Florida appears to have hit the point of no return under coach Billy Napier. Though many supporters believe it is inevitable the third-year coach's tenure will end this fall, the mechanism pushing the buttons behind the scenes has been shrouded by an opaque power structure at the university.
Administrators at the university level and within the athletics department have remained mum as rumors circle Napier after two blowout losses. The reality is Napier can be fired at any moment, sources tell CBS Sports. Questions abound, too, about the future of athletics director Scott Stricklin, who serves an interim university president with a board of trustees comprised of powerful political players in the state.
The facts are clear: Florida is struggling to remain competitive under Napier, whose 12-16 record makes him the first Gators coach since the 1940s with a losing record after two-plus seasons. Florida has lost seven straight games to FBS opponents. The losses, including blowouts at home this season to rival Miami and Texas A&M, have embarrassed fans and led to booing from the stands. The questions facing Florida's athletic department seem simple yet are difficult to answer.
How much control does Florida's board of trustees have over a coaching search?
Who are Stricklin's friends and foes, and is his job actually safe?
Who will Florida target when it fires Napier?
Behind the scenes, the gears are already in motion for a potential change, and there is more alignment among administrators than message board rumors tend to say. Stricklin, who is facing criticism of his own after decisions to hire Dan Mullen and then Napier, has been informed the decision whether to fire Napier is his to make. In that scenario, Stricklin will also be tasked with searching for a new coach, sources familiar with the discussions at Florida told CBS Sports this week.
No coaching search is as simple as a single leader seeking out candidates, and though Florida has kept its board of trustees, president and athletics department in philosophical alignment, there are rogues working in the shadows.
The inflection point could arrive Saturday when Florida (1-2) travels to Mississippi State (1-2) for a pivotal game. A loss could seal Napier's fate. Does a win against the Bulldogs prolong the inevitable or serve as a swan song for Napier to ride into the sunset with a win as Florida travels east to Gainesville, where it can install an interim coach and regroup during a bye week?
Rumors of wholesale changes in the athletics department appear premature, sources tell CBS Sports, with communication between the president's office and Stricklin remaining open and positive. Napier, however, is the lone party on an island, fighting for survival.
Florida's administrators have been quiet. A university spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. When reached for comment on the future of the football program, Stricklin offered to CBS Sports:
"This is a remarkable athletics program. Over half of the Gators' athletics teams finished in the top five a year ago, we continue to win championships as a department and the Gators continue to finish among the top five programs annually in the director's cup. The University of Florida allows athletics to attract the best and brightest athletes and supports them in a way to achieve at the highest level. We have high expectations for all of our programs."
Napier's buyout is 85% of his remaining salary and would not offset if he gets another job. The exact number owed depends on specifically when Florida fires him, but the number owed to him on paper within 30 days will be roughly $13 million, with another roughly $3.25 million due on July 15, 2025. Three more annual payments will satisfy the total $25.67 million buyout by July 2028.
Napier was hired in November 2021 to replace Dan Mullen, who was fired one year after reaching the SEC Championship Game. Mullen was 34-15 in four seasons, including a five-win record in his final season.
Napier was generally viewed as a great hire by analysts and athletic directors in the industry. The protege of Nick Saban led Louisiana to three consecutive 10-win seasons, two Sun Belt championships and back-to-back top-20 finishes in the national polls. Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Baylor, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas had previously expressed interest in Napier as a candidate to varying degrees, industry sources told CBS Sports.
"Anybody who said Napier was a bad hire wasn't doing their homework," a Power Four athletics director said.
Detractors of Florida's athletic department point to the fact that it is slow to adapt and caught between eras under the specter of Jeremy Foley, who served as AD from 1992-2016 and worked at the university since 1976. Foley currently holds the title of emeritus athletic director and has an office near Stricklin's -- though sources say he is not frequently in the building. It is true that some of the department's highest level executives were there under Foley including its COO, head of compliance, director of communications and -- up until this summer -- senior women's administrator. But Stricklin has blazed his own trail in charge, most notably in how he hired Napier.
Napier's hiring process differed from other high-level searches in the past. The process was not described as collaborative internally with key stakeholders in the department. Stricklin essentially went out on his own to court and hire Napier. He utilized similar tactics when he made hires as AD at Mississippi State.
"When I went to meet Billy, to me that to me was more a recruiting trip then it was an interview," Stricklin told Sports Illustrated in April 2022. "He was my priority, everything I'd learned about him, he was the first guy I wanted to go see and I wanted him to know he was the first guy I wanted to go see. My goal there was to make sure he knew he was our priority No. 1. And then, [No. 2] to make sure everything I had read and learned and knew about him that the reality matched up to that."
But to say there were significant doubts in the fanbase or the athletic department about Napier at the time is revisionist history.
Napier's methodical nature was seen as a positive, especially due to the need to beef up support staff when he was hired and the team's transition to a standalone football facility for the first time, something Florida had long gone without. Napier is Stricklin's second football coaching hire, and the common line of thinking is that an athletic director in the SEC does not get a chance to hire a third football coach.
Stricklin has many friends in administrative circles across the country, and he is generally viewed positively, a trait that echoes with Florida's leaders as he faces a critical decision.
"He gets it. Nobody does more research than that guy," a Power Four athletics director told CBS Sports. That same AD pointed to the success rates of Foley and former Alabama AD Mal Moore, who made several hires that didn't pan out in football before or after landing national champions Urban Meyer and Nick Saban, respectively.
"He's the right guy for that place, just like (Jeremy) Foley was," the power conference AD said.
For Stricklin, Saturday in Starkville is a full-circle moment in his career. He got his start at Mississippi State, his alma mater, where he served as then-athletics director Greg Byrne's protege and was heavily involved in the process to hire Dan Mullen as the Bulldogs' head coach in 2009, which helped catapult Stricklin to AD when Byrne departed for Arizona. Fifteen years later, Stricklin's career is at a crossroads and it's to be determined whether his fate is tied to how Napier's team performs in Mississippi, Stricklin's home state.
While not desirable, firing an athletic director and a head football coach is not unheard of. Nebraska fired athletic director Shawn Eichorst in September 2017. The Huskers hired Bill Moos three weeks later, and Moos fired head coach Mike Riley at the end of the 2017 season. In 2022, Georgia Tech fired AD Todd Stansbury and coach Geoff Collins simultaneously at the end of September. J Batt was hired weeks later as AD, and he eventually elevated interim head coach Brent Key to the full-time role.
Even if Florida wanted to clean house in its athletic department, there is an open question as to whether Florida's leadership structure is equipped to do that right now. Stricklin reports directly to the president of the university, but after Ben Sasse resigned during the summer, former president Kent Fuchs (who served from 2015-2023 and hired Stricklin initially) was tapped to serve as interim. Fuchs is not expected to pursue the full-time job a second time, and a search for a permanent president -- expected to last into 2025 -- is just getting off the ground. Fuchs is not expected to act on his own due to his interim status.
"There's so many unanswered questions on leadership," an agent said. "It's hard to objectify the quality of the (football) job without knowing who the leaders are on campus."
Above Fuchs is the university's board of trustees, chaired by Morteza "Mori" Hosseni. Hosseini has been a trustee since 2016 and was named board chair in 2018. His current term lasts until January 2026. Multiple sources describe Hosseini as "the most powerful unelected official in the state." His relationship with two-term governor Ron DeSantis is a big part of that.
According to reporting by The Independent Florida Alligator, Hosseini has donated over $1 million to DeSantis' Super PAC as well as provided him with access to his private jets and gifting him a golf simulator. Multiple trustees at the university are large DeSantis donors, and Hosseini has a direct line to the governor. Bill Heavener, the namesake of Florida's old and new football operations facilities, is on the board, as is Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley. Ridley is a 1974 graduate of UF and also has considerable influence in the state house. His daughter, Sydney, is a lobbyist, and Fred was described by a source as an "involved" trustee, though another source said they haven't known Ridley to "throw his weight around" when issues hit a stalemate.
The board of trustees does not have authority to hire or fire a football coach, but Fuchs and Hosseini have to approve Stricklin's recommendation. Hosseini was described by multiple sources as being uninterested in sports, but he knows its effect on the university's bottom line and could become involved in the search directly or indirectly as a result.
Florida's board is typically aligned on issues and rarely speaks out of turn after reaching decisions, sources close to the trustees told CBS Sports. Boosters, however, can steer conversations outside the closed doors of the board room, and some have already gone rogue through unofficial channels as they prepare as unofficial agents of change for the football program.
Florida supporters pushing for a change in leadership have already reached out through intermediaries to gauge interest and seek feedback on candidates via back channels, one prominent agent told CBS Sports. The agent added it is not clear if the supporters they spoke to have actual sway within the department or with the board of trustees, as there appears to be a disconnect on the true picture of the power structure within the athletics department. This behavior by influential donors is common in coaching searches; it's not rare for donors to reach out to agents acting like they're in charge of a search process when, in truth, a real professional search is ongoing.
Agents voiced uncertainty of who will conduct Florida's search, but CBS Sports was told by sources at the university that Stricklin is expected to lead the charge.
"They want a 'bona fide Power [Four] guy,'" the agent said.
Among the names mentioned in those conversations between the agent and outside supporters: Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz, Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin, Washington's Jedd Fisch and Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury.
Complicating the hiring process is the upcoming College Football Playoff, which could effectively eliminate top-tier candidates such as Kiffin and Drinkwitz from contention if Florida has a desire to have a coach in place before the early signing period for high school recruits (Dec. 4-6). The first round of the 12-team playoff kicks off Dec. 20, and if a prospective coach either wins his first-round game or gets a bye through the first round, he's tied up through at least New Year's Eve, which means a candidate could be unavailable during the most critical recruiting month on the calendar.
Programs like Ole Miss and Mizzou have also built strong NIL support with deep pockets from donors, and in the case of Mizzou, favorable state legislation allowing more leeway in paying high school prospects for their NIL makes the job more desirable than in previous years. How Florida counters that in a pitch to a high-profile coach is paramount.
A trip to Starkville, Mississippi, for an embattled Florida head coach has spelled doom before. After a 38-31 loss to the Bulldogs in 2004, Ron Zook was fired, paving the way for Foley to hire Meyer. If the Gators lose at Mississippi State this year, it could kick off another search process to replace a floundering head coach.
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