Florida football will regret keeping coach Billy Napier in 2025

Last week, Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin released the following statement: Vote of confidence given to embattled Gators head football coach Billy Napier.

While the statement made no direct mention of the 2025 season, Stricklin says he’s excited about building a foundation for “next season and beyond.”

“I wanted to let you know that Billy Napier will continue as the head football coach of the Florida Gators,” Stricklin’s statement said. “As we have seen over the past few weeks, the young men on this team represent what it means to be a Gator. Their determination, effort and execution is evident in their performance and growth week after week; They create a foundation that promises greater success next season and beyond.”

This statement sent a shockwave through the college football world. Napier enters the 2024 season in one of the hottest seats in the country after losing seasons in his first two seasons on the job, coming off blowout losses to Miami and Miami early in the season. Texas A&MThe writing seemed to be on the wall for him.

ESPN’s Chris Low even reported that backers in Florida had already scraped together a roughly $26 million buyout to move on from Napier.

But all signs now point to Napier continuing for a fourth season in 2025. While it’s not hard to understand the calculation behind this decision, it’s a decision that will likely be disastrous for the program.

Before we get into the reasons why I think this will be the case, let’s examine the reasons why Florida isn’t rushing to fire Napier. First of all, there is the financial element.

Napier’s buyout, if paid in full, would be the second-largest payout to a fired coach in college football history, second only to Jimbo Fisher. At a time of great economic uncertainty in sports and a House deal looming that would allow schools to pay players directly with funds from the athletic department, it’s no surprise that Florida would be hesitant to make such a move — especially given the current situation. this would be the first high-profile job sought after in the new world of sport.

Not only that, but it’s also a transitional period for college-level schooling. It’s currently run by an interim president who has unfilled positions across the university, and adding a coaching search to his to-do list probably doesn’t appeal to anyone interested in the matter.

Stricklin, who has already hired two football coaches at Florida, has no reason to brace himself to see if the university will allow him to hire a third.

There is also the field element. It hasn’t been a very successful season for the Gators, but there are signs of progress considering the brutal schedule. Florida appeared to be improving with five-star true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, who played alongside the injured Graham Mertz before suffering an injury of his own.

Without him Florida would fall apart Texas Napier won 49-17 in their first game since Stricklin’s vote of no confidence fell.

This was a bad look for Napier, who still hasn’t proven why he deserves another season of his job in Gainesville. His 15-19 record in less than three seasons currently makes him the worst coach in the program’s modern era.

The Gators are on the brink of their fourth straight losing season, something that hasn’t happened in Gainesville since 1935-38.

It’s hard to find reason to think Napier can bring this program to the level expected when he was hired after establishing Louisiana as a Group of Five powerhouse. Ultimately, keeping the 2025 recruiting class together isn’t a particularly compelling argument for keeping Napier, considering the group currently sits outside the top 50 nationally.

On3’s Pete Nakos reports that the decision to keep Napier will be paired with: Commitment to going all-in in the transfer portal The team plans to take this step in 2025. So is it certain that elite portal talents will be lining up to join this potentially sinking ship?

Following the loss to Texas, Napier is 2-14 against ranked teams. They are 8-14 in SEC play, 1-10 against opponents and 10-19 against power conference competition. This is a staggering amount of futility, even considering the mediocrity the program has seen over the last 15 years since Urban Meyer’s departure.

Napier’s defenders will point to the situation he inherited from previous manager Dan Mullen, who lacked key players from the team on both sides of the ball. Although Napier filled this talent gap with promising young players, this did not translate into wins.

The positive trend is not there yet. Napier’s first team of 2022, which earned the most impressive win of his tenure in its first game against a Utah team and eventually won the Pac-12, was the only team to reach bowl eligibility. The team fell to 5-7 last year and lost five straight games to end the season, and this year’s team will need a pretty big upset over the next two weeks for a chance at the postseason.

No amount of injuries — not even the ridiculous number the Gators have experienced this season — justifies such outcomes. Not in 3rd grade. Not at the University of Florida.

I thought of Scott Frost. On November 8, 2021 – almost three years before Stricklin’s announcement – ​​ex Nebraska Athletic director Trev Alberts gave a similar vote of confidence to Frost, who went 15-29 in four seasons and finished the season with a 3-9 record.

We all know what happened next. The Cornhuskers started the 2022 season with 1-2 losses to Northwestern and Georgia Southern, and Frost was out of a job before the calendar turned to October.

If Florida follows suit by keeping Napier for 2025, the story will almost certainly end the same way. And when that happens, the decision to hire a coach whose records would make Ron Zook, Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain blush will look as foolish as Nebraska’s decision to keep Frost on the team for the ill-fated 2022 season.