Author’s note: this is an opinion piece and not reporting. It does not necessarily reflect the view of Gator Country or GC’s other writers.
What is the point of playing college football?
You know the traditional answers. To augment a higher education. To represent old State U. To help young men grow up. To instill the skills of teamwork.
It’s not only those things, though, and hasn’t been only them for a long time. Maybe ever. But especially now when players are getting paid directly by the schools, it’s mostly about winning the games.
How much winning is enough? It depends on what level of team you’re talking about. Some teams aim for national championships. Some, for conference championships. Some, simply to win more than they lose and go to bowls. Heck, for some, it’s exercise and fresh air.
Florida fans see the program as being in the first group, the kind that aspires to national titles. So do I, since I’ve seen them win three of them in my lifetime. Florida’s leadership, such as it is, needs to decide if it agrees. If it does, then it’s time for a change at head football coach.
Billy Napier has gotten everything he asked for, which is more than some UF head coaches can say. He was able to hire whoever he wanted, in the quantities he wanted, without executive meddling. He benefitted from the tailwind of the new football facility, one Jim McElwain asked for but didn’t get and Dan Mullen asked for but wasn’t around to see the completion of. He followed a bowl-less season with a five-loss campaign and kept the job, a courtesy Will Muschamp wasn’t extended despite his winning as many games in 2012 as Napier did in 2022-23 combined.
Napier is now 21-23 overall. While it’s true that he’s had some harder schedules than normal, part of the job of being the Florida head coach is to be the tough game on someone else’s schedule. Even if you give him a straight run of old-style UF schedules with three non-power conference teams instead of having Utah and then Miami — which, occasionally playing the Hurricanes is not out of the ordinary, and he did beat Utah in 2022 – he’d still be 24-20. And that’s assuming he wins all those replacement G5 games; he did lose to South Florida earlier this season.
A .545 winning percentage for being 24-20 would be the lowest of any Florida coach since Raymond Wolf went 13-24-2 (.359) from 1946-49. But remember, Napier’s actual win percentage is only .477.
It’s too early to know exactly how hard this year’s slate is, but we can look at the final AP Poll to reevaluate last year’s. Napier faced three top ten finishers and lost to all: No. 4 Texas, No. 6 Georgia, and No. 9 Tennessee. He also faced No. 11 Ole Miss and No. 18 Miami, splitting those two games. LSU, if you weren’t aware, finished outside the top 25. Those results make a 1-4 record versus ranked teams.
If we look at the final AP Poll of 2006, in the regular season UF played two top ten teams (1-1 versus No. 3 LSU and No. 9 Auburn), and two other ranked teams (2-0 versus No. 23 Georgia and No. 25 Tennessee). It also defeated No. 15 Arkansas in the SEC Championship Game and No. 2 Ohio State in the national title game. Those results make a 5-1 record against ranked teams, including 2-1 against the top ten. That’s what a championship caliber team does with a tough schedule.
If you could take pieces of performances in particular games, you might be able to build a title winner out of this year’s Gator squad. The defense had been great until last Saturday at Kyle Field, except for when it ran out of gas late against Miami after getting almost no help from the offense all game. Pair that defense with the offense we saw against Texas, and particularly the offensive line play from that game, and that’s a team that could do some damage. That combination is what beat the Longhorns, after all.
Napier’s never been able to deliver great performances from both the offense and defense consistently, however. The defense was a major problem for two seasons and four games, after which it began to improve. The offense has been up and down since then, however, often reliant on DJ Lagway or one of his receivers making heroic plays. Too little has been said about the way that Elijhah Badger’s infinite catch radius bailed Florida out of bad situations or put them in advantageous ones repeatedly a year ago and how much the offense has missed that this year.
There just aren’t that many players who can make heroic plays consistently over time. We’ve even seen that with Lagway, since he simply hasn’t been able to make them as often this year as he did in 2024. Heroic plays are the only things that can power this attack over the long haul because Napier’s offense is so staid and predictable. His rationale for not giving up play calling is that it got him where he is today, but the fact is he got the Florida job despite his play calling, not because of it.
Between the relatively empty cupboard by UF standards that Dan Mullen left behind, the rapid changes with NIL and transfer rules, and the tougher schedules, Napier was legitimately dealt a tough hand. However, other programs show it doesn’t have to take more than four years to build a winner.
Mario Cristobal was hired at Miami the same year Napier was at UF, and his team is a legit national title contender this year. So is Indiana, which went from being one of the all-time sad sack power conference teams to a Playoff participant in Curt Cignetti’s first year. Coach Cig’s win at Oregon last weekend gives him more quality road wins (one) in a season-and-a-half in Bloomington than Napier has in three-and-a-half seasons in Gainesville. Texas Tech famously raided the portal to buy an upgraded roster with a billionaire booster’s money last offseason, but it still is just No. 29 in the 247 Sports Team Talent Composite (UF is 12th). The Red Raiders, under their rather undistinguished fourth-year head coach Joey McGuire, are destroying teams including a ranked Utah squad. They’ve not come close to anything like when Florida messed around for four quarters and lost to USF.
UF could afford to wait and see on Napier after the USF loss or the Miami debacle because it didn’t have obvious competition in the coaching market. No one who actually wants the UF job was going to get so far with Virginia Tech or UCLA in October that they wouldn’t pivot if Florida came calling in November.
That changed with Penn State firing James Franklin — a coach who’s finished in the top ten five times in the last nine seasons and won two playoff games a year ago. If UF can’t be as obvious as PSU is about competing in the coaching market because it hasn’t fired Napier yet, it could legitimately lose a coach it wants to that program in a way that it wouldn’t to Oklahoma State or even fellow SEC program Arkansas.
One of the last things Napier said in his postgame press conference was this: “So, there’s no quick fix here. The best thing to do is go win. We saw that last week. In general, here, we got to stay the course to keep going here.”
Stay the course. He’s been staying on the same course that has delivered middling results for four years, and there is no sign of a willingness to change on his part.
That course will not lead to a championship. If Napier’s plan is to stay the course, then it’s time for university leaders to step in and find a new captain.