The most high-profile job in college football expected to come open will remain occupied.
Florida announced Thursday that Billy Napier — barring scandal, controversy or other unforeseen developments not related directly to wins and losses — will remain the Gators head coach.
No coach began this season on a hotter seat than Napier after he started his tenure in Gainesville with consecutive losing seasons and was set to face the most daunting schedule in the country. One game into the season, a blowout loss at The Swamp against Miami, and it already looked as though Napier’s future had been decided.
It was just a matter of time. Or maybe not.
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— Florida Gators (@FloridaGators) November 7, 2024
Napier’s comeback is the most notable in what seems to be a trend this season of coaches working their way off the hot seat.
“If (Baylor coach Dave Aranda) is not fired and Billy’s not fired, those are two that everybody said were absolutely gonna happen,” said an industry source, granted anonymity in return for their candid opinion of the hiring landscape mid-season.
Go back to those preseason coaching carousel forecasts and you’ll find at the top, along with Napier and Aranda — whose team is currently 5-4 and on a three-game winning streak — Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea, who has the Commodores ranked, and Arkansas’ Sam Pittman, who is in a similar position to Aranda with a 5-4 team.
Florida would have been the biggest opening in college football by far, a job that would set off a chain reaction impacting multiple Power 4 programs.
The rumor mill had been cranking out Florida-related speculation since September with Penn State’s James Franklin, Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, LSU’s Brian Kelly, Washington’s Jedd Fisch and, of course, Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin all being tossed around as potential candidates for the Gators.
Florida would have owed Napier a $26 million buyout, but that’s really only part of the cost. Two industry sources estimated it would have been closer to $40 million to flip the entire staff.
And if Florida really did want to make a splashy hire, it would have almost certainly required a contract of at least seven or eight years and $8 million per season. Aside from Freeman, all the coaches listed above currently have deals in that range.
Now, with revenue sharing with players on the horizon, Florida can invest that money in other places.
“Do you want to give someone $40 million to go away, or do you want to say, ‘Hey, you’re going to stay here and coach and we’re going to give you this $8 million a year that we would have broken up over five years to pay you the $40 million and allow you to compete for players,’” the first source said.
And for schools that either choose not to go big-game hunting or can’t get an established coach to move, continuity becomes more appealing.
“I don’t think there’s a ton of no-brainer candidates out there, depending on what your job is,” a second industry source said. “There’s gonna be a risk with everyone.”
Who else is hot?
With Florida off the board, the chances of an earth-shaking move go down significantly.
The domino effect of Florida keeping Napier could be another school seeing an opportunity to jump into the market as the best job available. So maybe that opens the door for Arkansas to be more aggressive with Pittman if the Razorbacks lose their last two SEC games — vs. Texas and at Missouri — and finish the season 6-6 overall and 3-5 in the SEC.
Volatility is commonplace at Auburn, and the first two seasons under Hugh Freeze have definitely not gone as expected. Bryan Harsin was 9-12 when he was fired during his second season at Auburn. Freeze is currently 9-13, though sitting on a top-10 recruiting class makes a big difference.
Right now the most likely power-conference coach to be fired seems to be Purdue’s Ryan Walters, who is only in his second season but is currently presiding over the worst P4 team in the country.
Stepping down?
The focus in the industry will now turn to potential retirements, most notably at North Carolina. Mack Brown, 73, is in Year 6 of his second stint in Chapel Hill. He caused a stir earlier this season with locker room comments to his players after a loss to James Madison that suggested he might be ready to step down.
It should also be noted that UNC (5-4) has won its last two and is positioned to win out with games against Wake Forest, Boston College and NC State still ahead.
Retirement speculation seems to bubble up every year in Utah with Kyle Whittingham, 64, but would he want to go out on such a low note, with the Utes (4-4) scrambling to get bowl-eligible? Also, if that job does open, defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley has already been designated as the head coach-in-waiting.
Mike Gundy is in Year 20 with Oklahoma State (3-6) and in danger of having his worst season since his first. He’s been his usual feisty self and doesn’t seem to have fully embraced this new era of professionalism in college football with NIL compensation and the transfer portal.
But the winningest coach in the history of the program, a year removed from a Big 12 title game appearance, seems unlikely to be pushed out.
Like Gundy, Kentucky’s Mark Stoops is the winningest coach in program history, but he is in the midst of one of his worst seasons with the Wildcats (3-6). Both sides might be looking for a change, but is Stoops really going to walk away from a deal that pays him about $9 million a year and runs through 2031?
Stoops, a former Iowa football player, has long been viewed as a possible replacement at his alma mater, but the 69-year-old Kirk Ferentz appears to be going strong with the Hawkeyes (6-3).
There are currently five open jobs in the Group of 5: East Carolina, Rice, Southern Miss, Utah State and Fresno State, with several more (Kennesaw State, UMass, etc.) likely to come.
It takes only one unexpected move near the top of the P4 to open the floodgates, but the coaching carousel is shaping up to be not quite as wild as in recent years.
“We always say it could be a quiet year, and it never is, but this could be the one,” the second source said.
(Photo: James Gilbert / Getty Images)
