Beyond the Pale: The pivotal question surrounding Billy Napier after loss to USF

After yesterday’s upset loss to USF, Billy Napier is back on the hot seat at Florida. Josh Pate can’t blame anyone for thinking that’s the case either considering where he is at this point with the Gators.

Pate reacted to the 18-16 win for South Florida over No. 13 Florida in Gainesville during ‘Josh Pate’s College Football Show’ on Sunday. It featured just as much disbelief in what happened in the loss that took place in The Swamp on Saturday, which brought him to criticisms from the Gators’ play on the field to the coaching they received that led to that outing.

“How in the world did this happen? Are you serious? Are you serious? Even a somewhat competitively coherent effort wins this from Florida…It’s not one of those games where they just came out clicking on all cylinders, like Florida State against Alabama, where they just get ambushed and ‘Bama never knew what hit them. That wasn’t this game! That wasn’t this game at all! You gave up 18 at home, and that was good enough to beat you? It’s early in the season!” said Pate. “Just zero killer instinct. Decisions were terrible. Clock management was terrible. It’s disappointing. It’s beyond disappointing for someone who believed in Florida this year. It’s beyond disappointing.”

“They weren’t prepared to win the game, is really what it comes down to. Now, sometimes when you say that, you say the coaching staff didn’t do all they could to prepare the team to win the game – but that’s not always the case. There’s actually a worse scenario than that. Sometimes, the coaching staff did do all they knew to do to prepare a team to win a game and it wasn’t enough against an inferior opponent talent-wise. And, I don’t know which spot Florida finds itself in. I’m concerned it’s the latter,” Pate continued. “If it’s the former, it’s a dereliction of duty, but at least you know you could turn the volume up whenever you need to. But, if it’s the latter? Several years in, when you’ve got a figurative stay of execution last year if you’re Billy, and you got another opportunity and you finished strong and the quarterback you finished strong with is now the one pulling the trigger for you, and this is the best you put on the field? It’s not good enough. He knows it’s not good enough.”

“There’s some decisions that are made that are beyond the pale,” said Pate. “There were in this game, and that’s what I can’t defend. Really, from a coaching perspective, that’s what I can’t defend.”

Through four seasons at Florida, Napier is now right back to .500 with a record of 20-20. That’s coming off the two-point loss off a go-ahead field goal to the Bulls where the Gators didn’t play well, or make good decisions on or off the sidelines, in several facets on their home field. That mark may now get even worse with four straight games coming up against top-twenty teams, three being in conference play and another being in-state in the non-conference.

With this, Napier is back in question down at Florida. While he expects it, though, Pate can’t believe he’s back at that point considering what he does trust in his process of building their program to this point, even if the results aren’t there

“Does he have the answers to fix it? I don’t know. That’s the best I can give you,” Pate admitted. “If you think the answer is no, I can’t blame you if you think that way. But, I mean, we’re going through this again now with Napier. We will absolutely go through hot seat talk. We’ll go through anonymous boosters, or maybe on the record boosters, speaking in definitive terms about how he’s done. Now, that happened last year. I just don’t have any false confidence that, because last year corrected itself, this year will correct itself.”

“I’m really conflicted on Billy Napier, because there’s a lot I love about him. I love his mentality. I love his temperament. I fully believe in his personal philosophy in a program and how to build it and how to run it. But the problem there is, you can do all of those things right, and all you’re doing there is presenting yourself an opportunity to win games, because you’ve done those things the right way. But, when you have the opportunity to win the games, you can’t fumble things like play-calling, you can’t fumble clock management, you can’t fumble in-game decisions. If you do those things, then you completely negate all the good work you did to present yourself the opportunity to win,” explained Pate. “That’s where the conflict is for me, because I see a lot of the characteristics exhibited down there that I believe in – because there’s a lot that Florida does, that Billy does that’s the same thing that other successful coaches do. The difference is, and maybe this is the disconnect. The best of the best do what it takes to present the opportunities to win games in the fall, then they do what it takes to win the games. They’re only fulfilling half of that equation, and that’s not good enough. And he’s had enough time now, and they’ve had enough patience.”

Napier could turn this narrative around with ten games left over the next dozen weeks, specifically with the opportunity that’ll be in front of them the next month. But, based on what happened again this weekend, Pate won’t hold it against anyone if they’re already out again on this tenure down in The Swamp.

“There’s not enough info yet. I’m not doing the hot-seat thing yet. I don’t really do that on this show anyway. When a guy gets fired, we’ll talk about it. We’ll lead the show with it if Billy loses his job. I’m not calling for it. I’m not there yet…I’m not going down that road yet. We’re two weeks into the season. I’m not going down that road yet. But, many people will, so,” said Pate. “That’s obvious. Many people will. And, look, if you’re a Florida fan, you’re a lot more emotionally invested in this than I am, although I’m kind of with you because I made some pretty bold statements about this team.”

“My point is, just because I’m not going down the road, I can’t blame you if you do,” Pate said. “I’d probably feel that way…I’d be right there with you. I understand.”