{"id":70332,"date":"2024-09-17T16:31:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T21:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/the-florida-gators-have-more-than-just-a-billy-napier-problem\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T16:31:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T21:31:00","slug":"the-florida-gators-have-more-than-just-a-billy-napier-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/the-florida-gators-have-more-than-just-a-billy-napier-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"The Florida Gators have more than just a Billy Napier problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was no Sunday sacking after all. Despite another listless, dispiriting home loss \u2014\u00a0this a lopsided 33-20 defeat to a first-year SEC head coach at Texas A&M<\/a><\/strong> \u2014\u00a0Billy Napier<\/a><\/strong> will get to man the sidelines at least one more game at Florida<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether UF\u2019s embattled third-year head coach makes it past Saturday\u2019s tilt with Mississippi State is immaterial at this point, though.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is over<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The well-liked man from Cookeville, Tenn. is cooked as the head coach at Florida, and while he\u2019ll be owed a ridiculous $26 million in buyout money, the Gators can\u2019t afford not to fire him at this point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida has lost seven-straight games to FBS opponents (five by at least two scores). Napier is 12-16, 6-11 in the SEC. He spent all offseason sunshine-pumping, insisting that Florida was \u201cclose\u201d and \u201con schedule to some degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChange doesn\u2019t happen overnight,\u201d he told me during SEC Media Days<\/a> when I asked him about his tenuous job security.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then the Gators took the field against Miami six weeks later and got pasted in The Swamp<\/a>. On Saturday, Mike Elko\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> Aggies did the same thing, dominating Florida in the trenches and cruising to a victory with a backup quarterback.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, Napier\u2019s \u2018Wizard of Oz\u2019 act was always an illusion \u2014 by commission or omission.<\/p>\n

And yet, for all the on-field ineptitude (the self-immolating on defense and special teams, poor play-calling), the inexcusable losses and the underwhelming recruiting, the Florida Gators have more than just a Billy Napier problem.<\/p>\n

Why a UAA housecleaning is long overdue<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From 1992-2016, Jeremy Foley spent 24 years as Florida\u2019s athletics director, ripping off a resume of hires as impressive as any AD in modern athletics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Foley famously hired Billy Donovan<\/strong> (basketball), Urban Meyer<\/a><\/strong> (football), Tim Walton<\/strong> (softball), Becky Burleigh<\/strong> (soccer), Kevin O\u2019Sullivan<\/strong> (baseball) and Mike Holloway<\/strong> (track and field), among others, all of whom won national titles with the Gators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Foley had his blind spots, too, particularly when it came to investing in UF\u2019s football program. Because of Steve Spurrier\u2019s unique success in the early 90s, the Gators ran their athletics department with an arrogance that they didn\u2019t need things like an indoor football facility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida was slow on change \u2014 with facilities, support, fund-raising and more \u2014 and Meyer (with a loaded roster and an incredible coaching staff) only further emboldened UF\u2019s hubris with his two national titles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u2018Gator Way\u2019 became a holy-than-thou rebuttal.<\/p>\n

A dozen years (and four football coaches later) after Meyer abruptly resigned from Florida in 2010, Billy Napier was sitting at the same desk Meyer once occupied, with the same curtains and the same carpet inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Florida\u2019s football players were making the same long walk across Gale Lemerand to the practice field before the school finally opened the Heavener Complex before the 2023 season \u2014 many years in the making, and still many years too late.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing changes around here,\u201d a UF head football coach once said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Foley retired in 2016, but he maintains an emeritus title with the university. The problem is the Ghost of Foley continues to walk the hallways of the athletic department. Scott Stricklin is now the AD at UF, but a large swath of Foley\u2019s inner circle and top lieutenants remain in power positions within the university.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These are not bad people, but they\u2019ve long had bad ideas. The Peter Principle doesn\u2019t just apply to Napier. There\u2019s a leadership vacuum and total staleness within the athletics department that has created the very outcome of having to hire four football coaches \u2014\u00a0now eying a fifth \u2014\u00a0in 12 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been an endless cycle of rut. It was a surprise to no one in the know in Gainesville that Florida didn\u2019t have it\u2019s NIL house in order or was a step slow attacking the transfer portal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Florida is serious about wanting to produce a championship program again, they have to make serious changes above simply who is just roaming the sidelines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to move on to a new era. A clean slate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stricklin shouldn\u2019t be allowed to hire a third football coach, but it\u2019s not just him. The entire UAA needs a housecleaning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida was once a bastion for alignment, foresight and savviness. There\u2019s none of that anymore.<\/p>\n

These are the same folks who flirted with Scott Frost <\/a><\/strong>and tried to hire Chip Kelly <\/a><\/strong>(remember when UF sent six administrators including President Kent Fuchs to New Hampshire to woo the former NFL head coach?) before landing on Dan Mullen<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These are the same folks who hand-picked Billy Napier even though LSU had no interest in hiring a Sun Belt coach from their very state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These are the same folks who ignored real red flags with Napier \u2014 from a record feasting on under .500 conference teams, to hiring a guy who planned to out \u201cProcess\u201d Nick Saban<\/a><\/strong> and Kirby Smart<\/a><\/strong> even though he was starting from the basement and they were already in the penthouse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just two weeks ago, Stricklin told Paul Finebaum, \u201cWe have been patient at the university. That patience is going to be rewarded. I really believe Billy Napier is going to be the head coach at Florida for a long, long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the words of George Costanza, \u201cIt\u2019s not a lie, if you believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Gators will have a new football coach in 2025. But Lane Kiffin, Eli Drinkwitz or Jedd Fisch won\u2019t suddenly fix what Napier could not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A total reckoning within the UAA is long overdue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post The Florida Gators have more than just a Billy Napier problem<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was no Sunday sacking after all. Despite another listless, dispiriting home loss \u2014\u00a0this a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}