The Ron Zook Era in Gainesville is typically viewed as one of the "worst" hires the Florida Gators have made in the modern era. There was famously the site FireRonZook.com that popped up the day he was hired, and Zook didn't even make it past year three of his tenure before he was fired after losing to Mississippi State.
Zook also gets lumped in with the fact that Urban Meyer came in and immediately won two national titles.
But while the Zook Era wasn't great and shouldn't be remembered as such, it has turned out that the Billy Napier Era is actually what we claimed the Ron Zook Era was.
Billy Napier is 20-21 at Florida
Zook's downfall was an inability to win anything close, but of his 14 losses with the Gators, only five of them were by ten or more points.
For all the talk last week of how a play here and a play there could have changed Napier's fate against USF, his ten-point loss to LSU now gives him 13 double-digit losses as head coach of the Gators.
If you are doing quick math at home, 35% of Zook's losses were by double digits.
61% of Napier's losses have been by double digits.
Ron Zook was still 16-8 in SEC play.
Billy Napier is now 10-15.
Ron Zook had wins against then No. 4 Tennessee, No. 5 Georgia, No. 6 LSU, No. 11 Arkansas, No. 4 Georgia, and No. 10 FSU.
Billy Napier is 4-15 against ranked opponents.
Do you sense the problem here?
If Billy Napier had strung together the three-year span that Ron Zook did, he might have even gotten a contract extension, given how low the bar has become in Gainesville.
Beyond the four-game winning streak, what sets the Napier Era apart from all his predecessors is that at least everyone who came before him had at least one good season or two in them before things fell apart.
Dan Mullen was a shoe throw away from a national title shot in 2020. Jim McElwain made it to Atlanta twice. Will Muschamp went 11-2. Zook at least finished ranked all three years in the coaches' poll. Galen Hall should have won a national title in 1984. Charley Pell was ranked in his second season.
Really, not since Doug Dickey have the Gators gone through an opening spell like this with a new coach and had zero success out of the gate.
But hey, at least Florida almost beat Georgia last year.