Greg McElroy blasts Week 2 hot seat conversations around Billy Napier: ‘People like negative’

Saturday marked the low-point of the Billy Napier era for Florida, as in-state rival USF knocked off the Gators 18-16 in The Swamp via a walk-off field goal from kicker Nico Gramatica.

Napier is now 20-20 in 40 games as the head coach at Florida and is just 14-7 in games played in their home stadium, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The loss has caused an uproar of fan outrage, calling for Napier to be let go prior to the end of the season.

ESPN‘s Greg McElroy however wants to pump the brakes on the ‘fire Napier’ talk, as he explained on the latest edition of the ‘Always College Football Podcast‘.

“We need to cool it with the hot seat hot takes in week two,” McElroy said. “Now, I understand where we’re at. I get it. I understand why people react the way they do. They react with everybody’s voice being heard in the world we live in with social media and hot takes galore and the amount of response people get when thriving on negativity. People like negative. I get that. We here at ‘Always College Football‘ really try to find the silver lining. So for those of you coming to us expecting us to fire Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State or for those of you coming to us telling us to fire Billy Napier at Florida, I’m not willing to say that now.”

Gundy is one of the lone coaches who may have had a worse weekend than Napier, as his Oklahoma State Cowboys were destroyed by No. 6 Oregon 69-3. Since the Pokes went 12-2 and just narrowly missed the College Football Playoff in 2021, they are 21-20 over the past four seasons.

McElroy laments Napier’s play calling and clock management

“Do both of those coaches deserve some intense scrutiny? Of course,” McElroy continued. “And for Billy Napier especially. The loss to USF was shocking and felt like in many ways was a self-inflicted result. Now there’s a ton of criticism about the team’s lack of discipline. There’s a ton of criticism about the late-game play calling that he’s responsible for and clock management issues. This is the fourth straight season that Florida has lost one of its first two games and the brutal schedule that’s coming up does not allow for much time to sulk. They’ve got No. 3 LSU this week and they’ll go to Miami the following week. Things could go off the rails quickly.

“I understand why people are frustrated. He was brought to Florida from Louisiana because of his reputation for building a meticulous process-driven disciplined program. And now, everything looks like it’s now out the window. I don’t think Billy Napier has forgotten how to coach, but they need to definitely iron some things out. They absolutely need to iron some things out.”

Since Napier took over in 2022, Florida has climbed as high as No. 13 in the AP Poll twice. However, it lost both games when reaching those heights (2022 vs. Kentucky as No. 12, 2025 vs. USF as No. 13) and quickly fell back down the poll.

McElroy points at Florida’s strong finish to 2024 season

“But I remember when we rewind back to 2024, things got off the rails against Miami in the first game of the season. What was the reaction from everybody? ‘Look at the buyout numbers. He’s got to go. Here we go.’ And what did they end up doing down the stretch? Very few teams in college football were playing better football than the Florida Gators in November last year.

“They knock off a Playoff-bound Ole Miss. They knock off and completely extinguish any opportunity LSU had to make the College Football Playoff and also gave Georgia all they wanted. This is a marathon in college football nowadays. To jump to conclusions after week two about what a team might become is a dangerous game.”

For now, McElroy is marking Napier safe. If Florida was to lose its next four games (all against top-16 opponents) however, a 1-5 start to the season would certainly be a slippery slope for Napier and his job security in Gainesville.