Billy Napier’s tenure as Florida Gators head coach ended abruptly one day after the tea’s 23-21 win over Mississippi State nearly a month ago.
The writing had been on the wall for the former two-time Sun Belt Coach of the Year for weeks after UF went on a three-game losing streak following its season-opening win over Long Island University.
Napier’s Florida tenure will likely best be remembered for unreached potential. He went 11-14 in his first two seasons, and seemed to have turned a small corner after an 8-5 year in 2024. And he had who many considered a future Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback in former five-star quarterback D.J. Lagway.
But Napier’s inability to turn consensus top-20 recruiting classes into a perennial threat in the SEC led to his firing after a 3-4 start this season.
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Most believe Napier will land another college head-coaching opportunity at a smaller school given his success with Louisiana — he compiled a 40-12 record with two Sun Belt championships and two bowl wins — but in the meantime, Napier resurfaced on Tuesday at the practice of another SEC powerhouse.
Napier was a special guest at the Georgia Bulldogs’ practice earlier this week, according to On3, and the timing seems a little convenient given Georgia plays the Texas Longhorns on Saturday — a team that Napier beat earlier this season.
Despite the optics of the situation, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart defended why he had Napier out to one of his practices.
“Billy’s a good friend of mine, we coached together (at Alabama) for years, I’ve known him (a long time),” Smart said Wednesday, via On3. “People don’t understand relationships between coaches. Coaches have a brotherhood and fraternity together.
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“… His dad was really good friends with (Georgia offensive coordinator Mike) Bobo, and we all grew up in the state of Georgia with our fathers coaching high school football, were real respected people, and he’s been a friend for a long time. So he dropped by, but that was really it.”
Smart and Napier coached together under legendary former head coach Nick Saban at Alabama.
Napier took a job as an analyst with the Crimson Tide in 2011 when Smart was defensive coordinator, and he returned in 2013 as a wide receivers coach, working with Smart until 2016 before leaving to take an offensive coordinator job with Arizona State in 2017.
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