Paul Finebaum on Billy Napier: There's no reason for optimism, the end is near

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum is about ready to pull the plug on Billy Napier at Florida following Saturday’s loss to USF at home. The Group of Five team is now ranked in the Top 20, but it was a stunning defeat at home to the Bulls.

Napier is now 1-1 this year and 20-20 in three-plus years at Florida. Simply put, that’s not up to the Gators’ standards.

It was a rollercoaster last year and 2025 was supposed to be the breakthrough year. But as Finebaum pointed out, Saturday’s loss to signal the end of Napier very soon.

“He completely blew it,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic. “(These are) the same problems we’ve been seeing from Napier in terms of game management from beginning, and at this point, there’s no reason for optimism. I’m sorry, we went through that last year. It was a roller coaster, terrible at the first, great at the end. And you just can’t keep playing with fans’ emotions. You have to get control of your program. And he clearly has not. So I think the end is near for Billy Napier.” 

Not that Finebaum has an inside source on Napier’s future, but it certainly doesn’t look good. He referenced the schedule coming up for Florida and it’s brutal

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Finebaum said. “I don’t have any more control over that program than my dog sitting here next to me. But ultimately, it’s hard to come back from this, and the only way is to undo the damage. And the problem for Napier is mathematically, he only had so much room for error anyway with the toughest schedule in the SEC. 

“And now he’s completely thrown a game away. When you look at these next four or five games, even if you win one of those … then you are back to square one, and the odds of Billy Napier winning all four of these games is pretty close to zero.”

As it stands, Florida has No. 3 LSU on the road this weekend, No. 5 Miami on the road the following week, a bye week and then they host No. 7 Texas and travel to No. 16 Texas A&M to open October. Good luck coach Napier!

Penalties were a big issue and it ultimately led to the game-winning field goal for USF. There was also a spitting incident, which Napier said was an indictment on coaching.

“(But) they’re under my leadership, (and) it’s ultimately my responsibility. We need to eliminate the false starts, we need to eliminate the personal fouls. We did have a substitution penalty as well,” Napier said postgame. “So those are the ones as coaches that we have to take responsibility for. … I think the players make mistakes as part of the game, but I do think that ultimately it is my responsibility, so I think it is coaching.”