Paul Finebaum explains how attractive Florida job really is ahead of potential coaching search

Florida‘s football program hasn’t won either a SEC or national title since 2008. That means no Gators fan under the age of 18 has experienced winning a championship in football.

Meanwhile, the Florida men’s basketball team is coming off a sensational NCAA national championship-winning season in 2024-25, while men’s and women’s track and field, men’s and women’s tennis, gymnastics, men’s golf, softball and baseball have all won at least one national title since 2008.

Now, as fourth-year Gators coach Billy Napier faces a second-consecutive year of turmoil amid a 1-2 start to the 2025 college football season, hot-seat talk about his future in Gainesville has picked up once again, leading some to speculate Florida could be in the market for a new football coach sooner than later.

With that in mind, ESPN firebrand Paul Finebaum weighed in on how “attractive” the Gators job is in 2025, especially as programs like Virginia Tech and UCLA have already opened up following Tuesday’s firings of Brent Pry and DeShaun Foster, respectively.

Paul Finebaum on Florida: ‘I think it’s an easier job than it’s been in a very long time’

“We used to have that conversation about Alabama and Auburn too, and it just takes somebody who really wants it. … It is a tough job,” Finebaum said Monday during his weekly appearance on the Birmingham-based McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning radio show on JOX 94.5 FM. “But it’s a better job than it has been at any point probably in the last 20 years, though, because facility-wise and infrastructure-wise, it’s at the top. And that has never been the case, even when they were winning national championships. I think that’s always important. You don’t want to go someplace and spend the first three years trying to get by dumpsters and construction zones when you bring recruits in. So that’s great.

“And quite frankly the expectations there have been dumbed down. Billy Napier was given cheers after last season when, what was their record, they lost four times (in SEC play),” Finebaum continued. “I mean, four losses would’ve gotten Ron Zook fired and did get Ron Zook fired, and (Jim) McElwain and (Dan) Mullen. So I think it’s an easier job than it’s been in a very long time.”

As Finebaum pointed out, Zook — whose Florida career (2002-04) was bookended by UF legend Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer — was fired after three straight five-loss seasons. Jim McElwain didn’t even make it three full years in Gainesville after being fired midway through the 2017 season, while Will Muschamp and Mullen were both relieved of their duties amid disappointing fourth seasons.

With a 1-2 start in 2025, Napier is 20-21 through his first 41 games as the Gators’ football coach, with last year’s 8-5 record representing his lone winning season during his time in Gainesville.