Sources: Florida could spend $10 million saved from Billy Napier buyout on NIL investments
Billy Napier will continue as Florida’s coach in 2025, according to athletic director Scott Stricklin, who put to rest 2 months of speculation about the embattled head coach’s future with the Gators.
A message from Scott Stricklin pic.twitter.com/NpLD6ktrHj
— Florida Gators (@FloridaGators) November 7, 2024
In a letter Thursday, Stricklin pointed to Florida’s recent improved play and competitiveness and emphasized the need for a “disciplined, stable approach” to rebuilding the Florida program as Napier approaches the end of Year 3. Napier’s record is just 15-18, but Stricklin asked Florida’s fans to “continue standing behind Billy and his dedicated team while we work together to build a championship program.”
Multiple sources close to the program told SDS that part of the logic in retaining Napier for 2025, as opposed to paying his $26.5-million buyout, half of which would have been due up front, was to use money raised for the buyout in the NIL space this offseason.
Those sources said Florida intends to spend between $10 million to $13 million this offseason on NIL investments in players.
“Florida is drastically improved on the line of scrimmage, which is eye-opening,” a source close to the program told SDS. “With one of the best young players in the country in DJ Lagway and a defense making strides, we feel more NIL investment in players, especially in the portal, could make the Gators a great team in 2025. If we can do that without a coaching change, it creates even more room for NIL investment.”
Another source agreed, telling SDS that “Florida’s commitment to excellence in football is unwavering, and a disciplined, long-term approach is critical to sustained success.”
Florida was late to the NIL investment game, in part due to the missteps taken by the program’s first NIL groups, the Gator Collective and Gator Guard. While the University of Florida, Gator Guard, and the Gator Collective are not named defendants, promises alleged to have been made within the Gator Collective and Gator Guard’s NIL umbrella to current Georgia quarterback and former Florida commit Jaden Rashada are the subject of ongoing litigation in federal court. The Gator Collective disbanded in 2023 and a new NIL collective, Florida Victorious, has taken its place.
Florida Victorious has been successful, inking more NIL deals for student-athletes than any collective in the country during the past 12 months.
Nonetheless, the Rashada litigation and Florida’s ongoing struggles on the field have created a perception — one rooted in some justice — that Florida is still playing catch-up on the NIL front in football.
Thursday’s decision to retain Napier was a major step in addressing that concern.
Let me be the first to say congrats CBN
No working remotely from home like Mullet gets to.
Great decision, Scott Stricklin!
Well I sure don’t agree with this man remaining the head coach of the gators ;However, the decision has been made . Time for all the gator fans to come together and support the man as like it or not he is not going anywhere. He has my full support and I hope and pray a year from now I can circle back and say how wrong I was wanting to get rid of him!
With that que Gaga fake life as he will deff have some great words of wisdom from his Tallahassee trailer park.
Here I am and this is my take.
Since nobody at the University has the cajones to fire him and he doesn’t have the dignity to resign and none of the boosters will take him to the woodshed and wear a baseball bat out on him then the very LEAST the University can do is cut his paycheck in half and use that money to acquire players from the portal.
I fully expect this depleted team to lose every one of the remaining games including YOUR semenholes 8115.
It won’t be the players fault because they are trying. This season has been like being in a boxing ring with one hand tied behind your back these guys haven’t stood a chance because they have to fight both their opponents and the head coach.
Billy just isn’t the guy and all we’re doing is killing time.
So then Gaga, sign you up for your annual allotment of season tickets again next year?
Humpy, GaGa is meaningless and is a imposter. If he truly thinks he’s a Gator he has some serious intellect issues.
I disagree respectfully marsh, Gaga sounds like I did when Goff was our coach and Bill Clinton was president…everything pretty much sukkd. I can appreciate where his passion comes from even if his words are quite misguided.
If gaga is an actual Gator fan, then he is delusional. Were you delusional those years as well Leghumper?
Don’t give fake life any credit in believing he is a true gator fan marsh. That guy is hunkered down in that Tallahassee tailer park now dealing with his true team’s decline . He is nothing but a fake tryout to get some clicks of his comments .
Gaga, not what most of us wanted, but it’s best to frame it as WHAT IT WAS at the end of the day: A business decision, one complicated by several difficult components we’re all aware of and some which we are not. WHAT IT IS NOT: The end of the world and nothing that will ruin our lives inasmuch as the sun will still rise and fall each day. WHAT WE WILL DO: Support the t-e-a-m, which includes the c-o-a-c-h.
Your Prozac lick, complete with instructions on how to install it, is on the way.
@#%& it, GO GATORS IN ANY TYPE OF WEATHER!
Doc, I replied but once again I’m in moderation. I agree with your sentiment entirely. BTW my replies to you seem to be more and more placed in moderation. Hmmm?
Marsh, that could be due to guilt-by-association given my own thin-ice status with the British designed algorithm at S-D-S, although benign in terms of what bypasses moderation submitted by others not Gators themselves. There is no rhyme or reason involved in this censorship other than pucker strength of certain rectums associated with bed teeth.
Guys don’t try to make sense of the moderation police, if it did make sense I wouldn’t be able to post at all, just ask JTF.
I think the fact that the team is still playing hard and has shown a remarkable improvement, even in the losses, was a good excuse to keep Napier one more year and wait for the Presidential selection committee to do its job and find us our next president. Then it will fall on him/her to replace the AD and coach
Doc you Hit the nail on the head. I don’t know a coach with the exception of maybe Bud Wilkinson or Bear Bryant, who didn’t make mistakes in the first few years as a head coach at a major university. In fact, I seem to remember Kirby Smart making a decision on a fake punt that cost them a national championship, see how it plays out go gators
The only possible silver lining to keeping Napier – who deserved to be fired after last season – is that next year it will likely be easier to get Curt Cignetti. It seems easier to get coaches to move after a couple of years, so they don’t come across as one-year mercenaries. Assuming, that is, Indiana is not a one-year wonder.
Big assumption, but need to look at Cignetti anyway and evaluate in depth. May or may not be the answer but the jury is still out.
Indiana may be a one-year wonder, Cignetti is not. He’s been successful at every level he’s coached since he left Saban’s staff in 2010.
The only thing that concerns me about Cignetti is he’s 63 years old. But hey, who am I to talk about old age. Besides, Urban Meyer did OK at UF in just five years.
Partial Translation: You and I still got hemorrhoids older than that guy. Full Translation: Cignetti could be an overlooked sleeper of a gem regardless of his own advanced age.
NIL funds cannot be paid by the school but rather from boosters in the form of donations to collectives who in turn offer endorsements and payments to the players. How exactly do these so-called sources close to the program exactly think UF will use the $10 million saved from not payingNapier’s buyout to pay players NIL money. I get they could use $10 of money from revenue sharing that would have gone to napiers buyout as part of revenue sharing in the 2025 season but that’s not NIL.
*$10 million
Exactly. The money used for paying Napier is from an entirely different source than NIL funds.
I would assume like most schools. Especially public universities. Only a very small piece is the coaches salary is paid by the state. The great majority is paid by boosters.(I know LSU does).
Also any large buyout has to be raised from boosters so if they aren’t ponying up a large buyout, they can put more in the NIL money pool
If all the stories are correct, the original buyout was raised by boosters to begin with. If that’s the case, then there’s no issue.
The boosters had pledged to pay the full $26 million buyout, not UF. It’d be a simple matter to divert the first $10 million of it to the Gator Victorious Collective.
It’s like people don’t understand the fungible property of money.
In specific matters of funding, the source of the money is the key variable not economic concepts such as fungibility
Les, I have came to expect that the administration has been trying hard to stabilize the situation. When Sasse left it created a vacuum. I understand Sasse leaving due to his wife’s health. Here are some of the issues that have to be addressed before moving forward.
1). Interim president
2). Boosters are not satisfied with Stricklin and Napier
3). As Drumlin pointed out below, Mark Robison left and there is no GM in place.
4). RECRUITING has to be stabilized and DJ has to be retained.
IMHO, we are finally making a correct decision in the UAA. Stricklin’s letter quietly addresses several issues I mentioned and gives them time to put together the pieces needed to solidify the situation mentioned in the key points above.
We need time to get a quality head coach. Ryan Day is who we need and our second choice should be Lane Kiffen. Both of these coaches can recruit and win. Most importantly, they both can recruit S Florida. I hate to admit this but Miami is a problem now. Cristobal has momentum and that’s bad for the SEC and everyone else especially our Gators. The boosters have the money to pull this off but there’s a very strong need to have time to organize the decisions needed for this to take place correctly.
Ryan Day? A coach who was gifted a Top3 blue chip roster since day 1 with great results? Surely UF isn’t that stupid…of course, he has another opportunity to choke against Michigan and perhaps you can get him for a bargain price…but talk about doing less with more. I’m glad Beamer is still not on that short list…
“When Sasse left it created a vacuum. I understand Sasse leaving due to his wife’s health.”
Wife’s health? I’m sorry, i can’t let that go. he’s a total d-bag and never once had the univ’s interests at heart. look no further than the school’s newspaper.
any ire at napier or stricklin is misplaced….as the whole current influx situation at uf is derived by the fact that you have a temp administration running the school…of which is the result of a crooked, former school pres
Use some of that money to hire a top OC
Some of what money, they still have to Billy his annual salary yes? Something very goofy about this story…
pay Billy
Chump change for the guys we’re talking about.
Humpy, as StL stated, we have the money to do what is needed. The boosters focus is well beyond Napier.
I don’t see the term “through 2025” anywhere in the letter. Couldn’t it only mean he won’t be fired during this season?
I don’t know, and don’t really care…I kinda’ hope they’re committing to him long-term. I just don’t see it in the letter.
I do give credit that the team seems to be playing hard for him and working to get better.
They could spend $100 million on NIL. Won’t matter. They will still have Napier as HC.
All this is well and good, but there is something even more important than Napier being retained and this reported buyout money being re-allocated for NIL purposes. Unless I missed something, Florida has yet to hire a GM to replace Mark Robinson who left a few months ago. It’s becoming more and more apparent that a position similar to the GM role in the NFL will be needed at top programs and Florida is yet to hire someone. It’s nice to have all this NIL money to spend, but who will come up with a strategy on who to spend it on and how much to spend?
Drumlin, you are correct. I have been thinking the same thing. Please note that the AD’s letter does not specifically address the 2025 season. The administration has to appoint several people into positions that are currently open and are also of great importance. Who would take these roles knowing that the coach of the football program is a lame duck?
There was a nice proposal I heard for a board of directors made up of past coaches (SOS), players to hire a new coach instead of Stricklin. With the House settlement, NIL, and the transfer portal, I think that football should become it’s own entity nominally outside the athletic department. I like the BOD idea, and have them hire the GM to manage budget/personnel, including hiring/firing the head coach. There is too much money involved now to have the head coach manage all of this. College football has changed so much in the past few years that the old college football model does not work anymore, and something like the NFL model needs to be used.
CBN is breathing easier now that Todd Golden has stolen the spotlight. Can’t believe that perv is still employed.
Honestly, this feels the best long term move.
1. No one has confidence in Stricklin choosing a third HC
2. No HC is going to take a job without knowing who his AD is, so firing Stricklin this late in a season doesn’t help
3. NIL funds can boost recruiting and transfer vs gutting the team a month before ESD
4. You want to keep Lagway, and he’s a CBN fan. At least for now.
5. UF is already in search of a university president (and probably a shadow campaign for an AD), now add to that…
6. Probably gonna be in search of a new men’s BB coach here very shortly (Google Todd Golden if you don’t know already)
Basically, UF has a lot of problems right now, and no quick, ideal solutions, so better to do it piece by piece and let your most stable (though not “good”) person stay
Another source agreed, telling SDS that “Florida’s commitment to excellence in football is unwavering, and a disciplined, long-term approach is critical to sustained success.”
Sounds like this source was Stricklin. Gimme a break.