Florida's Billy Napier is nearing the end after losing to Georgia

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – You shouldn't put an injured quarterback through that. Don't give Billy Napier that excuse.

What happened here at the world's biggest cocktail party could have happened in any other week, in any of Napier's three dysfunctional and confused seasons.

That included only a possible season-ending injury to Florida freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, the last hope of turning the flawed train of misery around.

But it's over now. There is no turning back from this.

Not because of the 34:20 loss to Georgia, a game that the second-ranked team in the country – the king of college football since 2021 – wanted to give away. Not because of another loss full of coaching errors, including, yes, another special teams disaster.

Not because of a bizarre and incomprehensible play call with the game on the line, not because of a season now heading toward another ugly end.

Not because of Lagway's untimely injury, nor because backup Aidan Warner was put in an untenable situation against the boogeyman of college football.

“We had our team in position to win the game,” Napier said.

Until the Gators weren't. Until the same perplexing problems that had plagued Napier's teams resurfaced.

Look, this isn't easy. With a healthy Lagway, Florida may have pulled off its biggest win under Napier, and the momentum could have given the Gators a big second half of the season — and Napier until 2025 and another season to find out.

But coaching college football is a brutal undertaking that ends in unemployment for almost every coach. No matter how close you are to the turning point.

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At some point, a coach will be judged based on his entire tenure, not on what-ifs or what might have been if this or that player (or a handful of defenders) hadn't been injured . It's not fair to coach football if you make $8 million a year for it.

It's over for Napier at Florida because when this season ends later this month, Florida will have completed a brutal series of games against Texas, LSU and Ole Miss with a walk-on quarterback on the third line. Even if the Gators beat a miserable Florida State team, that would leave Napier 16-21 in three seasons in Gainesville.

Now it's over, because in big-time college football you either do everything you can to get better or you accept your fate as a loser.

The Gators have lost 18 of 33 games under Napier, and most of the previous 17 losses came to a quarterback who was selected top-five in the NFL Draft (Anthony Richardson) and a quarterback who had a career season (Graham Mertz) . ). Don't allow this Lagway excuse.

Florida is now 1-10 in rivalry games (Georgia, Florida State, Tennessee) and 2-13 against ranked teams under Napier. If this game wasn't already a big punch in the gut, consider the debacle in Tennessee last month.

At the end of the first half, a Florida field goal was nullified because there were too many players on the field. Those three points were the difference in a game the Gators ultimately lost in overtime.

Mike Leach used to have a sign hanging in his office wherever he coached, perfectly positioned so every assistant coach could see it every time they walked into the room.

Either you train it or you allow it.

Here we are with the Florida government. Either you expect excellence or you allow mediocrity.

Either demand more or accept a fourth straight losing season for the first time since the 1940s.

Either expect your head coach — whose offense had a clear advantage running the ball against Georgia and wore down the Bulldogs' defense — to run the ball, or you allow him to put the game in Warner's hands four minutes before the end of the game and seven minutes behind.

The play call on the first play of the drive: a naked bootleg.

The result: an interception.

This is much more than a bad play call. A coach in this situation, whose team has successfully played against eight- and nine-man boxes all game, simply cannot put the game in the hands of a walk-on quarterback. It's a coaching mistake.

It's not fair to Warner, who transferred from Yale and just started taking meaningful practice photos this week, staring at Georgia rush ends Jalon Walker and Mykel Williams — and being told to make a play at the game's most important point make .

It's not fair to a defense that got three interceptions from Georgia quarterback Carson Beck and always left the field on third down. It's not fair to an offense that is finally developing some consistency and dominating the line of scrimmage in the final month of the season to take the game out of their hands.

It's not fair to running backs Jacobi Jackson and Jaden Baugh, who combined to rush for 138 yards on 29 carries (4.8 yards per carry) while running hard against those eight- and nine-man boxes.

It's not fair to coach college football. You either win or you get fired at some point. No matter how you analyze it.

“For the first time since I’ve been head coach here, we showed up and believed we could beat this team,” Napier said.

Either you expect excellence or you accept mediocrity.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Network. Follow him to X @MattHayesCFB.

Florida's Billy Napier is nearing the end after losing to Georgia

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