It's been two weeks since Billy Napier was fired as head coach of the Florida Gators. He leaves Gainesville as the first coach since the 1940s to have a losing record at Florida, and it was clear during the Florida-Georgia game how much smoother the operation was with Napier gone.
But as more and more coaches around the country are getting fired, each with a farewell message from the coach, it's what Napier hasn't said since his departure that has fans taking notice.
Billy Napier has gone radio silent since firing
When James Franklin got fired from Penn State, he posted a quick goodbye message on X and was on College GameDay the next week.
When Brian Kelly got fired from LSU, he gave a brief message to the Tigers, and this past weekend, when Hugh Freeze got fired from Auburn, he penned what may or may not have been an AI-generated goodbye to his X profile.
But with Napier, we have heard no such things from him. No thanks for having me, thanks for the chance, thank you to all the fans who supported the program despite going 22-23.
Nothing.
In fact, if you go on X and look up Napier's bio, the last post is a retweet of Florida Soccer beating Mississippi State on October 10, and his bio on X still lists him as the head coach of the Florida Gators.
Silence speaks volumes
If we were Billy Napier, we wouldn't be spending our time online either. We would take our $21 million buyout and go chill on an island or a mountain cabin for a while. Combined with the annual salary he made while in Gainesville, Napier never has to work another day in his life if he doesn't want to.
And while we here at Hail Florida Hail were noted critics of Napier and acknowledge any goodbye message he would have sent would have fallen on deaf ears for those who wanted him gone, saying absolutely nothing publicly to those who stuck by him all the way until the end feels like a weird way to go out.