Urban Meyer breaks down Florida struggles, Billy Napier era: ‘Momentum is gone’
Florida head coach Billy Napier finds himself in the hot seat following a 33-20 home loss to Texas A&M last weekend that drops the Gators to 1-2 to start the season. Also dropping Napier’s record to 12–16 overall and 6-11 in the SEC since taking over the program.
Urban Meyer previously helped lead the Florida program to national championship heights over a decade ago. Closely following in the footsteps of another Gators great Steve Spurrier. Who was at Saturday’s game and did not give Florida a glowing review when speaking to Meyer.
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“He’s a great friend and a guy I admire so much,” Meyer said of Spurrier on The Triple Option. “He’s been so good to me over the years, and Shelly and Jerri. So I talked to him and he’s there, and I said, ‘Were you in the game?’ And he said he left to beat the traffic, but he said was bad.”
The Gators scored two late, unanswered touchdowns on Saturday to close that gap in what was a dominant performance from the Aggies. A team that Meyer believes has struggled to generate and maintain momentum since Napier’s arrival in Gainesville.
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“Momentum is such a fragile thing and you got to really experience team momentum. Whether (it’s) in game decisions or program decisions, but momentum has never been more valuable because people want to win and want now and would do anything,” Meyer explained. “You see these buyouts, you’re going to talk about them here in a minute, where they just keep firing people because you start to lose momentum.”
“You lose momentum, you lose recruiting, you lose fans, and NIL and I mean I’m getting a little bit stressed out here even thinking about what’s happening there. Because the momentum is gone, it’s been gone for a while there, and that’s hard to imagine.”
Conversations swirling about Napier potentially getting fired have also come with chatter about potential candidates to become Florida’s next head coach. A notion that Meyer shut down when asked about a return to The Swamp.
But he did share what makes the head coaching job at Florida one of the best in the country with co-hosts Mark Ingram and Rob Stone.
“Mark you never went to the swamp, did you?” Meyer asked. “But you played the Gators and there’s no better place, there’s no better stadium. It’s like a frickin’ jet engine right behind you when you’re cooking. Jobs are based on recruiting and there’s within a 300-mile radius. You don’t have to go anywhere else. I was offered the Notre Dame job and the Florida job, and I’m Irish-Catholic and I love Notre Dame. I would go there in a minute.”
Meyer did not go to Notre Dame, instead choosing the Gators for a valid reason that still stands today and may be even more relevant in the modern, hyper-competitive recruiting space.
“But the reason I took Florida, not many people know this, is because I had young kids at the time. When you recruit for Notre Dame, Mark, you recruit Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, New Jersey, New York, Memphis, and Florida. You know where you recruit when you’re at Florida? Florida,” Meyer explained. “You got a King Air and you got a citation at your disposal. I was home almost every night because you recruit Tampa, you recruit Miami, you recruit the Polk County, you go up in Georgia, but you’re home and so Florida’s got it all.”
Napier’s future with Florida will be closely watched moving forward this college football season, with his potential firing opening up what could be one of the most monumental head coaching searches in recent history at one of college football’s most storied programs.