There's an aura of inevitability around the future of embattled Florida coach Billy Napier.
In the aftermath of two listless home blowouts and a seven-game losing streak to FBS opponents, Napier's poor record has essentially sealed his coaching fate in Gainesville. All that's remaining to figure out is the timing of his exit.
Napier's spiraling tenure intersects philosophically with a famous quote from Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley. He tweaked a line from Henry Kissinger when he declared after firing Ron Zook in 2004: "If something needs to be done eventually, it must be done immediately."
The "eventually" part has been secured, as no one expects Napier back on the sideline for the Gators in 2025. The varied factors around doing something immediately then arises, as an impatient fan base awaits for some hope to cling to.
Florida heads to Mississippi State this weekend. A loss in Starkville ultimately cost Ron Zook his job back in 2004, which led to Foley's quote. That came seven games into the season in late October, which was considered jarringly early at the time. (Foley then outfoxed Notre Dame to hire Urban Meyer, one of the most significant hires in school history.)
The idea of late October being early is quaint now. Five power conferences coaches were fired by Oct. 2 in 2022. Here are five questions that must be answered as Florida decides on the future of its flailing football program.
1. Why make a change soon?
Generally speaking, the reason to make a change early in the season has to come with a clear path to improvement. If that path is uncertain, which it appears to be at Florida, the only reason to make the move would be as an emotional reaction to appease the fan base.
One of the reasons to not fire Napier so early in the season doubles as an indictment of his ability to build a high-end SEC staff. There's not an obvious interim hire. Veteran defensive coach Ron Roberts has plenty of head-coaching experience, but he's more of an old-school disciplinarian than someone a team would rally around. He's also new.
Former Central Michigan coach Dan Enos is also on the staff as a special assistant. He has been fired twice in the past five seasons from offensive coordinator jobs and also won't have the deep player relationships because he just arrived in February.
Napier is both the head coach and the lead playcaller. There are not a lot of answers or upgrades on the offensive staff. So would removing him take away a leader respected in the locker room and set the offense back even more by breaking in a new lead playcaller? (Tight ends coach Russ Callaway is a former offensive coordinator at Samford, which could make him a potential playcaller depending on how dynamics would go.)
2. What would it cost?
The final tally for Florida is going to be somewhere around $27 million, depending on timing. If they do something around the end of the month, the buyout tab would be about $27.7 million, half of which would be due in 30 days. That's more than $13.8 million dollars to be paid out quickly.
The number goes down incrementally, which would put it south of $27 million at the end of the regular season. Regardless, Florida will hold the distinction of disbursing the second-biggest buyout payment in the history of college football. That's light-years behind Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher payout of more than $76 million, which included a lump sum of $19.2 million within 60 days.
Florida has plenty of money, so this won't be a decisive factor in any decision. But it's still significant. The reason Florida got here is that Napier negotiated a seven-year deal, 85% of which is guaranteed. Napier had been picky, as he'd turned down overtures from both South Carolina and Auburn.
3. Who will be making the decisions?
Florida is in an interesting administrative moment. Its board badly whiffed on the school's last president hire, as Ben Sasse left a trail of questions about his spending and hiring. He resigned for personal reasons in July, but a flurry of ugly stories since his resignation have been a huge black eye. (The $176,800 holiday party being the latest of his $1.3 million in private catering expenses in his first year on the job.)
Interim president Kent Fuchs is also the former president, a beloved academic who rarely meddled in sports during his time running the school. He hired Scott Stricklin as the athletic director. Stricklin has been an SEC athletic director since 2010, when he took over at Mississippi State, and Florida's AD since Fuchs hired him in 2016.
He is experienced, respected in the industry and also has credibility with Florida's board of trustees. He also has a strong relationship with Fuchs, who would ultimately make a decision, along with the board, on his future.
Stricklin is facing heat for the Napier hire, which came after Dan Mullen's tenure, which was strong for three seasons and fell apart in his fourth year. Mullen was fired with a 5-6 record that season. (Mullen, who is now an ESPN analyst, won 69.4% of his games at Florida and played for the SEC title in his third year. Napier has won 42.9% of his games and was below .500 in the SEC in both of his first two years.)
Will Stricklin get to make the next hire? That's one of the biggest variables looming over the Florida dynamics. It's rare that athletic directors, especially in the SEC, make three football hires after the first two coaches get fired. But don't be surprised if Stricklin gets that chance.
It's tricky for an interim president to hire an athletic director, as not knowing who your boss could be would potentially limit the pool of AD candidates. Stricklin has three years left on his contract and would be owed nearly $3 million if he were fired.
Logistically, moving on from Stricklin is a difficult turn for Florida. Can an interim president both fire and then hire a new athletic director in time to be running a coaching search in mid-November?
4. How will the expanded playoff affect the coaching search?
The way the college football calendar has evolved will work against Florida. After whiffing on a rising coach in Napier, who came from Louisiana, the natural inclination would be to hire the opposite. That would mean an established, big-name, big-brand head coach.
Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin will be the speculative favorite, as his affinity for free-flowing thoughts channel Steve Spurrier. His offensive acumen brings some elements of Urban Meyer, who came to Florida amid skepticism that spread offenses could work in the SEC. (They did.)
There are other prominent names that will be mentioned along with Kiffin's -- Penn State's James Franklin, Nebraska's Matt Rhule, Missouri's Eliah Drinkwitz, Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy, Iowa State's Matt Campbell and Kansas State's Chris Klieman. They are all currently coaching ranked teams that could have a shot at making the expanded College Football Playoff.
The new playoff dynamics are an interesting wrinkle to the carousel. The new 12-team College Football Playoff begins on Dec. 20, which would make it hard for a school like Florida to hire a sitting coach who reaches the CFP. The ideal time to bring in a new coach would be late November, as it will take time to evaluate a roster and figure out who is worth what money.
The transfer portal opens Dec. 9, but by then most players will have already back-channeled their next stop. The first high school signing period starts Dec. 4. That's a lot of key dates to miss to wait out a coach, especially considering the CFP National Championship is Jan. 20.
"The playoff has thrown a wrench in the coaching carousel," an industry source told ESPN. "Especially for places like Florida, which can't hire another Sun Belt coach. They need to land a big name."
5. How good of a job is Florida?
This will be an interesting question bandied around the industry, as Florida has fired four consecutive coaches and struggled to build a competitive SEC roster in the NIL era.
Some of this comes from Napier's fidelity to his program plan and offense, which have remained devout despite diminishing returns.
There does appear to be a significant financial commitment, as Napier has a giant staff and Florida's new $85 million football facility opened in 2022 and is considered top-flight.
Internally, Florida considers its NIL budget in the top 10 in the country and competitive with the highest levels of the SEC. It has shown that with recent recruiting success, including landing ESPN's top dual-threat quarterback in the country in the Class of 2024, D.J. Lagway, and top defensive end prospect L.J. McCray.
There's a feast-or-famine nature to the Florida job, as there are title winners such as Meyer and Spurrier and then flameouts like Zook (23-14), Will Muschamp (28-21) and Jim McElwain (22-12). To be fair, all of them were better than Napier, who is 12-16 and on track to have the school's worst full-time tenure in more than 70 years. There's a strong brand, league affiliation and recruiting base. But the roster doesn't look like Florida's peers in the SEC. Prospective coaches will be trying to figure out what's unfolded there to make that so.