Florida football coach Billy Napier is in the position every coach dreads: on the hot seat.
The Gators are 3-3 to start the 2024 season, Napier’s third year in Gainesville, and with a tough Southeastern Conference (SEC) schedule ahead and without his starting quarterback, Napier’s time as Florida’s coach may be coming to a close. But he indicated he’s not focused on that.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t have any control over that,” Napier said about being on the hot seat [h/t FootballScoop]. “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, present and focused on the task at hand.”
Despite being one of the most successful Group of 5 coaches on the market when Florida hired him in November 2021, Napier has struggled to get things off of the ground at UF. In his first season, The Gators went 6-7 in his first season and then failed to make a bowl game following a 5-7 campaign in 2023.
In total, Napier is 14-17 at Florida. And that record could only continue to sink this season.
UF will almost certainly play four more ranked teams this season (Georgia, LSU, Texas, and Ole Miss), and to make matters worse, the Gators will be without starting quarterback Graham Mertz for the rest of the season due to injury.
Unless Florida can go .500 in its remaining six games, the Gators will go a second consecutive season without a bowl appearance, something that has not happened since the mid-1980s when the team was on NCAA probation.
Despite the dreary outlook, Napier remains positive.
“One thing I can say about our team is that I do think we are improving,” Napier said. “I’m excited about this group of players, their attitude, their character, the way they’ve handled some of the adversity. And obviously, they put it on the line last Saturday night [against Tennessee] and came up a little short, but I do think both the performance character and moral character of our team has continued to improve.”
Florida hosts Kentucky this weekend. The Wildcats represent one of the more winnable games left on the Gators’ schedule, although Napier has yet to record a win over Kentucky as Florida’s head coach.
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