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At Tennessee, Billy Napier gets 1 more chance to change the conversation
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In the dimly lit hollows of The Swamp just moments after Florida’s faceplant against Texas A&M on Sept. 14, at the time the 6th home loss in its past 11 tries against power conference competition, Billy Napier was asked a simple question.
“Do you think there’s a path for you to be the head football coach at Florida in 2025?”
Napier’s reply was muted but blunt.
“One hundred percent.”
At the time, the response seemed academic but fanciful.
Of course Napier was going to say he believes he can earn a 4th season. What else would you expect him to say?
Wile E. Coyote always believed he would catch the Roadrunner.
But after Florida’s second embarrassing home loss in September and 7th consecutive loss to a power conference opponent, Florida’s boosters and power brokers were assembling Napier’s $27 million-plus buyout and discussing coaching targets. While Florida administrators made no formal decision, Napier’s future termination as Florida’s head coach was being presented to fans as a fait accompli.
Following the A&M loss, Florida sat at 12-16 under Napier, who was 40-12 as a head coach with 2 conference championships in 4 seasons at Louisiana before being hired at Florida.
It’s misleading to suggest Florida reached when it hired Napier. Napier was a consensus hire by the Florida administration, approved by high level donors. He was widely viewed as a terrific choice in an industry where almost any hire has risk, and he was coveted by a number of SEC and national programs. Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Baylor, Missouri and Arkansas all expressed interest in Napier as a candidate before taking the Florida job, according to reports by Paul Finebaum and CBS Sports.
The logic was Napier, a relentless recruiter for national championship winning coaches Dabo Swinney at Clemson and Nick Saban at Alabama, would do what Dan Mullen was disinterested in doing at Florida and acquire the talent necessary to build a program capable of sustaining success in modern college football.
Dismissing Mullen, who went 34-15 at Florida and from 2018-2020 became the first SEC coach to advance to New Year’s 6 bowls in his first 3 seasons on campus, wasn’t without risk, but it was hardly as controversial as recent counterfactuals suggest.
The 2018-2020 version of Mullen, who took Jim McElwain’s terrific recruiting evaluations and won 29 games in his first 3 seasons, was a great hire. But after Florida fell a touchdown short against eventual national champion Alabama in a riveting 2020 SEC Championship Game, Mullen sniffed around the NFL for a job and lost his fastball. The Gators played Alabama toe to toe again in The Swamp in September 2021, but never again looked like a prepared or cohesive program. Complicating matters, Mullen’s recruiting went from utilitarian to plainly poor, with the head coach declining to even discuss the matter in press conferences as the 2021 campaign spun south.
The video of this is even worse 😳 https://t.co/Pb5pUllKAd pic.twitter.com/5VvVrGIjM2
— Dayne Young (@dayneyoung) November 1, 2021
The disengaged and farcical answer above, which came after Florida was obliterated 34-7 by archrival Georgia, proved the 2021 version of Mullen didn’t understand or was disinterested in the job at Florida, which is to consistently compete for SEC and national championships.
Point being, Florida made the right move departing from the Zombie Mullen who led the program in 2021. Napier simply hasn’t been the solution many industry professionals believed he would be.
Like Mullen, Napier’s job is to compete for and win national championships. Like Mullen — and to an obviously harsher degree — Napier is failing in that endeavor.
Florida spends $80 million per annum, including compensation, or 35.2% of its athletic budget on football, the 4th-highest percentage in the SEC, per Sportico. When you consider that level of investment, it is more than fair for Florida fans to expect a return on investment greater than the 14-16 record Napier has delivered over his 2+ seasons.
Which brings us back to Napier’s answer about how he believes he can earn a potential 4th season at Florida.
Is there truly a scenario where Napier returns for 2025?
Florida’s schedule suggests there is almost no path., but since the Texas A&M debacle, the Gators have at least put themselves in position to turn around their season.
Florida routed Mississippi State in Starkville 45-28 and followed that victory with a dominant 24-13 win over in-state Big 12 foe UCF.
Perhaps providing hope, Florida didn’t play a complete game in either victory.
Florida’s offense was dynamic in the win at Miss State, scoring 45 points and piling up over 500 yards. Florida’s 2 quarterbacks, Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway, were fantastic, completing 26-of-28 passes for 277 yards and 3 touchdowns while engineering 3 touchdown drives of 85 yards or more.
Unfortunately for the Gators, their defense surrendered 480 yards, including 240 rushing, allowing the Bulldogs to cut a 3-touchdown lead to a single score in the second half before Florida pulled away late.
Against UCF, the Gators played their best defense of the Napier era, limiting a Knights rushing offense that came into The Swamp ranked No. 2 nationally in yards and No. 1 in explosive rushing plays to just 108 yards. The total marked the 5th-lowest in Gus Malzahn’s tenures as a head coach at UCF and Auburn combined, and helped Florida build another 3-touchdown first half lead.
Florida’s offense, however, failed to score in the second half, grinding out just 4 more first downs and allowing UCF to at least stay within striking distance in the fourth quarter.
There are 2 ways to look at the lingering warts from Florida’s 2 recent victories.
On the one hand, trouble is brewing and Florida’s flaws will again be exposed when the Gators resume games against tougher opposition, beginning Saturday night in Knoxville against No. 8 Tennessee.
On the other hand, the Gators haven’t yet played a complete game, where all 3 phases are clicking and everything seems to come together at once.
If and when that happens, last weekend’s chaos in college football certainly reminded us that nothing in this sport is pre-ordained and no one, not even a mighty Alabama team that felled the Georgia goliath, is fluke-proof.
Whatever view you take about the Gators’ 2 consecutive victories, one unequivocal truth is that the wins have done little to alter Napier’s future at Florida.
A change is still likely and necessary.
But is there a path for Napier?
To even initiate that type of conversation, Florida will need to beat a team better than the likes of Mississippi State or UCF.
A win Saturday night on Rocky Top might change the dynamics of the conversation.
Having found a way to win without playing complete football over the past 2 games, the Gators could save their best performance of the year for Tennessee.
It has happened before.
Tennessee fans, haunted by the trauma of losing to Florida on all but 3 occasions since 2005, are all too aware of this, even if they should be confident that an angry group of Volunteers, fresh off a heartbreaking upset loss of their own, will show up for Saturday’s rivalry game.
The Vols have managed to lose to some dire Florida teams in that stretch, including Gators teams that won just 4 games in 2013 and 2017, and Mullen’s final team, which went just 6-7 overall but scored a 38-14 blowout win over Tennessee. Josh Heupel has beaten Florida just once, and even that victory, in 2022, came down to the final possession.
Should Tennessee win? Everything we have observed about these 2 programs and coaches, as well as one of the most intimidating environments in the sport — Neyland Stadium at night — suggests a big Volunteers win.
For Napier, however, the Tennessee game is the latest, and perhaps last chance to change the conversation.
Beat Tennessee and suddenly bowl eligibility seems possible, despite a brutal November that will feature games against Georgia in Jacksonville, Texas in Austin, and LSU and Ole Miss in Gainesville. Beat Tennessee and suddenly Napier has a solid chance at 2 rivalry wins in Year 3 after collecting only 1 in his first 2 seasons. Beat Tennessee and suddenly Napier has a road win over a ranked foe for the first time at Florida.
For Napier, the Tennessee game is as close to the Alamo as you get in coaching.
These are the games Napier was hired to win.
A win Saturday would be the first time Napier has won a game of this caliber.
That might not save his job, but it sure beats the alternative for Napier at Florida.
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
