Article: Napier two years in

The great Bill Parcells said, "You are what your record says your are." Right now Billy Napier is 11-14.

 

I believe that Napier must, at minimum, go 6 - 6 which means bowl eligibility.
Anything less means 4 consecutive years of losing seasons at UF. (3 under Napier).

Something unseen in Gainesville in what? The last 70 - 80 years?

Regrettably the poor performance in the first two seasons under Napier have placed him in this position.
ESPECIALLY on defense. A third year of no defense will pretty much doom Napier IMO.

I like Billy and want his to succeed but NO, I don't think a 4th year is guaranteed, especially if the bottom drops out.

As CRL mentioned previously, the shelf life of poor performance does not seem to exist beyound 3 years at
gator nation if one looks at recent "firing" history.

 

SEC messed up and forgot to add in a road game vs Alabama.

 

Yep. Like that old Don Henley song, "Dirty Laundry" said, "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down!" Seems to apply to the approach the SEC has always used with our Gators.

 

You can't build a winning program when you have so many defections involving critical players. NIL, transfer portal and the no-fun-league have created problems when trying to build your recruiting and your team. BN is a good coach but too many players are opting out, transferring and just plain quitting. He needs a really good play caller asap.

 

I would think the powers to be would have to way in should we bite the bullet and pay him or lose sales in tickets, merchandise by retaining him. How does UF sell a program with 4 consecutive losing seasons with three of them with this coach?
I just hope the Gators shock the world and imo a winning season with the schedule we have would be a great accomplishment.

 

ULL wasn't a "bad" program under Hudspeth. Without some extreme luck, they might have beaten us in 2012 at Florida Field. ULL was 9-4 between 2011 and 2015 and roughly .500 after that until Napier arrived. Hudspeth got them into some NCAA hot water (probably because LSU sneezed) though.

 

If we have a losing season (i.e. 3 in a row) then he is gone. No one cares about strength of schedule, it is what its is. You cannot have three straight losing seasons and be the coach at the University of Florida, you just cant.

 

I wish I liked losing as much as you do...

 

The brutality of that gauntlet means nothing and the tough schedule is no excuse unless we are competitive in those games. We could lose all five of them and I'd still be proud of the team if we left it all on the field and didn't lose because an idiot threw a shoe or something like that. Inevitably, coaching decisions would come under fire, but I'd be a heck of a lot more optimistic for the future than I am right now. All five of those teams did or would hand us our ass in a high hat this year.

 

And I wish I enjoyed anything as much as some folks seem to enjoy pissing and moaning about things that are already painfully obvious to everybody.

 

Agree with all except to say that if he only gets to 6-6, then the bowl is a must win. And my tolerance for using opt-outs as an excuse is at an end. Bring them into your office and convince them to play one last game. You’d be amazed what people will do when you ask them.

 

So why is Kiffin succeeding in the same environment at a school with fewer resources and no serious tradition of winning in the modern era?

 

What did our SEC masters schedule us for in 25?
Let me guess the first 5:

Michigan @ Michigan
Alabama @ Alabama
Ohio State - Home
UGA - Jax
Washington - in Seattle

I mean the SEC just loves UF so much...................

 

oh boy, now you’ve done it

 

IMO, i don't see (unless the wheels completely come off the wagon), CBN getting axed after year 3 > 25 million would be the buyout. I would rather give him another year or two and use the 6.5 million buyout money each year on NIL.
The odds are we might get a little better coach, however the Sabans, SOS, Meyer type are few and far between.
It' possible CBN may succeed, even if it takes him another year. The fact that he seems to be willing to make changes makes me optimistic that we may be surprised in a good way.

 

Probably has an option to replace Washington with Oregon or Utah if Washington isn’t good anymore by the time 2025 comes around.

 

There's no guarantee that DJ doesn't portal even if Napier stays. There's little loyalty left anymore. The only players that aren't looking for a better situation right now in the country are either liking being close to home, or realize they aren't good enough to get picked up for a better situation in the portal. Or their current school is paying them to where they are happy.

 

The SEC school that is closest to how we have handled the coaching carousel is Aubrin. We'll see if Freeze is their answer but he has looked good so far, took them to a bowl game (which they lost).
A lot of other coaches came in and did well right out of the gate (LSU and Kelly, as well as Kiffin). The question is was our talent that far lacking that one of those coaches couldn't have made us better? If you ranked our past seasons on talent alone, would we be 10th or so in the SEC? If your answer is yes, then the coach wouldn't matter and might as well stick with Napier. Maybe he can turn it around like Norvell did this year.

 

Three seasons in and our target is 6-6?
I know UF has dropped in the eyes of some, but that’s not a UF standard and never should be.