Florida Gators football coach Billy Napier lost all the positive narrative progression from the end of the 2024 season with an 18-16 loss to the USF Bulls in Week 2.
Last year ended with three straight wins against the LSU Tigers, a ranked Ole Miss Rebels, and the rival Florida State Seminoles, plus a dominant Gasparilla Bowl win over the Tulane Green Wave. This year, FBS play started with a buzzer-beating loss to a school from the American.
UF was ranked No. 13 heading into Saturday’s matchup, and with USF now ranked No. 18, their season isn’t over yet. But Napier now has one fewer chance to slip up before the program’s brain trust considers switching him out with someone who hasn’t lost twice to the Kentucky Wildcats and one apiece to South Florida and the Vanderbilt Commodores.
The Tampa Bay Times’ Nicolas Villamill summed it up best: the goodwill is gone, and the USF game will forever be remembered as the game that ripped the Napier bandaid off if Florida can’t recover.
“Florida’s late 2024 surge feels awfully distant now,” Villamill wrote.
“Any goodwill head coach Billy Napier accumulated then and over the offseason is running critically low after the No. 13 Gators were stunned by USF, 18-16 Saturday evening at Ben Hill Griffin.
“If Napier is unable to deliver another face-saving stretch, Florida’s first-ever loss to USF may go down as the moment that marked the beginning of the end of his tenure.”
Paul Finebaum implied on Sunday morning’s SportsCenter that Napier’s exit is likely happening sooner rather than later, given their difficult upcoming schedule.
“It’s completely inexcusable,” Finebaum said. “And what’s worse is it’s a continuum of the way Billy Napier has been coaching for most of his tenure at Florida. He got on that winning streak at the end [of last season] when everything seemed to come together, but it appears he has thrown that all away. His goodwill has gone down the drain. He is clearly back on the hot seat, and his worst enemy right now is the schedule. Anybody can figure this thing out. The next four games are at LSU, at Miami, Texas at home, and at Texas A&M. Where in the world do you find a win in that group?”
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, FSU offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, and Urban Meyer figure to be names linked to the Florida job if/when Napier is fired.