Last week, Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin released a statement that serves as a vote of confidence in Gators head football coach Billy Napier.

Although the statement never directly mentions the 2025 season, Stricklin says he’s excited about laying the foundation for “next season and beyond.”

“I wanted to let you know that Billy Napier will continue as the head football coach of the Florida Gators,” Stricklin’s statement read. “As we have seen over the last few weeks, the young men on this team represent what it means to be a Gator. Their determination, effort and execution are evident in their performance and growth each week – building a foundation that promises greater success next season and beyond.

This statement sent shock waves through the world of college football. Napier entered the 2024 season in one of the hottest seats in the country after posting losing seasons in his first two campaigns on the job, and with blowout early-season home losses to Miami and Texas A&Mthe writing seemed to be on the wall for him.

ESPN’s Chris Low even reported that Florida promoters had already pooled around $26 million in buyout to leave Napier.

But now, all signs point to Napier staying for a fourth season in 2025. And while it’s not hard to understand the math behind the decision, it will likely prove disastrous for the program.

Before we get into why I think that would be the case, let’s break down the reasons why Florida seems in no rush to fire Napier. First there is the financial element.

Napier’s buyout, if paid in full, would be the second-largest payment to a fired coach in college football history, behind only Jimbo Fisher. At a time of major economic uncertainty in sports and a possible looming House regulation that would allow schools to pay players with funds directly from the athletic department, it is not surprising that Florida is hesitant to make this kind of decision – especially since it would be the first high-profile position to undertake a coaching search in the new world of sport.

Not only that, but it is a transition time for school to the university level. It’s currently led by an interim president with vacancies across the university, and adding a coaching search to the to-do list probably won’t please anyone.

Stricklin, who has already hired two football coaches at Florida, has no reason to question whether the university would allow him to hire a third.

There is also the element on the ground. It hasn’t been a hugely successful season for the Gators, but there have been signs of progress given the brutal schedule. Florida seemed to be improving with true freshman five-star quarterback DJ Lagway playing for an injured Graham Mertz, before suffering an injury of his own.

Without him, Florida was demolished by Texas 49-17 in Napier’s first game since Stricklin’s vote of confidence.

It was a bad look for Napier, who still hasn’t really proven why he deserves another season in Gainesville. His 15-19 record in less than three seasons makes him the worst coach of the program’s modern era as things stand.

The Gators are on the cusp of their fourth straight losing season, something that hasn’t happened in Gainesville since 1935-38.

It’s hard to find reason to think Napier will be able to take this program to the level expected when he was hired after turning Louisiana into a Group of Five powerhouse. Running the recruiting class of 2025 isn’t as compelling an argument for retaining Napier when you consider that the group currently ranks outside the top 50 nationally, after all.

On3’s Pete Nakos reported that the decision to keep Napier would be associated with a commitment to going all-in in the transfer portal as the team looks to take the plunge in 2025. But is it a given that elite portal talent will be lining up to join this potentially sinking ship?

After the loss to Texas, Napier is now 2-14 against ranked teams. He is 8-14 in SEC play, 1-10 against rivals and 10-19 against power conference competition. This is a staggering level of futility, even considering how mediocre the program has been over the past 15 years since Urban Meyer left.

Napier’s defenders will point to the situation he inherited from his former coach Dan Mullen, who left the team with major recruitment deficiencies on both sides of the ball. And while Napier has filled that talent void with a promising core of young players, it hasn’t translated into wins.

The positive trajectory is simply not there. Napier’s first 2022 team, which posted the most impressive victory of his tenure in its debut against a Utah team that ultimately won the Pac-12, is the only one to have reached bowl eligibility . The team regressed to 5-7 last year, losing five straight games to end the season, and this year’s team will need a pretty big upset over the next two weeks to have a chance in the playoffs playoffs.

No amount of injuries – even the admittedly comical number the Gators have suffered this season – justifies those kinds of results. Not in 3rd year. Not at the University of Florida.

I remember Scott Frost. On November 8, 2021 – almost three years to the day before Stricklin’s statement – ​​the former Nebraska Athletic director Trev Alberts issued a similar vote of confidence for Frost, who was 15-29 in four seasons and ultimately finished the season with a 3-9 record.

We all know what happened next. The Cornhuskers started the 2022 season 1-2 with losses to Northwestern and Georgia Southern, and Frost was out of work before the calendar even turned to October.

If Florida ultimately follows suit by keeping Napier in 2025, the story will almost certainly end the same way. And when it does, the decision to keep a coach whose track record would put Ron Zook, Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain to shame will seem just as foolish as Nebraska’s decision to keep Frost for the ill-fated 2022 season.