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The end seemed near for Florida coach Billy Napier. A 1-2 start in September — including a blowout home loss to rival Miami — had Florida’s power brokers preparing for a change at the top. Napier was 12-16 with the Gators, and the most challenging schedule in the country still lay ahead.
Meanwhile, Napier made plans of his own, ignoring the noise and speculation about his future. He “tinkered and tweaked” the offense and defense during an early-season bye week. Slowly but surely, a young roster led by a fresh-faced quarterback began to mature. Florida won eight games, upset ranked LSU and Ole Miss in back-to-back weeks, and recorded the program’s first winning season since 2020 with four straight victories to end the year.
“We built really good chemistry, morale and connection with that group,” Napier told CBS Sports. “The football wasn’t very good the first month, and they really took ownership of that. Maybe if you didn’t have that type of character, I don’t think we could have done that.”
Now comes the hard part: leading the Gators to the College Football Playoff and back to the top of the SEC. Unfair expectation? Certainly. But this is Florida, where statues of Tim Tebow and Steve Spurrier loom over every triumph and failure, silently judging anything less than perfection. It’s Year 4 for Napier, and a 19-19 record entering the season isn’t up to standard. The seat is still hot — and he knows it.
“With the good comes the bad, right? There’s only 16 of these (SEC) jobs. They compensate us. I’m thankful for the opportunity,” Napier said. “And to be very straightforward here, we came to Florida to do a job, and we were up for the challenge. We’ve assembled the staff. We recruited every one of these guys. We’re gonna finish the race,…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/floridas-late-season-run-saved-billy-napiers-job-last-year-now-can-he-leave-the-hot-seat-behind-for-good/
Author : Brandon Marcello
Publish date : 2025-07-01 17:16:00
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