For Florida’s Billy Napier, the numbers are grisly after another troubling loss to a rival

BATON ROUGE, La. — When Florida quarterback DJ Lagway threw his fifth, and game-sealing, interception Saturday night at No. 3 LSU, athletic director Scott Stricklin pursed his lips and turned away.

Stricklin did not watch the replay. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared at the ground.

What else was there to see? What else is there to say?

The Gators’ 20-10 loss dropped Stricklin’s hand-picked head coach, Billy Napier, to 1-2 this season with the meat of one of the nation’s hardest schedules still ahead.

The numbers are grisly and enough for questions about Napier’s buyout ($19.4 million at the end of this contract year) to intensify:

• Three games into his fourth season, Napier is 20-21. That’s as many losses as Will Muschamp had, even though Muschamp coached in eight more games. Napier’s winning percentage (.487) is the worst by any non-interim Florida coach since 1950. He needs to win his next 28 games to match the winning percentage that got his predecessor, Dan Mullen, fired.

• Napier fell to 3-10 against Florida’s primary annual rivals. That’s 0-3 against Georgia, 1-2 against Tennessee and Florida State and now 1-3 against the Tigers.

• Napier dropped to 4-15 against ranked opponents and 5-14 away from The Swamp.

Saturday was especially troubling because of the way it played out. The Gators have not quit on Napier; this wasn’t the case of a lack of fight. Florida was a willing participant in a pair of pregame shouting matches and a brief in-game scuffle. The defense was good enough to win, starting the game with three consecutive three-and-outs and holding LSU to 316 total yards — the Tigers’ third-lowest output in three-plus seasons under Brian Kelly.

The problem is the offense. Napier’s offense. The offense he leads after refusing to hire a play caller this offseason and doubling down on his role after last week’s 18-16 loss to South Florida. The offense that Florida fans expect to light up scoreboards the way the program did under Steve Spurrier. The offense that looks like it’s squandering a third consecutive NFL talent at quarterback, and maybe the most promising of them all.

In Year 1, Napier’s quarterback was the No. 4 NFL Draft pick, Anthony Richardson. Napier went 6-7.

For the next year and a half, Napier’s quarterback was Graham Mertz, who was drafted in the sixth round this spring. Napier went 8-10.

Since mid-October, Napier’s quarterback has been Lagway, the former five-star recruit and Gatorade National High School Player of the Year. And after encouraging performances in 2024, Napier and Lagway have lost two in a row in 2025. Lagway’s five interceptions Saturday were the most by a Florida quarterback since 1992.

Despite those turnovers, the Gators were still competitive. The optimistic spin is that if you take away the pick six Lagway threw to Dashawn Spears and add the 87-yard Lagway touchdown pass that was nullified by a holding penalty, Florida was right there.

“We’ve lost two in a row like that,” Napier said.

He’s right. The Gators had a pair of touchdowns negated by penalties in last week’s loss to an in-state Group of 5 program. That doesn’t make Saturday night look or feel any better, especially because of how poorly the “Bull spit” game aged. South Florida was blown out 49-12 on Saturday by No. 5 Miami — the same No. 5 Miami that hosts the Gators this week.

Napier is 0-1 against the Hurricanes, too.

If Napier is feeling the heat at one of the biggest pressure-cooker programs in the country, he isn’t showing it. When Urban Meyer lost in Baton Rouge in 2005, he cried in his postgame news conference. Napier started Saturday night’s address by complimenting his players and team leadership.

“I thought they played with effort, toughness,” Napier said. “The passion was there, you know, showed some resiliency throughout the game.”

If effort and toughness aren’t the issues, then what’s left? Any excuses about the mediocre roster depth he inherited don’t apply in Year 4, especially in the transfer portal era. Florida moved into its $85 million football center in Napier’s first year and built the off-field army he requested, so institutional investment doesn’t seem to be the problem, either. You don’t sign and keep one of the nation’s premier quarterbacks without a robust NIL program.

Instead, the problems are all on the field. One of the most touted Florida recruits of the modern era overthrew receivers and misread options. Jadan Baugh and his Florida teammates streaked for a would-be score as LSU defensive tackle Jacobian Guillory II pointed backward to celebrate the holding penalty that would wipe it off.

And with a must-have play in the closing minutes, there was chaos. As LSU lined up for a third down that would ice the game, Florida had too many defenders on the field and had to try to rush two off. Add it to the laundry list of forehead-slapping moments, along with two players wearing the same number at Utah, multiple special-teams plays without 11 Gators on the field in 2023 and the last-second discombobulation that fueled a loss to Arkansas. This time, the Gators gave up a 51-yard rush. Not even an extra player on the field could save them.

Stricklin, again, turned his head to the ground. He did not need to watch that replay, either. He’s seen it too many times before.

(Photo: Stephen Lew / Imagn Images)

Click here to read article