For better or worse, Scott Stricklin’s fate rests in the hands of Billy Napier

Scott Stricklin has made his choice. The Florida athletic director will remain with embattled football coach Billy Napier for the 2025 season.

It’s a bold choice to stick with Napier, who will be 15-19 years old in just under three years in Florida. Many Florida fans have used other words to describe it. It’s the kind of decision for which men and women like Stricklin are well compensated.

It also could be the last consequential decision Stricklin has to make as Florida athletics director.

Short of asking the man himself, there’s no way to know if the 54-year-old Stricklin is so confident in Napier’s future success in Florida that he’s willing to risk his career at Florida by getting Napier to figure it out and become the coach Florida thought they would be. hired almost 3 years ago in December 2021.

But make no mistake: hinging his future at Florida on Napier’s success in 2025 and beyond is exactly what Stricklin appears to have done.

Whatever happens, Stricklin and Napier are married at the hip.

Will Stricklin be confirmed, or will his faith in the 45-year-old Napier, who was 40-12 and won two conference championships at Louisiana and turned down the jobs at Auburn and South Carolina before being hired by Florida, be rewarded?

There’s no doubt that retaining Napier required a leap of faith from Stricklin, who had little to hang his hat on from a results perspective.

Yes, until Saturday’s loss at Texas, the Gators seemed to be improving in every way, buoyed by the stellar play of freshman phenom quarterback DJ Lagway, who was injured early in the game against Georgia while the Gators had a lead and appeared firmly in control to have. .

But in giving Napier a fourth season, Stricklin is undoubtedly trusting and rewarding the eye test of an improving young team over wins and losses.

After all, Florida still lost rivalry games to Miami, Tennessee and Georgia.

There may be participation ribbons in some aspects of life, but not in the cutthroat world of SEC football. There are wins and losses, and Florida earns little prestige by losing close games to the Vols and Bulldogs.

Should a coach in Florida, a place with 11 SEC championships and three claimed national championships, get a fourth year based on atmosphere and moral victories?

Stricklin’s letter explaining the choice cited Florida’s effort and the need for “a disciplined, stable approach focused on long-term, sustainable success for Gator athletes, recruits and fans,” but what evidence of long-term sustainable success currently exists? on or off the field?

On the field, the Gators are 4-5 with two games against ranked opponents remaining.

If Florida fails to win at least one of those games, they will miss a bowl game for the second time under Napier and suffer a fourth straight losing season for the first time in the modern (post-integration) era of college football.

Off the court, recruiting is hit or miss, with the Gators on the cusp of their worst signing in decades, currently sitting at 45th in the 247 composite rankings. Bringing back Napier could provide a degree of stability, and certainly seems to secure the return of Lagway, which is objectively a huge deal.

But is Laway enough? The answer could depend on the talent Napier brings in as Florida makes good on promises, first reported here at SDS, to spend as much as $13 million in the transfer portal this season and NIL investments now that a decision has been made about the coach’s fate. . Furthermore, given that he has received financial and administrative support from the University of Florida, which has never been offered to a head coach before, will Napier be good enough to coach with even more investment and financial backing?

Stricklin appears willing to bet his future as Florida athletics director that the answer to these questions is “yes.”

A masterful fundraiser, Stricklin has improved Florida’s infrastructure for across-the-board success in sports, overseeing the financing and construction of numerous new facilities, including a beautiful baseball stadium and state-of-the-art football facility. He has also provided stability to the athletic department at a time of change for UF, which has an interim president after Ben Sasse resigned amid a scandal earlier this year. Florida also has no permanent deans at its law and medical schools, two of the school’s three largest alumni contributors from a financial perspective. The leadership vacuum has made Stricklin’s steady hand in fundraising particularly valuable.

But Stricklin has had little luck hiring coaches in a place where championships are an expectation.

Florida’s top head coaches, from iconic track and field coach Mouse Holloway to Jenny Rowland, the leader of the powerhouse gymnastics program, and Kevin O’Sullivan, arguably the nation’s best baseball coach, are all holdovers from the championship-filled Jeremy Foley era .

Stricklin inherited those coaches and has done well to retain them, but hasn’t hired a true championship-caliber coach himself.

The closest figure, men’s basketball coach Todd Golden, should bask in the fact that he already has an SEC title contender in his third year on campus. Instead, as a respondent in a Title IX investigation for sexual misconduct, Golden coaches through uncertainty.

The allegations are unproven and due process must be given, but it is not lost on many Gators fans that this is the third coach hired by Stricklin to face accusations or accusations of misconduct against women.

However, this is the SEC, and a great football coach can cure whatever ails an athletic program.

Stricklin, who defies adversity with the grin of an alligator, has staked his future on Napier.

History is filled with important men and women making huge decisions.

Washington and a tired, freezing army crossing the Delaware.

Rosa Parks refuses to get on a Montgomery bus.

Churchill refused to surrender during the London Blitz.

Okay, okay, okay.

This is “just SEC football.” But it just means more, right? And in our sport there are also consequences and turning points.

Whatever Mal Moore said to Nick Saban after Saban promised he wouldn’t be Alabama’s coach during that period sport-changing 38-day quest.

Urban Meyer’s decision to spend more time with his family in 2010 and Foley’s confidence and belief that Will Muschamp, then the coach-in-waiting at Texas, was ready to compete with the likes of Saban at Alabama.

Danny White trusted his gut and hired Josh Heupel in January 2021 after the Jeremy Pruitt fiasco ended in Tennessee.

Big decisions. Major consequences.

Add Scott Stricklin and keep Billy Napier on the list.

If Napier fails, add a new athletics director to the list of things Florida might need in 2025.