Paul Finebaum 'baffled' by Florida, Billy Napier in Week 1

A few teams across the country disappointed their fanbases with their overall play in week one. However, no team left Paul Finebaum more confused in the official opening weekend of the college football season than the Florida Gators.

Finebaum deemed the Gators as his most disappointing team from the past few days of games during ‘The Matt Barrie Show’ on Sunday. He felt it was a very lackluster performance across the board, especially considering how undermanned that the Utes were in their 13-point victory.

“To me? I came away from Florida just baffled,” said Finebaum. “I wasn’t expecting them to be a great team but I just expected them to look well-coached, organized. And everything they did was to hand Utah a game. And Utah was about as short-handed as they could be without a star quarterback, a star tight end, defensive players.”

Plenty of criticism has gone across the board for Florida. That includes their quarterback, their run game, their defense, and several avoidable blunders that left many just scratching their heads.

Still, to Finebaum, this all falls on the shoulders of Billy Napier as the head coach in Gainesville. In general, he is left disappointed by the 14 games of Napier’s time with Florida and that, at this point, he’d rather hear him own up some of it rather than try to explain some of the problems away.

“Billy Napier continues to underwhelm as a head coach at Florida,” Finebaum said. “That is now, what, 14 games into his tenure? It looked like his first game. He looked clueless at times.”

“There’s just nothing he says that really is compelling. He said, ‘Yeah, I saw a lot of good things‘. No! You didn’t see a lot of good things,” continued Finebaum. “I don’t mind a coach who goes up there and just takes responsibility. That says I blew it, it won’t happen again, gives the Tim Tebow promise speech. Just don’t go in there and sound like a high school gym teacher.”

There’s a lot to clean up in The Swamp and they’ll have their chance to right the ship to a degree as early as next week against McNeese. However, Finebaum warned Gator fans of the potential outcome if they continue to give Napier too much of a pass for success on the recruiting trail rather than on the field.

“They couldn’t do anything,” Finebaum concluded. “You know things are in trouble when I heard from fans on Friday say, ‘But, hey, you don’t realize how well we’re recruiting!‘. Well, good luck. We have not seen anybody sign a letter of intent yet