The will they, won’t they, some 15-month saga of whether Florida will fire Billy Napier is finally over.
Despite a 23-21 win over Mississippi State on Saturday, the Gators fired Napier on Sunday as the team entered its open week. Napier ended his tenure at 22-23 overall, which is the worst record through 20 games of any Florida coach since 1950.
Napier leaves a talented roster behind in Gainesville — 12th in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite — for whomever comes next.
As for Napier’s next steps, his outlook is much more in question.
Napier’s immediate future is pretty good. He’s owed 50% of his near $20 million buyout within 30 days of his firing. Nothing like a near eight-figure payday ahead of Christmas shopping season.
His long-term future? We’ll see.
Napier will have options in coaching; however, it seems more unlikely than not talking to industry sources that teams will look to him as a head coach this cycle. He was given almost every resource at Florida to build, including an army of off-field staffers and a hefty name, image and likeness war chest. Yet the best Napier fared in any single season in Gainesville was 8-5.
There were positive moments for Napier, including the work the program did to rebuild the foundation of the roster with good high school classes and evaluations. Napier is also widely considered a nice man and is very well-liked around Gainesville and the college coaching ranks. You can also argue a historically difficult schedule the last two seasons for Florida did Napier no favors as his program attempted to ascend.
But Napier had his obvious problems, too.
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Those in the industry criticize his unwillingness to let go of play-calling duties and hire a full-time offensive coordinator. Florida wanted to build through the high school ranks, but that meant taking a more cautious approach in the transfer portal than most modern contenders. Throw in game-management issues and many missed opportunities in winnable games, and Napier lost the trust of the Florida fan base a long time ago.
In fairness to Napier’s head coaching acumen, his run with Louisiana from 2018 to 2021 was incredibly successful.
He took over a program that won a combined 15 games in the three years prior to him getting the job. He went 7-7 in Year 1 before rattling off a 34-5 record over the next three seasons.
Napier showed the ability to build on the Group of Five level. It just didn’t translate to the SEC.
Back to the question of what’s next for Napier, he’ll have three options:
1. Attempt to find another head coaching job.
2. Take a coordinator or high-level assistant job at a power program.
3. Take the year off or hang out as an analyst somewhere for a year to reset.
Could a Group of Five team be intrigued enough by Napier this year to give him a shot? Of course. But it seems less likely during a year in which not many G-5 jobs are expected to open. Though, if a job like Coastal Carolina comes up it could tempt him.
Just look at what happened to Dan Mullen and Jim McElwain in their post-Florida life.
McElwain spent a year as Michigan’s wide receivers coach before taking the Central Michigan job. Mullen took several years off and worked at ESPN as an analyst before returning to coaching this offseason at UNLV.
Of note with Napier, his contract does not include any offset or duty to mitigate language. He can take the next few years off if he wants and has no obligation to find another job to offset Florida’s payments. Napier has the benefit of time and optionality.
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He’s also got a big tree of friends in college football. Napier spent years at Clemson and Alabama as an assistant and would not have a hard time finding a job this offseason if he wanted to. Whether or not Napier desires to coach next year is unclear. He might not even know for a few days or weeks until he can step back from his firing and look at his time in Gainesville with additional clarity.
If history is any indicator, however, he’ll have another shot to be a head coach at some point.
Every Florida head coach since 1990 had another job after their time in Gainesville, and it’s not as if being a Jimmy Sexton client will hurt his chances of finding future head coaching work.
Napier is only 46. He’s got plenty of time in coaching left ahead of him.
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