Brian Kelly reacts to Billy Napier hot seat talk, defends him as Florida head coach

Ahead of their next matchup with one another, Billy Napier is back on a hot seat at Florida ahead of this weekend’s game against Brian Kelly and LSU. Kelly, though, can’t believe that’s the case he finds himself as, one coach to another, he knows how hard it is to build a program your way.

During his press conference on Monday, Kelly was asked for his impressions of Napier ahead of what’ll be their fourth game against one another. The hot seat talk now surrounding him was part of that question, with Kelly just shaking his head at that thought.

“Crazy,” said Kelly. “Craziness.”

Kelly is 2-1 to this point over Napier since 2022. LSU won 45-35 in 2022 and 52-35 in 2023 before Florida won 27-16 last season in 2024, with that victory in The Swamp being part of what justified Napier in keeping his job another year at that point last fall.

However, after this last weekend, Napier fell to 20-20 overall after the start of his fourth season as the head coach of the Gators. That’s with a two-point upset loss taken by No. 13 Florida to USF, which has taken away much of the momentum they had coming into this season down in Gainesville. That’s certainly so with their ten remaining game being against power opponents in-state or in the conference, with eight of those being ranked and five of those eight currently being rated in the top-ten. No. 3 LSU is the first of those as a near double-digit favorite now over Florida, per the lines at BetMGM.

That said, Kelly thinks highly of Napier as a coach. He also thinks there isn’t enough patience in the process that head coaches go through to make a program their own, which is what Napier is doing after years under Dan Mullen, Jim McElwain, and Will Muschamp for Florida like Kelly has had to do in following under Ed Orgeron, Les Miles, and Nick Saban for LSU.

“He’s a really good football coach. You know, he knows his team, he knows what their strengths and weaknesses are. You can see it on film. He’s building a culture that is fit to his eye in terms of what he wants to do. He’s doing it his way, and that’s awesome,” said Kelly. “I think that, you know – look, I came in here, right, and Ed was here and he won a national championship, right. But he did it his way, right. It was his way, and that’s fine. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. They wanted to make a change. I do it my way. It takes time to put in your philosophy and the way you like to do things, you know. I do them a lot different than Ed does, but he still won, right. They asked for a change. I came. It takes time to make that change, and it’s the same thing with Billy.”

“Billy has come in after two or three other head coaches that changed the way the other coaches did it, and now he’s starting to stabilize that program,” Kelly said. “So, people talk about whatever they want. It’s crazy. It takes what it takes, and he’ll get that thing where he wants it. I think he’s got it right now. They beat us last year.”

At this point, Kelly is focused on his own team beating Napier, who’s potential firing will be discussed regardless over the next several weeks, this weekend. Still, he felt it was well worth it to make that point while speaking to the media today.

“So, again, we need to worry about us and that’s what we do,” said Kelly. “I worry about what we do on a day-to-day basis and make sure we’re prepared to be our best on Saturday.”

“Was that considered a rant? Close?” Kelly joked of his defense of Napier. “It was a borderline rant?”