When Florida Gators’ (4-5) athletic director Scott Stricklin announced last week that the program was keeping HC Billy Napier in the role, it caught CFB fans and stakeholders all around the country by surprise. The timing as well as outcome of the statement were quite startling. As Napier looks ahead to a sustained tenure down in the swamp, he just took a subtle dig at the naysayers.

The Gators season from hell continued trudging along this weekend. They went to Austin and got mauled in a convincing 49-17 win for the Texas Longhorns (8-1). The 2nd half was a cursory affair after the Longhorns went up 35-0 before the break. In the backwash of this embarrassment, Gators fans were voicing their disdain over the decision to stay put with Napier at the helm. The apprehension echoed louder since fans were already running out of excuses for why Napier is the right man even before the vote of confidence from Stricklin and the powers that be.

Amidst the backlash, Napier posted a “😎” from his X handle. The ambiguity could be positively construed as a sign of calmness under duress. Or, negatively as if throwing shade onto skeptics and signaling he doesn’t care about their opinions. Safe to say this did not go down well within the fanbase.

There are a couple of tangible reasons why Napier has bought himself more time. One, the players have not downed tools and continue to honor their head coach on the gridiron every Saturday. Two, the Gators program does not have a permanent president in place. This means the decision to part with Napier’s $51.8 million contract cannot be rushed into. The program has got to pay heed to the revenue-sharing era they find themselves in. Flushing that amount of money out will be detrimental to NIL and roster building.

Billy Napier came into the season already off a losing record in his first two years. Then, began year 3 with a lamentable 17-41 loss to arch-rivals Miami. The Gators have failed to garner any momentum and string together a run of results throughout the season. Despite all 5 losses coming to ranked opposition, that has not absolved Napier of intense scrutiny. Here is some of it, in the form of reactions to his X post- 

Gators fans’ reactions to Billy Napier’s X post

One fan said, “Not much to smile about after that Texas game, coach!”. Another voiced concern along the same lines, saying “Billy, you are in the verge of missing another bowl game, get off twitter and get to coaching”. “Dude you just lost!” said another, shocked at the poor timing.

Not everyone was quite so rational. Amidst the genuine concern and respectful disagreement was a lot of trolling and cursing too. “You truly have no f—-g shame”, or “The f—-g audacity of this guy lolol I almost admire it” would stand as a testament to the overall feeling the fanbase currently seems to have towards Napier. “Win some f—-g games [and] stop with the god damn emojis”, said another, baffled about the post.

Whatever Billy Napier meant to achieve with the post, it did not quite work out. Worse, he’ll likely have to continue bearing the brunt of the Gators’ misadventures with no let-up. They next face a wounded LSU Tigers team also in a somewhat similar predicament. Napier and Co. will have their work cut out to get back in the winning column.