Florida coach Billy Napier bolstered his job security with a strong finish to the 2024 season and received a vote of confidence from athletic director Scott Stricklin. But after another puzzling loss, this time to USF in a Week 2 stunner, Gators fans are restless once more. The hot seat discussion is abuzz ahead of Florida’s SEC opener this week against LSU, but Tigers coach Brian Kelly pushed back on the narrative ahead of their showdown.
Napier and the Gators defeated LSU last season, so Kelly saw firsthand the upside that Florida possesses under his leadership. Inconsistency, though, continues to plague the program and is behind Napier’s 20-20 overall record in Gainesville.
“Crazy,” Kelly said Monday. “Craziness. He’s a really good football coach. He knows his team. He knows what their strengths and weaknesses are. You can see it on film. He’s building a culture that is fit to his eye in terms of what he wants to do. He’s doing it his way, and that’s awesome.”
If Florida parted ways with Napier, the athletic department is on the hook for a hefty buyout. Napier inked a seven-year, $51.8 million deal in 2021, and he would be owed 85% of his remaining contract in the event of his firing. That figure amounts to $19.38 million after this season, and Florida would owe half of that in the first 30 days following Napier’s exit.
“Look, I came in here, and Ed (Orgeron) was here,” Kelly said in a long-winded defense of Napier. “He won a national championship. But he did it his way. It was his way. And that’s fine. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. They wanted to make a change. I do it my way. It takes time to put in your philosophy and the way you like to do things. I do them a lot differently than Ed does, but he still won. They asked for a change; I came. It takes time to make that change. And it’s the same with Billy.
“Billy’s come in after two or three other head coaches that changed the way the other coaches did it. And now he’s starting to stabilize that program. So people talk about whatever they want. It’s crazy. It takes you what it takes, and he’ll get that thing where he wants it. I think he’s got it right now. They beat us last year.”
Florida won eight games last year to set a new high for the Napier era, and it seemed to be off to the races with a 55-0 drubbing of LIU in the 2025 opener. But losing at home to a Group of Six opponent sent the Gators tumbling all the way out of the AP Top 25 poll and erased much of the goodwill Napier built with the fanbase last fall.
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