GAINESVILLE — King Leonidas at Thermopylae.
King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings.
The 101st Airborne at Bastogne.
History is filled with storied last stands, rightly romanticized not just as tales of ultimate, crushing defeat but for what they represent about the human experience. A last stand is about the human capacity to fight with determination, defiance, and courage, even in the face of imminent and near-certain doom.
Aside from the bravery of the 101st Airborne in the cold of Bastogne, which is deeply personal to our family given one of our grandfathers was among the 101st present and fighting through the frozen cold at the Battle of the Bulge, my favorite “Last Stand” story has always been “The Alamo.” Maybe being an American from the south makes the story resonate. Maybe the idea of a hungry band of brothers outnumbered nearly 10 to 1 holding off Mexican regulars for 13 days makes it an easy to identify with underdog tale.
Or maybe I just love the idea of Jim Bowie, terribly ill and confined to bed, knife in hand, bravely fighting to the bitter end regardless.
Perhaps there’s a little bit of Bowie in Billy Napier, who will coach his 43rd, and perhaps final, game for the Florida Gators on Saturday when No. 9 Texas visits The Swamp (3:30 p.m., ABC).
Napier was a hot commodity in football circles after a 40-12 run at Louisiana, where he rebuilt a moribund Ragin’ Cajuns program and won 2 conference championships. But it hasn’t worked at Florida, where he’s posted just a 20-22 record in 3-plus seasons, the worst 3-year-and-4-game run for Florida football since 1978-1981, when the combination of Doug Dickey and Charley Pell went just 14-23-1.
Every coach fancies themselves a competitor. Everyone wants to win. That’s part of why it’s hard.
But Florida fans have rarely seen the type of open fire and passion from Napier that suggests all the losing is wearing away at him the way it is the school’s loyal fanbase, which is now nearly 2 decades removed from its last SEC championship.
Stoic to an almost Gainesville live oak-like degree and not prone to yelling or grabbing a player by the jersey and giving a quality “Nick Saban butt chewing,” Florida fans are often left wondering what, if anything, it would take to get Napier to openly show his desire to win or even his frustration with constant defeat.
That’s not to say Napier’s competitive fire doesn’t burn deep.
Every person is different, and it’s untrue that the most intense competitor needs to be a wellspring of emotion. Scottie Scheffler is the greatest golfer on the planet, but a smile after a birdie or a frown after a stunning Ryder Cup defeat are exceedingly rare. Andy Reid is a 3-time Super Bowl champion. He’s also famous for his even temperament on the sideline, with players drawn to his calm, soft-spoken demeanor, even at times of adversity. Even at Florida, Billy Donovan built a basketball powerhouse with a suit, tie, arms crossed and an occasional smile. There weren’t sideline outbursts or public-facing displays of emotion for emotion’s sake. Process and culture reigned.
Open fire and passion aren’t prerequisites for competitive want to.
Maybe there’s a side of Napier no one sees. I’m sure that would be the story behind the story if you asked his players.
But on Saturday, Florida fans probably wouldn’t mind a little Jim Bowie. If you are going down, don’t go lying down — at least not metaphorically.
In Gainesville, unfortunately, complaints with Napier run much deeper than Napier’s lack of open emotion on the sideline.
Florida, with its most talented roster since the Gators’ last great team (the 2019 Orange Bowl champions who won 11 games and were a bad Todd Grantham game plan against Georgia away from a College Football Playoff) has 0 business being 1-3. Florida ranks 22nd in total defense, 25th in success rate defense, and has yet to play a game in 2025 where it has surrendered more than 1 touchdown drive of 50 yards or more.
The Gators have a 5-star former National High School Player of the Year at quarterback who ranked among the top 10 passers in America as a true freshman in 2024. They start two All-American candidates on their offensive line and have a running back, Jadan Baugh, who averages 5.9 yards per carry and trails only Ahmad Hardy of the Missouri Tigers in rushing success rate this season.
Put plainly, the Gators have the talent to beat Texas, even with a rash of injuries to their defense that leaves Florida playing the bulk of the 2025 season without its best 2 defensive players, Caleb Banks and Aaron Gates.
Which brings me back to Napier.
You see, occasionally a “last stand” story also teaches lessons about the foolishness of zealotry and pride. George Custer at Little Bighorn, for example. The mythology of the battle involves thousands of Lakota and Plains Indians attacking Custer and his calvary unit in an encampment as the Americans fought to the end. The reality is Custer, relying on bad information from exhausted scouts, divided his men and launched an ill-prepared and doomed attack at overwhelming numbers. Custer’s army was promptly annihilated.
Napier is a high integrity and generally humble guy with immensely appealing virtues.
But his fatal flaw as a head coach, somewhat ironically, is his inability to see that he is not an effective Power 4 offensive coordinator or playcaller, let alone a talented enough playcaller to be head coach and CEO of a storied program while also calling plays on Saturday.
Napier offenses have gotten worse each year at Florida, from a high water mark of 38th in his first season in 2022 to 47th in 2023 to 66th in 2024. These were all red flags made even louder by the success of other SEC head coaches, such as Eli Drinkwitz, who surrendered play-calling duties to focus on the herculean demands of being a head coach and CEO of a SEC program in the NIL era.
But Napier’s play-calling and schematic woes have been exceedingly obvious in 2025.
If you remove the 55-0 win over FCS Long Island from the numbers, Florida’s offense ranks 135th (out of 136) in America in points per game, 131st in yards per game (287), 128th in rushing yards per game (97), 132nd in third-down conversion offense (24%), and 129th in success-rate offense.
In other words, when Napier insists on retaining play-calling duties because “It’s year 8 of me doing this” and “that’s what got us here,” Napier is both stubbornly ignorant of reality and obtuse about why “here” isn’t good enough. No matter the infrastructure challenges facing Napier on arrival at Florida, the truth is he’s been, at least to date, the least effective head coach in Gainesville since the pre-integration era. At 20-22 through 42 games with a 3-12 record against rivals and and just 4 wins over ranked opponents, you’d think a coach with Napier’s high regard for accountability would change course.
He hasn’t and worse, he won’t.
So while Saturday’s tilt against Arch Manning and Texas could be Napier’s Alamo, there’s a chance it looks more like Custer at Little Bighorn.
That’s a shame, and yet another indictment of the Napier regime.
Weekends like Saturday, with a top-10 Texas visiting The Swamp, Gainesville hotels and businesses stuffed to the gills, the first signs of autumn apparent on cooler October mornings, and a national television audience, are the stuff fans set their calendars by in SEC country.
This should be a showcase weekend for Florida’s program, fanbase, and recruiting. It should be a circle the calendar and tailgate early type Saturday.
Instead, College GameDay is at a Vanderbilt game. The biggest game in the state of Florida is being played in Tallahassee. Florida commits are skipping the Gators game to attend the (checks notes) Seminoles game. And most of Florida’s fan base is consumed less by the Texas matchup than they are by wondering whether athletic director Scott Stricklin can make the splash hire the program so desperately needs later this autumn.
When a coaching staff takes the anticipation and childlike joy out of a big game weekend, that’s often as good an intangible indicator as any that it’s time to move on.
Whatever the Florida fan base thinks, Napier and the Gators must approach Texas like the big game it was supposed to be. They have to play like a win changes everything.
For Napier, it’s not just a big game. It’s his Alamo. Or his Little Bighorn.
We’ll soon find out.
Neil Blackmon covers SEC football and basketball for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
