There are very few things in the college world we can agree on, all of us, without exception:

  1. Offensive holding is a brutal, drive-killing penalty – no matter the down.
  2. Morning kickoffs are an abomination and should be banned.
  3. Coaches are hired to be fired.

Now that we’ve established that, especially with No. 3 in the case of current/future ex-Florida coach Billy Napier, it is high time to consider the soon-to-be opening in Gainesville.

It was not too long ago that the head football coach at the University of Florida was a pretty plum job. Once Steve Spurrier awakened the fan base with his Fun ‘n’ Gun brashness in the early 1990s, it was off to the races for Florida. Expanding The Swamp was easy with all that Bull Gator money flowing in, and it was sexy to be a Gator for arguably the first time in program history.

Even after Spurrier became disenchanted with rising criticism for only winning 11 or 12 games a year and bolted for NFL riches in Washington, Gainesville was still the place to be. Granted, no one wanted to be the guy who followed the guy, which is why FireRonZook.com was a bookmarked website even on Ron Zook’s first day replacing Spurrier.

Zook lasted 3 years, but Florida was still plenty juicy enough for another run of national prominence in the form of Urban Meyer. Yes, Meyer’s tenure molding the roster into the Swamp Kings that won 2 more national titles, another Heisman Trophy and kept defense attorneys on retainer lasted 6 glorious seasons. But in its wake left the Gators not poised to continue the run but instead flounder in the tall grass.

Will Muschamp was lauded as Meyer’s replacement but never caught traction. Jim McElwain was run out of town after just 3 seasons of ordinary. Dan Mullen appeared poised to deliver Greatness V3.0, but the powers-that-be weren’t satisfied with his 69.4% winning percentage.

That brings us to Napier, and the existential question of: “Just how good is the Florida coaching job?”

Conventional logic would tell us that the answer is “middling at best,” given that the Gators haven’t sniffed an SEC title since Meyer hoisted the hardware in 2008. Yes, Mullen won the SEC East in 2020, but Florida’s 8-4 record wasn’t top tier that season or any season. Heck, McElwain won 2 SEC East crowns in 2015 and 2016 before a spectacular flame-out in 2017 that included reported death threats against him and animosity between McElwain and Florida officials from the very jump.

And the aforementioned mediocrity, combined with the resurgence of Florida State just up the road, Georgia just across the border as well as Nick Saban’s dominance at Alabama, just keeps mashing down Florida’s stroke in the college football landscape. A little like pre-Spurrier Florida, Gators fans have little to celebrate – though the current bunch can at least remember the echoes of the past and dream about the future.

Ah yes, the future. Given that the “For Sale” signs surely will pile up on Napier’s front lawn any day now, you gotta wonder who will take/fall for the opening he is about to create.

Having two upper-case legacies wafting about on the periphery of the Florida program (Spurrier still has an office at Florida Field, for Saban’s sake …) only stunts the would-be successors. The new world of NIL riches has already bitten Napier and those wealthy Bull Gators once (Jaden Rashada ring a bell?), so traversing said new world will only be more challenging.

Just how good is this Florida job?

One could certainly make the argument that it barely cracks the top 8 of SEC head coaching positions. The gigs at Alabama, Georgia and Texas are certainly top tier, and coaching at Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma aren’t far behind at all – all 6 primed and capable of winning a national championship with the proper alchemy of talent, luck and coaching excellence.

Beyond that plateau, though, it gets tricky.

Florida fans do not want to hear this, but its program is akin to those at Auburn, Missouri, Ole Miss and Texas A&M – aspirational, sure, but not equally blessed. They’re like MAC quarterbacks, in that there is some fatal flaw in all of them that keep strong collections of talent from becoming truly great.

Billy Napier will be gone soon in Gainesville, because we know all coaches are hired to be fired – especially ones that can’t seem to get out of their own way. But can Florida’s brain trust (engineered by Scott Stricklin, who can’t be on the most solid of ice at the moment himself) really attract top-tier talent for a second-tier gig?

There are very few things in the college world we can agree on, all of us, without exception.

Add another to the list: Florida wants to be great again, but will the Gators find another giant redwood like Spurrier or Meyer amid the seemingly limitless forest of Napiers?