Injuries for Florida can't be a get out of jail free card for Billy Napier

It feels like every week, the injury report for Florida Football grows. Sometimes, it's players we expect from the game before; sometimes, it's unexpected players popping up on the list. The Gators have been decimated by injuries at certain groups, including QB, leaving even the most hardcore of Gator fans scrambling to find out who the next man up is.

So, in one breath, it feels like Napier should get a bit of a pass for whatever happens the rest of the season. To do so would require ignoring his resume, even when he had a healthy roster.

Florida Football: Pat On The Back

Coming out of their close loss to Georgia, Billy Napier and crew drew praise for how hard the team played despite the circumstances. The Gators were relegated to their third-string QB after DJ Lagway left the game, and Florida simply couldn't move the ball enough in the second half to hold off the Bulldogs.

Now that Lagway is hurt, the easy reaction is to give Napier a pass on the rest of the season because it would be almost impossible for any team in the country to navigate the upcoming gauntlet with a third-string QB.

And by itself, it was an admirable effort.

Too often, though, it feels like we are supposed to give Napier a pat on the back while waiting around for tangible results to take hold.

For starters, let's not pretend that Aidan Warner is the last remaining quarterback on the Florida roster. Clay Millen does still exist.

Beyond that, Napier had a healthy roster and was still blown out at home to Miami and Texas A&M.

Backtrack further to all of Napier's greatest hits from the previous two seasons, and there is minimal reason to believe Florida would have saved their season with a healthy roster. Florida might have beaten Georgia had Lagway stayed healthy, but that also paints a picture that Napier relies on Lagway to be considered a good coach.

Lagway was Napier's Golden Goose to try and turn the narrative around, a narrative that exists because of Napier's failures over the past two and a half seasons.

The reality is that Lagway can win without Napier as his coach. Napier can't win without Lagway as his QB.

Keeping Napier because of injuries with the hope that he magically turns it around in 2025 is to go against the bulk of empirical data that would tell you that coaches who get "one more year" often fall flat on their faces.

And while it may seem that we here at Hail Florida Hail harp on this topic every week, it feels like the administration just wants to pacify everyone enough with whatever excuse they can find to justify "one more year."

That's never been the Gator way, and it shouldn't start in 2024.