Florida coach Billy Napier is in hot water once again after the Gators lost at home to South Florida for the first time in history, 18-16, on Saturday. Fans have been questioning Napier's tenure, and their dissatisfaction keeps mounting.
Many raised eyebrows when Florida signed him to a seven-year deal worth $51.8 million in 2021. The lucrative contract hasn't necessarily translated into wins, as Napier currently sits on a 20-20 record with the Gators.
Amid the calls to fire the 46-year-old Napier, former Florida coach Urban Meyer explained that it's hard to buy out his embattled colleague due to financial constraints.
“This is a fiscal conversation, not a personal conversation. It breaks my heart about Florida because I’m attached to Florida. I don’t know Coach Napier well, but I’ve lived there, and I know they’ve just not had what they want,” said Meyer on “The Triple Option” podcast.
“Actually, Colin Cowherd brought this up to me. We were talking one day on air on ‘The Herd,' and he said, and I've done some research on this, he said you're going to see the end of the big buyouts. People are going to stick with coaches longer, and then you just start thinking fiscally, you're going to see these big monstrous facilities. I think it's going to slow down a little bit.”
With all the NIL money going around and the dynamics of college football evolving at a rapid pace, Meyer intimated that Florida would want to be more conscientious in handling Napier's situation.
“It’s a finite number, money. It used to be kind of infinite because of television contracts, and you had players, your labor getting nothing, and then what would they do? They (schools) would pay the coaches astronomical amounts of money, and all these millions left, they’d go build these locker rooms. So I think the era of buyouts and the era of new facilities every three or four years are gone,” added Meyer, who led the Gators to two national titles.
Napier has recruited well, getting four-star prospects Vernell Brown III, Waltez Clark, Jalen Wiggins, and Ben Hanks Jr., among others this year. But with the growing discontent among fans, he needs to pile up the wins.
Florida will face LSU on Saturday.
