Florida’s fear of firing Billy Napier captures the new reality of college football

Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin is going to have to face the reality of the situation he’s in with the Gators football team. According to Yahoo Sports and USA Today Network, head coach Billy Napier’s fate will apparently be hanging in the balance this weekend when Florida hosts Mississippi State. How convenient; Napier’s most important game of his coaching career is against one of the bottomfeeders of the SEC. 

It goes to show why athletic directors truly don’t want to cough up buyout money to pay a coach to not only leave the school, but continue collecting a paycheck in the process. It’s a reality college football programs are dealing with on a yearly basis, one that's now amplified with the transfer portal and NIL. 

Why pay a coach buyout money, and face a public relations nightmare dealing with the fallout, when you can take that cash, inject it into the revenue-sharing budget and mask your coaching deficiencies with better players? It’s actually genius, and what will probably be the standard for programs that negotiate inflated buyouts. 

Napier has severely underperformed in turning Florida into a contender since he took the job four years ago. This year, the Gators were one of the top 15 teams in the country to start the season and now they’re hanging on by a thread in the SEC with a 2-4 record (1-2 in conference play). He has a losing overall record (21-23) and losing SEC record (11-16) since he took over in Gainesville in 2021. Stricklin has loathed the day he’s had to let Napier go, which is why it took a meeting with some of the school's most influential boosters to convince him to lay out an ultimatum. 

All this is doing is laying the groundwork for Stricklin to avoid firing Napier and for Napier to coach for his life – like he essentially has all season – to continue to fool his boss into thinking he’s the best person to turn things around in Gainesville. He’s not, and a win over Mississippi State won’t change that. 

Billy Napier’s lifeline highlights the challenges of running a college football program like an NFL team

Napier was given a lifeline, and it’s the best time he could have one. The Gators should beat Mississippi State and if they don’t it only proves Napier's firing was long overdue. Stricklin hesitating to fire Napier is more of a business decision than anything and it’s one that’s highlighting a new normal in college football. 

College teams are hiring general managers to construct rosters around lucrative NIL budgets and college coaches are negotiating profitable buyouts, essentially forcing athletic directors to accept mediocrity until it financially makes sense to part ways. But there are two sides to it. You can either accept mediocrity until you can’t (Penn State with James Franklin) or you pay now to reap the rewards later (Texas A&M with Jimbo Fisher). 

That’s the new challenge. Napier’s buyout is on the more reasonable side, sitting just under $20 million, but his influence on building this roster is a lot more valuable. That won’t save him now as he might be losing this team just as much as he’s losing his job. Which is why teams like Penn State paying Franklin to not coach is more costly, because that buyout money isn't helping rebuild the roster. 

Because of that, it could restrict Penn State in how much they can offer to future recruits. For what it’s worth, NIL is getting thrown for another loop thanks to revenue sharing. But it’s something to think about as the dollar signs continue to be at the forefront of college football and why coaches like Napier are afforded more excuses.

Texas Tech, Virginia are prime examples of why you pay the players, not the coach

Last year, Ohio State took center stage in the NIL conversation, coughing up $20 million to build their championship roster. It was a sign to the rest of college football that they needed to reach as many boosters as they could to invest into the football program to be competitive. Texas Tech spent $28 million according to On3 to revive their roster this past offseason. Now they’re the No. 7 team in the country. 

That’s the benefit of putting what would have been buyout money to move on from Joey McGuire after three mediocre seasons and struggling in the crippled Big 12. Instead of paying him nearly $10 million to not coach, they saved that and spent nearly double to become one of the best teams in college football. 

The same could be said for Virginia. While I couldn’t pinpoint an exact number, the Cavaliers have turned things around in seemingly a year, going from one of the worst teams in the ACC to being one of three ACC teams currently ranked. Tony Elliott has been the coach of Virginia football since 2022, hasn’t had a winning season during that time and has already matched the highest win total of any of his previous seasons. 

That isn’t a coincidence; that’s NIL. The Cavaliers could have hit the reset button, triggered his more than $11 million buyout and kept the Cavaliers behind. Instead they put that money toward improving the roster, including transfer QB Chandler Morris, and now they’re one of the top 25 teams in the country. 

I understand Stricklin’s hesitancy in firing Napier and paying him $20 million when that money could be used to keep the Gators competitive in one of the toughest conferences in college football. What I don’t agree with, though, is that this move is long overdue. Keeping Napier because he beat Mississippi State only shows this team is settling for mediocrity. 

But if paying the buyout is that important and if Stricklin is that scared that the roster turnaround would set Florida back years, then maybe we just have to accept the new norm in college football is valuing the NIL budget over the coaching one. Coaches used to be tied to the success of programs; now all you need is a lot of money to throw at good players that enter the transfer portal.