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Who will replace Billy Napier? Eight candidates Florida should consider for football coach
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- Who will replace Billy Napier? Eight candidates Florida should consider for football coach
Florida fired Billy Napier on Sunday, Oct. 19, finally ending what may go down as the most disappointing coaching tenure in program history .
After a historic run at Louisiana-Lafayette, Napier leaves Gainesville with an overall record of 22-23 making him the first Florida coach in nearly 80 years to post a losing mark. The Gators were even worse in the SEC , posting a 12-16 record and never even sniffing the top of the conference.
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Napier becomes the fourth full-time Florida coach since Urban Meyer's second retirement in 2010 to last four or fewer seasons, following Will Muschamp (2011-14), Jim McElwain (2015-17) and Dan Mullen (2018-21). Like McElwain in 2017, his dismissal comes with multiple games left in the regular season and no chance of the Gators ' matching their preseason expectations.
Opinion: Florida needs Lane Kiffin a whole lot more than he needs the Gators
So here we go again: Florida, one of the premier brands in college football, is back on the lookout for another program savior. After swinging and missing on Napier out of the Sun Belt, look for the Gators to focus primarily on sitting Power Four coaches with some Group of Five options waiting in reserve.
Here are eight names on Florida's radar, starting with two options in the SEC:
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Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri
Drinkwitz has the swagger to embrace the pressures in Gainesville and the track record in the SEC to warrant a deep look as the Gators' next coach. After a bit of a slow start from 2020-22, Missouri has gone 26-5 in the past two-plus seasons with a New Year's Six bowl appearance. This year's team should at least be in the mix for the College Football Playoff late into November and could even take advantage of an unsettled SEC to reach the conference championship game. Drinkwitz would represent a very safe, high-floor hire for the Gators, though he wouldn't move the needle in the same way as his coaching peer at Mississippi.
Lane Kiffin, Mississippi
Kiffin would be a home-run hire for Florida with the added benefit of hurting the Rebels, who have been one of a few teams to fill the SEC power vacuum left by the Gators' recent decline. But the landscape of college football has changed so dramatically in the past half-decade that it's not longer a sure thing a coach would leave Oxford for Gainesville; that's doubly true given how Kiffin not only seems very comfortable at Mississippi but has put in tremendous sweat equity to turn the program into a top playoff contender. Would Kiffin throw that away to start over again with the Gators?
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James Franklin
There's definitely a question of whether Franklin wants to jump immediately back into coaching after being dismissed midway through his 12th year at Penn State. Even if he's leaning toward a year or more off the sidelines, the opportunity presented by Florida could be impossible to turn down. While things ran aground with the Nittany Lions this season, his 128-60 record at Vanderbilt and in Happy Valley should make him a legitimate candidate. Wouldn't the Gators have been ecstatic about bringing Franklin aboard had the school fired Napier last season? (Or even just three games ago?)
More: James Franklin says he'll 'win a national championship somewhere else' after Penn State exit
Dan Lanning, Oregon
This would be a kick-the-tires phone call with no downside for Florida. Lanning would very likely turn down the opportunity, given he's already established himself at a Big Ten school with tremendous financial advantages and an intensely strong support system. But the 39-year-old former Georgia assistant might also be intrigued by the challenge and the chance to return to the SEC. The Gators have to ask, basically, and they'd better be ready to make him the highest-paid coach in college football.
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Kenny Dillingham, Arizona State
Dillingham checks many of the boxes you'd want in a future coaching superstar. He's just 35 but has three years of experience as a Power Four head coach. He's already won in a big way by taking Arizona State from three wins in 2023 to the Big 12 championship and a playoff berth last season. He previously was the offensive coordinator at Auburn and Florida State and was Lanning's first coordinator at Oregon. He's helped develop sophomore Sam Leavitt into one of the top quarterbacks in the country. But Dillingham's lack of experience makes him a bit of a roll of the dice for a program that can't afford any miss. There's also the question of whether the Florida opening would entice him leave Arizona State, which is his alma mater.
Jon Sumrall, Tulane
Sumrall is the top Group of Five candidate after winning 23 games in two seasons at Troy and going 15-6 over the past year-plus at Tulane. Before being hired by the Trojans in 2022, Sumrall spent four years as an assistant in the SEC at Mississippi and Kentucky. He's guaranteed to land back in the SEC at some point, potentially as soon as this winter. But is he more interesting in returning to Kentucky, where he was a player and grad assistant?
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Rhett Lashlee, SMU
Lashlee seems likely to land at Arkansas as the replacement for Sam Pittman after taking the Mustangs to the College Football Playoff last year in his third season at the school. That's a difficult challenge, though, and despite deep links to the state, Lashlee could see the Gators' opening as a much cleaner situation with a clearer path to the playoff. But the two hiring pools aren't the same: Lashlee, who played at Arkansas, is near the top of the Razorbacks' list but would be farther down Florida's board, meaning a few more proven Power Four coaches would have to decline for him to become a more concrete option.
Urban Meyer
The Gators could always try to lure Meyer back onto the sidelines and ignore the scrutiny that would come with hiring a coach with some major baggage. His two national championships and sterling record on the field in Gainesville might mitigate some of the downside. It's not like this wouldn't work: Meyer has won everywhere and on every level he's been as a coach dating to Bowling Green, and would quickly clean up the sloppiness and self-inflicted errors that largely defined Napier's failed tenure.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida football replacements for Billy Napier: 8 likely candidates
