What they're saying about Billy Napier

It’s crunch time for the Florida Gators and their coach, Billy Napier. Following last week’s 18-16 loss at home to USF, UF this Saturday enters a treacherous four-game stretch [LSU, Miami, Texas and Texas A&M] that ultimately will determine what this team is in 2025—contender, pretender or flat-out disappointment. And how it performs over this gauntlet almost certainly will decide the fate of Napier, now a pedestrian 20-20 as Gators coach.

Among Gator Nation and across the country, it seems everyone has an opinion on Napier’s situation. Here’s a sampling from different personalties in the sport.

*Brian Kelly, LSU coach: “Crazy. It’s craziness … He’s a really good football coach. 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. That’s awesome.

“Look, I came in here … and (when Ed Orgeron) was here, he won a National Championship. But, he did it his way. It was his way. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the way it went. They wanted to make a change. I do it my way. It takes time. It takes time to put in your philosophy and the way you like to do things. I do them a lot different than Ed does, but he still won. They ask for a change, I came, and it takes time to make that change.

And, it’s the same thing as Billy. Billy has come in after two or three other head coaches that changed the way the other coaches did it. Now he’s starting to stabilize that program. People talk about whatever they want. It’s crazy. It takes you what it takes, and he will get that thing where he wants it.”

Former Bama QB says it’s too soon for the hook

Greg McElroy, former Alabama quarterback/ESPN: “We need to cool it with the hot seat hot takes in Week 2. 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 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.”

*Chris Doering, former Gators All-American receiver/ESPN/SEC Network on Twitter: “I was critical of the play calling from the Gators’ loss to USF on Sat night. While there are definitely many issues to address the play calling was better than I initially thought outside of the 4 min. O to close out the game. At the end of the day players have to make plays.”

*Paul Finebaum, SEC NETWORK: “I did the calculation on Florida‘s 12-game schedule and USF is either the 10th or 11th best team on their schedule. If you’re doing the math on where Billy Napier will be next year, it probably won’t be at Florida.”

A former Gator rushes to Billy Napier’s defense

*Tyrie Cleveland, Former Gators receiver on Twitter: “Everybody keep saying fire Billy Napier but if people really knew how much it takes to turn a program around they wouldn’t say that at all. Some coaches blossom faster than others and that’s fine. Gator Nation we’re in good hands it’s all part of the process. TRUST THE PROCESS”

*Blake Toppmeyer, USA TODAY: “With Florida’s next four games coming against ranked opponents, it sure wouldn’t be stunning if Napier absorbs a knockout punch before Columbus Day.”

*Adam Rittenberg, ESPN.COM: “Napier’s situation jumps out because of what lies ahead for his team and, as Andrea [Adelson] correctly points out, the perception that he had fixed some of the issues that surfaced early last season and during his first two years in Gainesville. He might need to pull off two or three significant upsets to stabilize the situation. Although the total number of Power 4 openings in the upcoming cycle should rise, Florida would be the biggest, and could trigger movement elsewhere in the SEC or perhaps Big Ten.”

*Stewart Mandel, The Athletic: “Florida fans are hardly the first to try to run off coaches, but I have noticed a self-fulfilling pattern: A loud minority often makes up its mind about the guy before he even coaches a game. Back in the day, Ron Zook started in a hole because he was following Steve Spurrier and because no one had heard of him before Jeremy Foley hired him. Dan Mullen wasn’t a good recruiter. Napier was an unqualified Sun Belt coach. (And the Jaden Rashada saga didn’t help his cause.)

Napier got a one-year honeymoon until a Week 1 loss at Utah in 2023, the year when the Gators committed a silly amount of dumb penalties (including the original instance of two guys wearing the same jersey). Jim McElwain wasn’t popular, either, but he got fired for off-field stuff.

So what I see as the pattern is if you’re not Spurrier or Urban Meyer, you’re not getting much benefit of the doubt.Having said all that, I don’t fault anyone for putting Napier on the hot seat now. It’s Year 4, and Florida is making the same mistakes it did in years 1 and 2.

At a time when coaches can reset their rosters every year, Napier is 20-20. Rival Florida State got great, then bad, then possibly great again just in the time he’s been there. I won’t declare him dead after two games, but it’s not looking good.

A Baton Rouge surprise for Billy could right the ship

*Nicholas Rome, Saturday Blitz: “If Billy Napier is going to survive the hot seat this time around, he’s going to have to go on another massive winning streak, and it starts with this LSU game. Napier and DJ Lagway were able to pull off the upset win last year, and some of the issues LSU had in 2024 still exist in 2025 as they can’t run the football.

On the other side, Brian Kelly is riding high this season, but if the LSU Tigers suffer a loss in this game, the fanbase can flip right back to wondering if he’s the man for the job. Losing to Florida wouldn’t be a massive upset or a massive disappointment, but if Brian Kelly truly has a College Football Playoff caliber team, they win this game at home.

*Dan Wolken, Yahoo! Sports: “After Florida’s ghastly 18-16 loss at home to South Florida, it’s clear everyone involved in this charade of a football program is just wasting time and, more importantly, wasting money. It’s over. Over, over, over.

There’s plenty to nitpick from Napier’s coaching disasterclass Saturday. We can start with the Gators’ three-play, 2-yard drive that took just 27 seconds off the clock after South Florida missed a go-ahead field goal with 2:52 to go. Why was Florida, leading 16-15 at the time, throwing on first down in that situation? Don’t even try to explain it because you can’t. Or why did Napier wait until there were just 22 seconds left to start using his timeouts after USF got in position to kick the winning field goal with a minute to go?

This is remedial-level coaching stuff that Napier completely botched. But that’s almost beside the point. When you’re Napier and you lose at home to South Florida in Year 4, you can’t blame it on NIL. You can’t blame it on resources. You can’t blame it on the previous coach.

New season, same problems in Gainesville?

*Mark Long, AP  104.5 The Zone’s Ramon and Will: “The Comedy of Errors, really. Billy Napier talked about this team, the culture, the chemistry, the camaraderie that he felt this was different, right?” said Long. “Going into year four, they’ve done enough in terms of a top 15 recruiting class.

They think they’ve got a rising star in DJ Lagway, all the things that they needed. And then on top of that, Billy just raved about the character, the culture, all those things that it was elite and that would be a difference maker in one of these games at some point. Well, it was a difference maker, alright? It cost them.

You got the spitting penalty in the final drive, a pass interference penalty on the final drive. And that really just gets things going for USF, and they propelled themselves to an 87-yard drive that ended with a 20-yard field goal and a victory.”

*Benjamin Henderson, Hail Florida Hail: “While it is less and less now, there is still this lingering belief that Dan Mullen left the Gators in such bad shape that it’s unfair to expect Napier to have cleaned it up by now. May we introduce you to Jeff Scott and the state he left USF in?

Unlike Napier, Scott was a successful offensive coordinator with Clemson and was with the Tigers when they won their national titles in 2016 and 2018. Scott took over the reins at USF in 2020, and it’s not possible for a tenure to go much worse than what he did. In 2020, the Bulls were 1-8. In 2021, they went 2-10. And in 2022, they almost beat Florida, then promptly went 1-11 in a season where Scott was fired before it ended.

Alex Golesh inherited a team that won four games combined over the previous three seasons. Billy Napier inherited a team that went to a bowl game the year before. And yet, fast forward three seasons later, and Golesh built a program from the literal ashes that waltzed into The Swamp, went toe-to-toe with Florida, and walked away with a win.

*Matt Baker, The Athletic: “Unfortunately for Napier, it was not the first time a failure to eliminate careless play cost his team dearly. There was an equipment violation at Utah in 2023 when two players wore the same number on a punt return; the free first down led to a Utes score.

Against Arkansas in 2023, discombobulation on the sidelines led to an illegal substitution and a missed field goal in an overtime loss. Last September against Texas A&M, he said his defense failed to execute basic plays or line up correctly in a two-score loss at home. It was a damning admission for a coach in his third year.

And now, two games into Year 4, Bull spit.”

What’s the rush? Should the Gators let the entire season play out?

*David Wasson, Saturday Down South: “One school of thought was embraced in Gainesville by former Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley, who often would muse that anything that eventually needed to be done should be done right away. Currently 20-20 with no real path toward a successful season in sight based on how the Gators played the Bulls, Napier has clearly shown Florida who he is by now, so why not rip the proverbial Band-Aid off immediately?

The other school of thought is this: What does Florida gain by sending Napier to the bread line in early September? Even if you figure the Gators are destined for another losing season, playing the bulk of it with an interim coach would assuredly cause in-season insurrection within the locker room even before the transfer portal bursts open just from the sheer force of departing Florida players banging on it.

It also wouldn’t appear wise to fire your coach before you know precisely who you can target – and it is far too early into the 2025 season to properly figure out who might be available. 

*Buddy Martin, The Buddy Martin Show: “Napier is down to his last can of rations, and running out of ammunition.   I would like to see him spared for now, but pitch counts and window candles make the task more dubious and we are on short supply of evidence.”

About Billy Napier’s buyout at UF

*Pete Thamel, ESPN: “Interesting about Napier’s buyout is there’s no offset or mitigation, so he gets it all, which is pretty rare. Even Lincoln Riley’s $100 million contract, I think the buyouts are around 80 now, those get offset. If he goes and becomes a $5 million-a-year NFL play-caller or whatever, like Chipo [Kelly][ did, that would get offset from the buyout. So you can make it more manageable.”

*David Pollack, former Georgia player/one-timeESPN analyst on Monday’s episode of his See Ball Get Ball podcast. “Now listen, they made mistakes, and if they clean up the mistakes, they win that game against South Florida. Period. Two offensive touchdowns called back, 11 penalties, there’s a lot that can go better. (But) I’d say (Napier) knows better than we do, because he knows who’s on his staff.

And Russ Calloway is his OC, do you give him a shot with some help? Maybe, I don’t know the answer, but what they did last week with the mistakes and the penalties and not capitalizing on deep shots, they’ve got to do a better job.”

*Rece Davis, ESPN: “I hope Billy Napier gets out of it. I think Billy Napier is a good coach. I think he can win in the SEC. They’ve got to stop having these moments. But whether it’s Billy Napier and DJ Lagway or anybody else, if an athletic director makes a coaching decision based on a player, you are doing it wrong.

Whether DJ Lagway stays in Florida should have zero, less than zero, to do with whether you’re keeping the coach. Lagway’s a star. There’s no question about that. I think he’s going to be a great NFL player as long as he’s in college … 

It’s only a year or two, you cannot make these decisions based on the whim of a player, or I won’t even say whim, that’s unfair to DJ. The decision of a player and the finite period of time during college, it is a massive mistake to decide what you’re doing with a coaching future based on what one single player might do.”