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Florida fired head coach Billy Napier on Sunday, one day after a narrow 23-21 victory over Mississippi State that left fans chanting for his dismissal even as the Gators held the lead. The decision brings an end to a four-year tenure that saw Napier compile a 22-23 overall record and struggle mightily against ranked competition.
Athletic director Scott Stricklin pulled the trigger following a game that, despite ending in victory, highlighted many of the organizational and strategic issues that plagued Napier’s time in Gainesville.
Even before Napier’s firing became official, Stricklin had been conducting due diligence on Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin this season, making calls to those around the 50-year-old coach, according to sources.
The Rebels’ head coach has emerged as the consensus favorite among Florida fans and boosters, with his name swirling at the center of the coaching search before it even began. But as the Gators begin their hunt for a program-changing hire, ESPN analyst Tom Luginbill raised pointed questions about whether the Florida job is as attractive as its history suggests.
Speaking on The Next Round, Luginbill offered a sobering assessment of Florida’s recent struggles. When asked why Kiffin would want the position, the analyst didn’t hesitate with his response.
“I wouldn’t want the job. When you look at this job over the course of the last 15 years, don’t you have to start asking yourself what is wrong internally? Dan Mullen, after one of the greatest program-building efforts in college football history, didn’t just go to Florida and take stupid pills. Billy Napier didn’t become a bad coach overnight. Urban Meyer goes 8-5 because last year they fired him and he’s a great coach. What is it about the place institutionally? And I think it’s fair to ask those questions.”
Florida’s Pattern Raises Questions About Lane Kiffin’s Interest in Gators Position
The Gators have now cycled through four head coaches in just over a decade, with none lasting more than four years. Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, Dan Mullen, and now Napier all arrived with varying degrees of fanfare and pedigree, yet each departed with a losing or barely winning record and a fractured relationship with the fanbase.
The ESPN analyst pointed out that successful coaches from other programs haven’t simply forgotten how to win once they arrived in Gainesville. Mullen had built Mississippi State into a consistent winner and produced NFL quarterback Dak Prescott before taking the Florida job in 2017.
Napier was a two-time Sun Belt Conference coach of the year at Louisiana before being hired as one of the hottest coaching prospects in the 2022 cycle. Yet neither could translate their previous success to sustainable winning at Florida.
Why would Lane Kiffin want the Florida job?@TomLuginbill: “I wouldn’t want the job.” pic.twitter.com/lNu466tZzx
— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) October 20, 2025
The host raised questions about Florida’s investment in the program, prompting Luginbill to acknowledge that the Gators have made recent improvements. According to him, Florida had fallen behind the powers of the SEC in facilities and resources but has worked to catch up in recent years.
Luginbill questioned whether those improvements are enough to compete at the highest level.
“Are there resources or we’re assuming because it’s Florida, right, that their resources are on par with the top, you know, two to three percent in college football? But are they? Do we know that for sure? Do we know they’ve made the football program the front porch of the university?” Luginbill asked.
He also suggested that if Kiffin is serious about considering Florida, he could potentially leverage the interest into a better deal at Ole Miss, something his agent Jimmy Sexton has orchestrated before.
Wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales will serve as interim head coach for Florida’s remaining five games, beginning with a matchup against Georgia on Nov 1 following the team’s bye week.
Whether Kiffin or another candidate ultimately takes over in Gainesville, they’ll inherit a program searching for answers to the same questions that have haunted it for more than a decade.
