Billy Napier addresses how he handles hot seat speculation
As Florida sits at 3-3 on the season, a massive game against Kentucky looms. Win and the team heads into the bye week with some momentum. Lose and the wheels could fall off entirely for coach Billy Napier.
Napier is firmly on the proverbial hot seat, fighting for his job. He addressed that on Wednesday on an SEC teleconference call.
“I mean I don’t have any control over that, right?” Napier said. “So I think one of the most important things that we can do when put in these positions and having these great opportunities is focus on doing the best job you can do for your players and your staff.
“You get into the season, you’ve got to hit the reset button and it is literally you are in the moment and present and focused on the task at hand.”
The challenge for Billy Napier as a coach in Year 3 of his tenure is to show some considerable improvement. After going 6-7 and 5-7 in his first two seasons, there’s plenty of room for that.
However, after starting the first half of this season at .500, there’s work to be done in the second half. And the schedule is absolutely brutal — including games against Georgia, Texas, LSU and Ole Miss still — such that any improvement will be hard won.
To that end, though, Billy Napier does believe his team is getting better.
“One thing I can say about our team is I do think that we are improving,” Napier said. “I’m excited about this group of players, their attitude, their character, the way that they’ve handled some of the adversity. And obviously they put it on the line last Saturday night, came up a little bit short. But I do think both the performance character and the moral character of our team has continued to improve. So I’m excited about our opportunity that we have Saturday night.”
The good news for Florida and Billy Napier is that they’ll be at home. The bad news is they’ve lost the last three against Kentucky.
The two teams are set to kick off at 7:45 p.m. ET on Saturday with a broadcast on the SEC Network.
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