Billy Napier isn't going anywhere, but that doesn't mean a big close to 2023 isn't important
Wherever you stand on Billy Napier 9 games into his second season at Florida, be it frustrated, furious, fickle, amused or indifferent, one thing is almost unequivocally true: Napier will be the head football coach at Florida in 2024.
Even if Florida loses all 3 of its final regular-season games, cementing the program’s first run of 3 consecutive losing seasons since the SEC fully integrated in 1972. If all Florida does is finish the season on a 5-game losing streak, Napier will return for his third season in 2024. Scott Stricklin, who is almost certain to be fired if Napier fails, will continue to direct athletics at Florida, too. No amount of Finebaum ranting or Wolken Misery-Indexing or fan base Twitter tirades (just make a cup of coffee and type Billy Napier into the search bar of Twitter) is going to change that reality.
These things are true, but so is this: The pressure on Napier is mounting. Napier can relieve some of that pressure, beginning Saturday night at LSU, or he can lose another game and listen as the white noise grows louder and the questions more pronounced. If Napier loses 5 games to close Year 2 a season after losing his final 3 games in a Year 1, well, Napier will be back, but that doesn’t mean the steam around his seat won’t be at a frothy simmer.
Where do these 2 truths, increasingly in friction with every passing Florida defeat, suggest?
The way Florida closes 2023 matters.
That starts Saturday night in Baton Rouge.
The Gators aren’t — or certainly shouldn’t — get a “free pass” for a loss in Death Valley on Saturday Night. They especially aren’t getting one if they don’t have to face LSU as LSU should be — with Heisman candidate Jayden Daniels under center and one of the nation’s most ferocious offenses at its most dangerous and multiple.
Of course, if Florida loses as expected, the social media and media chatter will follow a by now predictable pattern.
You’ll hear plenty of talk about the encouraging play of Florida’s freshmen and sophomores on the field. You’ll hear that this Gators team is the youngest team, by participation rate, in the Power 5. You will hear reminders that more help is on the way, with Florida’s best recruiting class in over a decade set to sign with Florida this winter, including 5-star quarterback DJ Lagway, who increasingly looks like the best player in the country playing on Friday nights. These are facts. They also don’t excuse failure to perform on the field, thanks to some other facts.
Those facts?
If Florida falters Saturday, they will fall to 7-12 under Napier against Power 5 opponents. A loss to LSU would also be Florida’s 4th consecutive loss in the month of November. With only a road tilt at a marvelous Missouri team and a home date against top-5 rival Florida State remaining, the path to a 6th win is narrow. Florida is at the point where Napier being 7-14 against Power 5 opponents seems likely, with the nation’s toughest schedule in 2024 looming on the horizon. If the Gators aren’t competitive in Baton Rouge, it would represent Florida’s 3rd non-competitive performance in 2023 and their 2nd consecutive non-competitive performance against a program that have won national championships in the College Football Playoff Era, precisely the type of program Florida believes it should be. Those are facts too, and they melt away at a fan base whose patience is already brittle, bloodied by years of underachievement and more turnover than a Saturday afternoon at a Chick-fil-A drive through.
Weeks ago, when I wrote about Billy Napier’s long rebuild, two things stood out. First, big-money boosters and the bulk of Florida rank and file fans want to be patient. They also want the genial, kind-hearted Napier to succeed. They are tired of starting over with new coaches and tired of throwing away precious football seasons on “transition years.”
“There are what, 60 football seasons you can truly remember and savor as an adult, in a great life, if you are lucky,” one of the Bull Gator boosters I interviewed for the piece told me. “Forget the checks I end up writing to start over. It’s the emotional fatigue and the lost Saturdays of rebuilds that hurt most every time we make a change.”
That makes sense, when you consider what Gators fans have endured in the 14 years since they last played for a spot in the national championship (2009). Failed hire after failed hire, including one (Jim McElwain), who embarrassed the institution with his false allegations of death threats made to players. The rise of archrival Georgia to the gold standard in the sport has coincided with Florida’s downfall, and Gators fans watched in-state rival Florida State rise to a national title winning program, collapse, and surge again, all with Florida still trying to find the right hire.
Florida has not won a championship since 2008, and its most complete team since, the 11-2 2019 Orange Bowl champions, lost a make-or-break Cocktail Party to hated Georgia. Pack all of those decade-plus frustrations into a single package and you get an idea of the level of Florida fan angst.
Against that backdrop, Napier’s on-field performances have left little for fans to cling to, even as they point to increased administrative commitment to winning, new facilities and recruiting success off the field.
There’s no real evidence the 2023 Gators do anything especially well. The offense is closest to “good,” but a leaky offensive line that ranks 108th in sacks allowed and 111th in pressures allowed limits its ceiling. The defense has seen an uptick in success rate defense this year, ranking 8th in the SEC in that metric a season after ranking 13th. But Florida enters the LSU game ranked 46th in total defense, and they are a gnarly 103rd in yards per play. Yes, years of poor defensive recruiting under Dan Mullen’s regime took its toll on Florida’s depth, and the Gators start more underclassmen on defense than any team in the Power 5. But the defense appears to be getting worse as the season progresses, not better.
Finally, there’s the matter of in-game management. Napier hired an army of staffers and quality control coaches, but the Gators couldn’t figure out when to send the field goal unit on the field for a game-winning kick against Arkansas. The fiasco led to a 5-yard penalty, and Trey Smack, the Gators’ gifted sophomore kicker, missed a late drifting kick by 1 foot to the right. Florida has had 10 men on the field to block field goals (Utah, Arkansas), sent players with the same number on the field to cover punts negating stops (Utah), and had a punt blocked (Georgia). For a program with that many coaches and staffers, why isn’t 1 officially tasked with running the special teams?
These are errors of process, not youth, and that makes patience harder to sell.
Napier, who specifically asked for patience at his opening press conference in Gainesville, changed his tune about needing fan base patience after last weekend’s debacle in The Swamp.
“It’s not my job to preach patience. It’s my job to coach the team. And it’s my job to lead those young men in that locker room. Again, I think ultimately I’ve got a job to do relative to the people in that locker room. The most important thing to me is the young people in that locker room,” Napier said. “Look, when you lose games, there’s going to be criticism. It comes with the territory. I understand it. I’ve grown up in this profession. It comes with the territory. We knew this was going to be a challenge, and we’re right in the middle of it.”
That’s both right — Napier’s obligation is to the players he recruited and coaches — and wrong — Napier does owe his best and the team’s best to the fans who make it possible for his handsome multimillion dollar salary. If you take it on the chin against a 2-6 Arkansas, you better be prepared to answer to an understandably upset fan base.
Of course, Napier understands that he was was always a long-term investment, a calculated gamble by Stricklin that quick-fix hires who were interested in the job, like Brian Kelly and Lincoln Riley, weren’t the play for Florida, which has succeeded beyond measure under young head coaches like Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer with fire and a meticulous plan.
Will Gators fans be able to stomach 3 more losses, knowing the schedule that beckons in 2024, and the reality that things may not get much better for a (still) young team in 2024?
We’ll know soon. Napier could silence a host of critics, though, by winning a game or 2 in the next 3 weeks.
Winning games, as you might recall, is the reason Napier was hired.