Chris Doering on why grueling schedule, Billy Napier's future looms over Florida's 2024 season
The pressure is on Florida coach Billy Napier in 2024. Set to enter his third year in Gainesville, Napier has yet to deliver a winning season and is coming off of a 5-7 finish this past year.
Fans have begun to grow restless as a result, and some sign of progress needs to be shown to alleviate mounting concerns. That will certainly be challenging considering the schedule in front of him.
The Gators are set to play perhaps their most difficult slate ever with nonconference matchups against Florida State, UCF and Miami. Not only that, but the beefed up SEC has made conference play even tougher as Florida will play Texas, Georgia and LSU, to name a few.
On3‘s Andy Staples discussed the upcoming season on his Tuesday podcast with guest Chris Doering of the SEC Network.
“Florida State’s always gonna be at the end, but they wouldn’t have a Miami or a UCF, much less both of them,” he said. “You know how UCF’s gonna feel about coming to The Swamp. The Miami game is fascinating to me because that’s one where both sets of fans think, ‘they’ve gotta win this one. Otherwise, if they can’t beat these guys, uh-oh.'”
A tough schedule unfortunately isn’t the biggest of Napier’s concerns heading into 2024. Florida is currently under NCAA investigation for its recruitment of former four-star quarterback Jaden Rashada. Rashada initially signed with the Gators before requesting a release from his letter of intent.
Doering pinpointed reaching bowl eligibility as a realistic goal for Napier in 2024 that would constitute a “successful” season. However, if the investigation doesn’t go his way, it may not matter what the record is.
“What we find out from the NCAA about the future I think is gonna have a lot to say about the future of Billy Napier,” Doering said. “If they’re doing a great job recruiting, I know the class slid a little bit from where it was projected, but I still think he did a nice job of creating some excitement, particularly (DJ) Lagway.”
Napier has still managed to bring in some big-time recruits, providing hope that he can turn things around in the future. Lagway ranked as the No. 1 quarterback in the 2024 cycle according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. The Gators also signed another five-star in defensive lineman LJ McCray.
Doering believes Florida can look at its rival, Florida State, as an example of how having patience can pay off. Seminoles coach Mike Norvell did not post a winning record in either of his first two seasons before jumping to 10-3 in his third year. Perhaps Napier can make a jump as well with time to get his players in the program.
“I think if you’re Florida, you look at Florida State,” Doering said. “They wanted to get Norvell out of there and they didn’t have the ability financially to do it so they were kind of stuck with him and it turned out to pay dividends. So I hope that there’s a level of patience. The question you have to ask if you’re gonna make a change (is) ‘who am I gonna go get that’s better than the guy I have right now?’ There’s not a lot of those guys out there.”
Regardless, 2024 remains an important year for Billy Napier and Florida. This could be the season that makes or breaks his future with the program, and we’ll see how it plays out several months down the road.