Billy Napier and his Florida football program have fans feeling the blues.
Once the cream of the crop among college football programs, the Gators have fallen well off the pace of some of its contemporaries, struggling to mount much of an offense on an SEC championship, let alone compete for a national title.
Napier isn’t the first coach to get a front-row seat to the chaos. He is the latest, however.
And after Florida’s most recent capitulation — a 41-17 defeat at the hands of hated rivals Miami in Week 1 — it seems Gators fans have found a target for all their frustrations: Napier himself.
Billy Napier GoFundMe, explained
Napier is not a very popular figure in Gainesville. One reason is the Gators’ stumbles with him at the helm. Another is the comments he directed toward his team’s fanbase following Florida’s meltdown against the Hurricanes.
“I played on championship teams, I’ve been a part as a coach on national champions teams, SEC championship teams, conference champions, division champions and rarely did we win every single game. I think, ultimately, a loss early can be a blessing if you don’t waste it,” Napier said postgame. “One thing I can say is we have a group that’s working hard. I do think that we have character. We have to go to work on the football part. And I think we have to become a more consistent team, and we have to execute better.
“If we can focus on those things and not necessarily what some guy in his basement is saying in rural Central Florida on social media, then we got a chance to get better.”
Ouch.
Napier’s comments might’ve gone unchallenged had he accumulated the track record of success of some of the sport’s greatest minds while leading the Gators, but that hasn’t happened. Florida is 12-15 under Napier’s tutelage. That’s good for the worst record among Florida tacticians since Raymond Floyd, who served the team from 1946-49.
Suffice to say, Gators fanatics were not pleased with Napier’s remarks. And although he eventually apologized, Florida fans had seen — and heard — enough.
Florida fans reportedly set up a GoFundMe in the hopes of securing Napier’s exit. The fund, created by Jonathan Wing — a “disgruntled UF alum looking to raise money to send Billy Napier to early retirement” — cites Napier’s play-calling as reason enough for Napier’s dismissal. It has a targeted goal of $26 million, around the amount of money Napier would be owed if he were bought out of the seven-year, $51.8 million he inked with the program back in 2021.
Wing vowed that any additional funds over the $26 million goal would go towards “buying Lane Kiffen a new sport fishing boat to dock in Cedar Key.” As of Sept. 13, the GoFundMe has garnered $620 worth of support.
