Florida football joins USA TODAY Sports’ misery index after loss
USA TODAY Sports published its weekly misery index column by Dan Wolken on Sunday, which unsurprisingly included Billy Napier and the Florida Gators. Their inclusion on this ignominious list came courtesy of an ugly performance against the Florida State Seminoles, capping off an ugly 5-7 season for the program’s third-straight losing campaign.
“Nobody is going to be on a hotter seat going into 2024 than Billy Napier and Florida athletics director Scott Stricklin, who seems well on his way to being 0-for-2 on football coaching hires,” Wolken notes. “After coming from Mississippi State in 2016, Stricklin wasted little time firing Jim McElwain and reuniting with Dan Mullen after a coaching search that had initially targeted Chip Kelly and Scott Frost.
“After Mullen’s initial success faded away, thanks mostly to a lack of recruiting prowess, Stricklin was forced to make a move,” he continues. “Napier was the hottest Group of Five candidate in 2021, having led Louisiana-Lafayette to a pair of Sun Belt championships. He had also been part of the Nick Saban coaching tree as Alabama’s receivers coach for four seasons, so he checked that box as well.
“But coaching hires are about more than checking boxes. It’s about people and skill sets, and Napier’s strengths do not appear like they have translated to a job the magnitude of Florida. Through two seasons, the only defining characteristics Napier has imbued into the program are inconsistency and an alarming lack of discipline.
“That’s how you get to 6-7 followed by 5-7 at Florida,” Wolken concludes. “And that’s how you end up losing 24-15 at home to Florida State in a game that was very winnable until Florida committed a bonehead personal foul penalty on third-and-14 when a stop would have given the Gators the ball late with a chance to win the game.
“Napier’s job will likely be saved by a near-$32 million buyout and a good recruiting class coming in. But if he doesn’t show progress next year, he and Stricklin will probably both be gone.”
For the time being, that is the end of Florida football for the Gator Nation until the Orange and Blue game. That intrasquad exhibition will take place inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium sometime this coming spring with a date and time yet to be announced.
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