Once a gold standard for college athletics success, Florida’s front porch became an eyesore. The woes go beyond Billy Napier. Who’s going to fix this?
Florida’s retention of Billy Napier speaks more to the Gators’ lack of leadership than to any sign of football momentum.
Title IX complaint of basketball coach Todd Golden latest saga for Florida athletic department that’s in retreat.
College Sports Inc.’s muckety-mucks proclaim that athletics serve as a university’s front porch. Sports teams are the front-facing image of the school itself.
And although Gen Z probably can’t recall it, the rest of us remember the Florida Gators once boasted the spiffiest front porch of any of the fine houses on Main Street.
Urban Meyer and Billy Donovan sat on that proverbial front porch, gator-chomping with their national championship rings gleaming in the Florida sunshine. The Gators’ Olympic sports became a juggernaut.
Kids, you should have seen it.
Then Meyer left. Florida football has never been the same. Foley’s subsequent hires failed to live up to Urb.
Then Donovan left, and Florida basketball tapered off.
Foley retired in 2016, replaced by Scott Stricklin.
Florida gradually receded.
Gators Olympic sports still deliver successes, but the pillars of Florida’s porch buckled, and though the house might still possess good bones, the decaying porch makes the whole place look shabby.
Florida can’t hire a new university president quickly enough. Kent Fuchs has served as Florida’s interim president since the summer. He’s a seat-warmer. A new president is on tap for 2025.
Agenda Item A for Florida’s next president ought to be putting the whole of Florida athletics under the microscope and determining how to repair this front porch to a state of pride.
Next Florida president must chart new course for Gators
Florida opted last week to continue with doomed football coach Billy Napier. Days later, Napier’s Gators trailed Texas by 42 points in a blowout loss.
Florida football is, in a word, lost.
The decision to retain Napier reflected the university’s weak leadership rather than serving as a ringing endorsement for a third-year coach who is 15-19.
The Gators have never been so good as they were under Meyer and Steve Spurrier before him. They’ve also never been this bad for this long. If Florida loses two of its final three games, the Gators will notch four straight losing seasons for the first time since before World War II.
The Gators played Texas without their top two quarterbacks, but quarterbacks don’t play defense, and Florida’s defense looked infirm.
The program displays no momentum. Napier’s recruiting efforts languish. The Gators currently rank 43rd in 247Sports Composite team rankings for the 2025 class, immediately behind rival FSU. Among SEC peers, their class ranks ahead of only Vanderbilt.
Freshman quarterback DJ Lagway showed upside before an injury sidelined him. Surely, Napier isn’t the only coach for whom Lagway would play.
Imagine what Lagway could do playing for an offensive visionary who installed a better supporting cast.
I view Napier as an interim coach at this point. Like Fuchs, Napier keeps a seat warm until a new president determines what to do with Stricklin and then moves on to addressing Napier.
Foley used to say that what must be done eventually should be done immediately. That frequently recited quote sounds pithy, but situations differ.
Anyone believing Napier will turn the Gators around during the next 12 months should be inducted into the Sycophant Hall of Fame, but that doesn’t make this the optimal moment to replace Napier.
Whom could Florida trust right now to hire Napier’s replacement? Stricklin is 0-for-2 on football hires. He hasn’t earned a third swing.
Anyway, what successful coach would jump at the Florida job without knowing who his bosses will be?
Specifically, why would Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin or Indiana’s Curt Cignetti – two hot coaches Florida fans pine for – want anything to do with Florida right now?
A new president cometh, and Stricklin quacks like a lame duck.
Re-evaluate this from a place of stronger leadership.
Oh, but Florida’s mess doesn’t end with football.
Todd Golden saga hits Florida with another black eye
A day after Florida announced its decision to keep Napier, another shoe dropped.
The Gainesville Sun, part of the USA TODAY Network, and other media outlets reported last week that basketball coach Todd Golden is the subject of a Title IX investigation.
The Title IX complaint includes allegations of sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, stalking and cyberstalking of multiple Florida students. Amid the disturbing allegations, Golden is accused of requesting sexual favors and sending photos of his genitalia while traveling for his duties as Florida’s coach.
Florida’s student newspaper, The Alligator, broke the story and interviewed two women, former students, who provided details of harassment. The student newspaper did not identify the women and granted them anonymity.
Golden, who has not explicitly denied the allegations publicly, wrote in a statement that he retained a lawyer as he weighs a possible defamation lawsuit.
I’ll reiterate: What a mess.
Florida must take these allegations against Golden seriously and determine with a thorough review whether he did these things he’s accused of doing.
In the meantime, why is Golden still coaching?
Florida did not suspend Golden. He coached Florida’s game Monday against Grambling State.
Golden’s contract includes morals, ethics and integrity clauses, and it prohibits conduct that would adversely affect the university’s reputation. The university gave itself broad leeway within the contract to suspend Golden, even before an investigation concludes.
Suspending Golden wouldn’t acknowledge wrongdoing, but it would show Florida takes its reputation seriously enough that it doesn’t want a coach facing such significant allegations standing on the university’s porch until a thorough review determines what went down here.
Florida coaches keep finding themselves in ugly entanglements.
Stricklin admitted in 2021 to failing to swiftly fix a toxic environment of verbal abuse that occurred within the women’s basketball program under coach Cam Newbauer, who resigned. Less than a year later, Florida fired women’s soccer coach Tony Amato after concerns about his approach to fitness, eating, weight and issues of body image.
Now, another saga.
Oh, I almost forgot: Former Florida football recruit Jaden Rashada alleged Napier, a Gators booster and a former football staffer defrauded him with a bait-and-switch NIL offer. He’s suing them.
What. A. Mess.
A mess that demands fresh leadership and new direction.
Once the gold standard of college athletics, Florida’s front porch became an eyesore. The thing about your front porch is, everyone sees it.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.