The Florida Gators have announced they will keep Billy Napier as head coach of the Florida Gators through 2025.

Why Florida Made The Decision

Scott Stricklin’s job is tied to Billy Napier’s job. Stricklin is the athletic director at Florida who hired both Dan Mullen and Billy Napier. He also made multiple hires in other sports like basketball, which has seen a large decline since his arrival. If Napier loses his job, it is likely that Scott Stricklin will not be sticking around to make a third hire for Florida football. It is in his best interest to keep his faith in Billy Napier and hope everything works itself out.

Next, Napier’s buyout would have been more than $26 million, the second largest in college football history. According to Pete Thamel, the estimated transition of Napier and the rest of the staff could be as much as $40 million. The expected passage of revenue sharing for the 2025 season makes the decision to fire him more difficult as well. Schools will be given the option of funding up to 22% of their annual revenue — an average of about $23 million per school — to be set aside annually for athletes for the next 10 years beginning next year.

The Gators (4-4, 2-3 Southeastern Conference) have also made significant strides since lopsided losses to Miami and Texas A&M during the first month of the season. Napier shored up the team’s shaky defense, found a potential star in freshman quarterback DJ Lagway and developed young talent on both sides of the ball. While it hasn’t resulted in wins, the players have continued to play hard for their coach and were in positions to beat both Tennessee and Georgia. The counter to that from many fans would be: Billy Napier’s coaching decisions largely lead to both of those losses, and close losses shouldn’t be viewed as moral victories.

Final Thoughts

The news comes as quite a shock for me as a Florida fan. It’s a marked change in the culture of this football program and where the school’s priorities are. Perhaps the worst feeling about this is the reaction is got from rival fans, all of which were thrilled with the news. And why wouldn’t they be? Napier, 15–18 overall in his third season with the Gators, is only 1-10 vs the school’s main five rivals — Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami and Tennessee. They see this news as an opportunity to rack up more wins against a declining program.

This school fired Dan Mullen for much less. Mullen, who had a 9-6 record against rivals and a 34-15 overall record, was fired towards the end of his fourth season when the team won only five games. Since then, Florida hasn’t won more than six games with Napier at the helm, yet he’s getting more time, resources, and money than Mullen could ever had during his stint.

But all the money needed for Napier’s buyout and the future revenue sharing makes the decision slightly more reasonable for me. I’m holding out hope on this team solely because of DJ Lagway and the belief that the buyout money—that was going to be used for Napier’s firing—will actually be put towards buying a competitive roster in the transfer portal. The current team has a lot of potential, and if it can be supplemented with some top-end talent and experienced upperclassmen, Florida will be a competitive team in the SEC next season.

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