JMU fans just got the Billy Napier experience Florida tried to warn them about

One may think why, ahead of Florida taking on Georgia, we here at Hail Florida Hail have The Man in the Black Polo on our minds. We promise that when we woke up today, it really wasn’t our plan. And because we went to bed early last night, we didn’t pay attention to JMU taking on Troy in a Thursday night game that Troy wound up winning in overtime.

But our social media algorithm being what it is, our feed was flooded with JMU fans who have finally had it click the very thing that Florida fans tried to warn them about for months.

JMU fans are finally ready to listen to Florida fans about Billy Napier

We have an entire symposium last week on the fact that The Man in the Black Polo tried to craft a narrative all offseason that his failures in Gainesville were due to Florida itself and not because of him. We are not going to rehash all of that here, but once again all his greatest hits were on display as JMU lost to Troy.

Among the things that JMU fans finally picked up on last night was his terrible clock management. Tied 21-21 with 3:15 left and two timeouts to work with, JMU took the ball on their own 30. They made it a grand total of 35 yards in that time before they were faced with 4th down on the Troy 37 yard line. Rather than attempt a 55-yard field goal, JMU went for a Hail Mary that was incomplete.

JMU fans picked up on his tendency last night to have random QB rotations that have no rhyme or reason. Even in OT, JMU was still switching QBs.

JMU fans picked up on the fact that his playcalling has no imagination to it. Facing 4th and 1 in OT, the Dukes opted to go for it. We actually don’t hate that decision in a vacuum, but The Man in the Black Polo opted for a basic halfback dive up the middle that was stopped and led to a Troy field goal that won the game for Troy.

Throw in half a dozen of his other well-known flaws, and JMU fans finally get it.

The podcast Pardon My Take summed it up best:

“I would like to apologize, hand up, to any Florida Gators out there, because I did not understand how bad you guys have had it the last four years. Because, the way that he coaches, he gaslights everybody. His coaching, and he's making us think that we're all insane because he's so confidently doing the wrong things. 

And it makes no sense. Any of it. It's an out-of-body experience. He should be arrested. I don't know. I've never seen a coach coach like that. And then I hit up Jacob, and I was like, hey, is this par for the course? And Jacob's like, yeah, that's pretty much it.”

The part of being gaslit is something we banged the drum on for years. This is the man who wanted praise the instant anything went right, but buried his head in the sand when nights like what JMU experienced on Thursday would happen weekly in Gainesville.

We promise we don’t intend to keep bringing up his ghost. We are just glad people are finally starting to understand what Florida fans went through during his reign of terror.

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