel for fall camp, UF’s players are staying, two per room, at Tolbert Hall — spartan dormitory rooms built more than 70 years ago and located across from the $85 million Heavener Football Complex on Stadium Road.

“There’s an opportunity there to build some character to some degree and maybe create some gratitude,” Napier said. “We’re trying to create an old-school feel to training camp where they appreciate when they move back into that nice apartment here in a couple of weeks.”

By then, the Gators expect to be even more tightly knit because of Napier’s no-phones rule during meals or in the training room and recovery area.

“A part of camp is shared suffering,” veteran defensive lineman Tyreak Sapp said. “Camp gets hard and we need to take this time to actually bond with each other — just take the time out. When we come together, certain times, we can’t have phones.

“We have to talk to each other. That’s the main thing. The relationships.”

Napier entered spring practices confident he’d made the right organizational moves.

“All of our systems are built,” he said March 7.

Since then, the Gators have built their bodies and developed their skills, all while strengthening the moral fiber UF’s 45-year-old coach believes is critical to success.

“I’m a firm believer that a player that lacks character, at some point, he’s going to let you down,” Napier said. “My history in coaching will tell me that. The more we can create that … there’s a chance that it’ll carry over.”

Florida seeks every advantage as the Gators prepare to face the nation’s toughest schedule, featuring eight teams ranked in The Associated Press preseason Top 25.

Improved talent, experience, strength and conditioning, cohesiveness and character check a lot of boxes. But Napier knows what ultimately matters if all the changes he’s made are to prevent one at the top.

“We got to go do the football part,” he said early in fall camp. “Ability gets you so far. Everybody’s working hard at this point. Then it becomes about the intangibles of your team and the execution part.

“We’re working on the football piece now, and that’s what we’re trying to get done.”

Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com