Billy Napier is still employed as the head football coach at the University of Florida after a 1-2 start to his third year in the role. It will be interesting to see how long that is true because his ouster already feels inevitable even though we are less than a month into the season.
Despite all of the outside chatter, the 45-year-old remains surprisingly optimistic.
The Gators went 6-7 in 2022. They went 5-7 in 2023. Napier’s seat was already toasty prior to 2024 and the temperature only continues to rise, rapidly.
Florida lost to Miami by 24 in Week 1 and rallied during the second half to lose to Texas A&M by only 13. Graham Mertz continues to struggle. Five-star freshman D.J. Lagway threw two interceptions on 6-of-13 passing during his limited snaps on Saturday. Nothing is working on either side of the ball.
As a result, the high-ranking boosters in Gainesville are prepared to give Napier the boot as soon as possible. They reportedly raised all of the money necessary to cut him loose. The roughly $26 million needed for his buyout is already in the bank and ready to be activated when it’s time.
Napier signed a seven-year, $51.8 million contract to coach the Gators that runs through 2023. The school will owe 85% of the remaining money if it chooses to fire him without cause. He will get 50% of the buyout within the first 30 days of termination. Everything else will be paid out in equal installments of 12.5% on July 15 for the next four years.
Boosters are prepared to do so!
However, Napier has yet to have any kind of conversation with University of Florida brass about his employment. He said during his press conference on Monday that “none” of those talks have been had.
His entire focus is on Mississippi State because that’s what he would expect from his players.
These are all hypothetical scenarios. I think for me, I’m gonna try to model what I would expect from our players and some of those things I just talked about, I think that’s the whole key is that as a whole staff and throughout the organization: we have to model what we would expect from the players and want from the players. And that, for me, is total focus on the next opportunity to improve
— Billy Napier
It is obviously of note that Napier did not discuss his job status. Florida has not offered any reassurance. Nor has it issued an ultimatum.
The Gators are letting him coach while actively preparing to fire him behind the scenes.
Nick De la Torre of On3 reported that the Board of Trustees at Florida scheduled a meeting on Sunday. Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated later offered a rebuttal and claimed that meeting was fictitious.
If no further conversation was had and Napier made it to Monday, it sounds like Forde got it right.
Billy Napier is a lame duck. The powers that be are sitting back and letting things play out as they will, which does not bode well for him. They are just waiting to pounce at this point.