{"id":331709,"date":"2025-12-05T08:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T08:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/331709\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T08:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T08:41:09","slug":"james-madison-working-to-hire-former-florida-hc-billy-napier-as-head-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/331709\/","title":{"rendered":"James Madison working to hire former Florida HC Billy Napier as head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Madison<\/a> is working to finalize a deal to hire former Florida<\/a> coach Billy Napier<\/a> as its next head coach, according to On3\u2019s Pete Nakos<\/a> and Chris Low<\/a>. On3 previously reported<\/a> Napier as a name to watch in JMU\u2019s coaching search.<\/p>\n

Napier went 22-23 during his three-plus years in Gainesville prior to his departure this past season. His hiring at James Madison would mark a return to the Sun Belt Conference, where he previously coached at Louisiana<\/a> before Florida hired him.<\/p>\n

During his time with the Ragin\u2019 Cajuns, Napier went 40-12 overall and 20-5 in Sun Belt play. The program won two conference titles and appeared in the league championship game every year of his tenure from 2018-21.<\/p>\n

Napier would replace Bob Chesney<\/a> as James Madison\u2019s head coach. Chesney is expected to become the next head coach at UCLA<\/a> following an impressive two-year run with the Dukes. He has the program in the Sun Belt Championship game after an 11-1 record during the regular season, including a perfect 8-0 mark in conference action.<\/p>\n

JMU also came in at No. 25 in the penultimate College Football Playoff<\/a> rankings. That means the Dukes could find a way into the 12-team bracket, depending on how some key conference championship games go throughout the weekend.<\/p>\n

More on Billy Napier\u2019s coaching background<\/p>\n

A former Furman<\/a> quarterback, Billy Napier got his coaching start at Clemson<\/a> as a graduate assistant from 2003-04 before heading to SC State<\/a> as quarterbacks coach in 2005. He returned to Clemson from 2006-10, starting out as tight ends coach and becoming offensive coordinator\/quarterbacks coach from 2009-10.<\/p>\n

From there, Napier joined Nick Saban\u2019s<\/a> staff at Alabama<\/a> as an analyst in 2011 and was Colorado State\u2019s<\/a> assistant head coach\/quarterbacks coach in 2012. He headed back to Tuscaloosa from 2013-16 as wide receivers coach and served as Arizona State\u2019s<\/a> offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2017. That\u2019s when Louisiana hired him.<\/p>\n

Napier\u2019s tenure at Florida began with a 6-7 record in 2022 before the Gators missed a bowl game in 2023 at 5-7. Hot seat chatter heated up in 2024, but UF rallied late in the year to finish 8-5 with multiple marquee victories, giving Napier another season. The program planned to invest more money into the roster, as well.<\/p>\n

However, early season losses in 2025 eventually sparked Napier\u2019s departure from Florida. That officially came after a victory over Mississippi State<\/a> ahead of the bye week, and UF finished the year with a 3-8 overall record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Madison is working to finalize a deal to hire former Florida coach Billy Napier as its next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[131547,399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-331709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-billy-napier-99-murray-county","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}