No one was surprised when Florida fired Billy Napier on Sunday. He was able to coach himself off the hot seat last year, but another slow start doomed him in Gainesville. Even though his Gators beat Mississippi State on Saturday, Napier was 22-23 in four seasons. The Gators are 3-4 and are on a bye week before facing Georgia.
Whether the vacancy is a better one than the Penn State job will depend on who you ask. The Gators have won three national titles since the last time the Nittany Lions did, and you have a much deeper recruiting pool around you, but it seems like the path to the College Football Playoff is harder in the SEC, which simply has more good teams than the Big Ten.
The Gators have very good options from the FBS head coaching ranks, starting with two offensive-minded coaches with strong local ties.
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin will evoke memories of Florida legend Steve Spurrier with his brash nature. Spurrier had his quips come out of his mouth as opposed to Kiffin, who seems to be at his best on social media. But Kiffin has done an excellent job reinventing himself since coaching at FAU where he won two conference titles. The 50-year-old has, along with his extended family, settled in nicely in Oxford. His Rebels have finished in the top 11 in three of the past four seasons. They’re 6-1 this year with a legitimate shot to make the Playoff, which could muck up the timing if he is very interested in this job.
Washington head coach Jedd Fisch is an alum who broke into the coaching business as a student assistant for Spurrier. Folks close to Fisch, 49, know how much he loves Florida, and he has some strong connections there. He also coached in-state at Miami and then with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Fisch did a remarkable job turning Arizona from awful to 10-3, and the Wildcats finished No. 11 in his third and final season there, in 2023. He’s gotten traction at Washington in less than two years on the job. He’s got the Huskies at 5-2 behind a budding superstar, sophomore quarterback Demond Williams Jr.
Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz isn’t as connected to UF, but he’s been outstanding in six years at Missouri. Drinkwitz, 42, is 27-6 in the past three seasons. Would he be tempted to jump, given the Gators’ national title pedigree, compared to Missouri, where the Tigers have had only four top-15 seasons in almost 50 years?
Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm is as good a play-caller as there is in college football. He’s fresh off knocking off unbeaten Miami and is now 4-4 against top-5 competition — a whopper of a stat, especially for a guy who isn’t coaching at any blue blood programs. Brohm, 54, is at his alma mater, where he’s 24-9. Would he leave his home, where he has a more manageable path to the CFP? I’m not so sure … but I do wonder what he could do with better talent.
Former Penn State head coach James Franklin, a week off getting fired, wants to coach again, and he’s been a very good SEC head coach in the past. He took Vanderbilt, an SEC program that hadn’t finished in the AP Top 25 in more than 60 years, to two Top 25 seasons in three years. In State College, he was 104-45. He hit a ceiling at Penn State, but he led a program that was reeling from NCAA sanctions when he inherited it, and had five top-10 finishes in a decade. Hiring a coach who just got fired isn’t something you often see at big programs, but Franklin’s situation is pretty unique — and he could get a head start on the job earlier than others.
SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee got the Mustangs into the CFP last year. The SEC job I think he might be tempted by is back home at Arkansas, but Florida has better resources and a higher ceiling. Would the 42-year-old former Miami offensive coordinator like this opportunity more than at his alma mater? We’ll see. I don’t think it’s a given he’d leave what he has in Dallas.
USF head coach Alex Golesh beat the Gators earlier this year. The 41-year-old coached in the SEC at Tennessee, where he called plays for head coach Josh Heupel. Golesh is 20-13 in three seasons in Tampa and 6-1 this year at a program that was woeful — 4-29 in three years — before he arrived. He’s another good offensive coach, but will the Gators be hesitant to hire another head coach coming from the mid-major level after Napier didn’t work out?