Billy Napier preaches accountability, but wins matter

Florida head coach Billy Napier was on the hot seat heading into the 2024 season.

And now?

He’s two games in and 1-2 after dropping a game, 33-20, to Texas A&M at “The Swamp.”

Florida has looked bad and Napier’s head coaching job has been uninspiring so far, to say the least. It’s been so bad that there are major boosters who have reportedly already ponied up the money it would take to fire Napier and buy him out of his contract.

Speaking to the media on Monday, though, the embattled head coach revealed that he knows he can’t control any of that, and he’s simply trying to model the right mindset to his young and impressionable players.

“These are all hypothetical scenarios. I think for me, I’m gonna try to model what I would expect from our players and some of those things I just talked about, I think that’s the whole key is that as a whole staff and throughout the organization, we have to model what we would expect from the players and want from the players. And that, for me, is total focus on the next opportunity to improve,” Napier told the media (h/t On3).

“We can’t live in the shoulda-coulda-woulda, if-then, all that. I think ultimately, we’ve got an obligation to the players and our leadership at the university to do our best to play well this week. It’s all we can control. Anything else is a waste of time.”

While that’s strong talk from Napier and it’s probably what you want to hear from a head coach who is literally fighting for his job, the fact of the matter is that college football always has been big business, and a 1-2 start and 12-16 record since taking over at Florida is bat business — especially in Gainesville.

Napier can talk about accountability and mindset all he wants, but he’s not a motivational speaker, he’s an SEC football coach. At the end of the day, his win/loss record is all that will matter for the Gators, and there don’t appear to be many more winnable games left on the schedule.

If he survives the season, there’s a reason chance Napier won’t win two or three games. It starting to sound like he probably won’t end up getting that far, though.