Another top-10 upset for Florida? The Gators would have to overcome some startling Billy Napier era numbers
Published:
If this young season has taught us anything, it’s that we’re living in a week-to-week world of college football. One week, you can look lost with a dead-man walking coach, and the next, you can take down a top-10 team with a dominant all-around performance.
That describes Florida, who, if you can believe it, will be tasked with facing its 4th consecutive top-10 foe on Saturday when it travels to Texas A&M. It’ll mark the 12th time in the Billy Napier era in which he’ll lead Florida against a top-10 team, and it’ll be the 22nd time in which he squares off with a ranked foe since he was hired. Among those 22 matchups vs. AP Top 25 squads, it’ll be the 14th such game away from The Swamp.
And if Napier wins, it’ll improve his record to 1-13 in those games. Consider that a reminder of what Florida is up against at Kyle Field.
That’s right. Napier is 0-13 vs. ranked teams away from home. That includes neutral-site games, where he’s 0-3 vs. a trio of ranked Georgia teams and 0-1 vs. ranked Oregon State in the 2022 Las Vegas Bowl.
Overall, Napier is 5-15 away from The Swamp with victories against teams who finished with these records:
- 2022 at Texas A&M (finished 5-7)
- 2023 at South Carolina (finished 5-7)
- 2024 at Mississippi State (finished 2-10)
- 2024 at Florida State (finished 2-10)
- 2024 Gasparilla Bowl vs. Tulane (finished 9-5)
To recap, the 5 teams that Napier beat away from Gainesville went a combined 23-39. Tulane was the only bowl team in that group — it also started a backup QB after Darian Mensah transferred to Duke — which means Napier has yet to beat a Power Conference bowl team away from home (either in a true road game or neutral site). On top of that, last year’s victory at 2-win FSU marked Napier’s first and only win away from The Swamp in a night game, which feels like important context ahead of a 6 p.m. CT kickoff in front of 108,000 fans at Kyle Field.
In steps No. 5 Texas A&M, who hasn’t been perfect in a 5-0 start, but has shown plenty of strengths
Cashius Howell and Taurean York lead a Mike Elko defense that surrendered 1 touchdown in each of its first 2 SEC games. A&M boasts an elite 1-2 punch at running back in Le’Veon Moss and Rueben Owens, who have operated behind an experienced offensive line. It has the best receiving duo in the SEC in Mario Craver and KC Concepcion, both of whom have been go-to targets for Marcel Reed, who looks more comfortable than the guy who went into The Swamp and led a blowout victory last year.
Yes, it’s a different Florida team than the one who got shelled by the Aggies last September. It’s still the same coach who engineered 1 touchdown drive in each of Florida’s first 2 road games this year, both of which were against talented top-5 teams with game-wreckers on defense. Napier’s offense averaged 3.96 yards/play in those disappointing efforts, and DJ Lagway didn’t have a completion on a pass that traveled 20 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
Did the bye week fix Lagway and the Florida offense? It certainly didn’t fix Lagway’s leg, which was noticeably hobbled amid a winning performance against Texas. Florida’s offensive line did a masterful job of keeping him upright and not allowing a sack. Repeating that on the road against Howell, who already has a pair of 3-sack games at Kyle Field, will be a different task.
The good news for Florida is that A&M has been locked in 1-score games deep into the 3rd quarter against all 3 Power Conference foes it faced this season. That included a 2-0 start to SEC play in which unranked Auburn and unranked Mississippi State were fueled by stellar defensive efforts in College Station. Following that blueprint isn’t far-fetched considering that Florida was in 1-score games in the middle of the 3rd quarter at LSU and at Miami (FL).
The bad news for Florida is that neither 4th quarter saw breaks go Napier’s way, while Elko was on the right end of both late results. The other bad news for Florida is that while Napier hasn’t found a way to win in this spot, Elko has rarely found a way to lose. The last time that Elko lost a home game to an unranked team was in Year 1 at Duke in 2022 when Drake Maye threw a touchdown pass with 16 seconds left. After that loss, Elko won his last 14 home games against unranked teams.
For those of you keeping track at home, Elko is 17-1 at home vs. unranked teams in 3.5 seasons as an FBS head coach. Napier, on the other hand, is 0-13 away from home vs. ranked teams in 3.5 seasons as Florida’s head coach. If you want to include his time at Louisiana, he’s 1-17 in those spots and since 2018, no FBS coach has more such losses than Napier (the lone win was the first game of the 2020 COVID season without fans at No. 23 Iowa State). Basically, they’re the inverse of one another. Hence, why A&M is a 7.5-point favorite.
A few days ago, Florida was a 7.5-point underdog against another decorated top-10 team from the Lone Star State. The Gators fed off the home crowd and turned a daunting matchup into a convincing one. As Napier knows all too well, silencing a hostile atmosphere is no small feat.
Given his unflattering history in those attempts, it’s safe to say that a win on Saturday night would silence more than just the Kyle Field crowd.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
