How should Florida handle the Billy Napier situation? Insider has a solution to Gators' issue

Billy Napier remains on the hot seat at Florida following his poor start to the 2024 college football season. There's a growing call among fans to get him fired immediately.

However, considering the many changes that have occurred in the college football landscape over the past few years, firing Napier now could be costly for the Gators. The move could see them lose a core of the program’s 2025 recruiting class due to the further uncertainty it would cause.

In a recent installment of “Josh Pate’s College Football Show,” Josh Pate noted that the Gators have to come up with something extraordinary to handle their current situation well.

“The answer here is you have to get as aggressive and creative as anyone has ever gotten with building a bridge,” Pate said. “And I'm not talking about your traditional ‘Let's name an interim head coach and just hope he holds the ship steady until the new guy gets here.’”

“Being aggressive would be like going and saying to Urban Meyer, ‘You said the ship has sailed. Of course, we're not going to try and hire you to be the new head coach. What we do need is a guy to lead this thing for about 60 days, that can restore the virtues of Florida, hold the recruiting class together and get us to January.’”

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The calendar does not favor Florida in the Billy Napier situation

Josh Pate believes Florida will eventually get rid of Billy Napier but will face an uphill task replacing him.

“It makes no sense to get rid of him now because you've got a recruiting class that you've got to hold together,” Pate said regarding the noise to fire Napier immediately.

"But the thing about it is it doesn't matter when you do it, it's going to be ugly because you're probably targeting a guy whose team is going to be the playoff caliber … the calendar screws you. It really screws you."

With the introduction of a 12-team College Football Playoff, there's a deeper postseason schedule for top teams. It becomes extremely difficult for Florida to hire Billy Napier's replacement from a team in the playoffs until its postseason schedule is completed. By then, the early signing days would have passed, and the transfer portal would be closed.