Miraculously, Florida's Billy Napier wasn't the first football coach fired in 2024

Coming into the 2024 season, unofficial betting odds had Florida Football coach Billy Napier among the most likely coaches to be the first fired this year. Frankly, if we had our way at Hail Florida Hail, Napier would have gotten his pink slip long ago before heading into the second bye week of the season.

However, in a minor upset, Napier is not the first coach fired in 2024, as two other head coaches lost their jobs over the weekend.

Florida Football: Still Dancing

Two Group of Five programs moved on from their leaders on Sunday.

Mike Houston was let go from East Carolina after losing to Army 45-28 to drop to 3-4 on the season. Houston came to the Pirates in 2019 after a successful run at James Madison where he won the 2016 FCS National Title. Houston had some success in 2021 and 2022, going 7-5 and 8-5 respectively, but a 2-10 2023 campaign set the stage for his ousting after a slow start in 2024.

His contract ran through 2026, and he is owed $2.3 million per year.

Southern Mississippi has also moved on from their head coach. Will Hall was in his third year with the program, and the Golden Eagles started out 1-6 after losing to Arkansas State 44-28.

This was Hall's first D1 head coaching gig. He was previously the OC at Tulane and was also the OC at Louisiana in 2017, the season before Napier was brought on as head coach.

Hall went 7-6 in 2022 before going 3-9 last season.

For Napier, he is now 4-3 on the season and is on a bye week before he enters the ultimate gauntlet of four straight opponents ranked in the top 20 of the AP poll. Last year, the Gators were 5-2 heading into their bye week before losing five straight games, so Napier isn't out of the woods yet.