Billy Napier is making Florida fans immediately regret vote of confidence

Florida AD Scott Stricklin stunned the college football world (and briefly set SEC Twitter on fire) this week, officially taking embattled head football coach Billy Napier off the hot seat and guaranteeing that he'd be back in Gainesville for at least one more season.

It was a huge vote of confidence, and a bit of a leap of faith: in the strides that the team has made in recent weeks, winning three of five and pushing two top-10 teams in Tennessee and Georgia; in freshman QB DJ Lagway, the five-star phenom who Napier recruited to the Swamp; and in Napier's ability to continue to develop his not-inconsiderable group of young talent. Sure, Napier's tenure hadn't gotten off to the start the school had envisioned. But there were signs of improvement, and sometimes the grass isn't always greener. You could almost talk yourself into a decision that had been unthinkable just weeks prior.

Well, you could for a couple days, at least. If Stricklin's decision bought Napier a little bit of goodwill, he promptly took a flamethrower to it on Saturday afternoon, as his Gators team responded to the news that they'd saved their coach's job by putting together arguably their worst half of the season against Texas.

Billy Napier doesn't reward Florida's vote of confidence in miserable first half vs. Texas

Granted, some context is required here. Texas and Steve Sarkisian are always deadly coming off a bye, and Lagway's hamstring injury meant that redshirt freshman Aidan Warner was forced to make his first career start. No matter what, Napier and the Gators were going to have their work cut out for them.

Still, though, that's no excuse for just how bad Florida looked to start this game. Florida failed to take advantage of a couple of near-INTs against Quinn Ewers early, then allowed Texas to convert a 4th and 1 on its own 24 en route to the opening score. They'd go on to turn the ball over twice while allowing Ewers to throw for over 250 yards and four scores, trailing 35-0 at the break. Oh, and Warner came out of the locker room and immediately threw a pick to start the third quarter. It was about as bad a start as you can have, and it had Florida fans feeling ... not great about the future.