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Chris Lower
ShutESPN Senior Author
- Faculty football reporter
- Joined ESPN.com in 2007
- Graduate of the University of Tennessee
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Mark Schlabach
Close
ESPN Senior Writer- Senior faculty soccer writer
- Author of 7 books on college football
- Graduate of the College of Ga
Florida officials are in deal negotiations to retain the services of Louisiana’s Billy Napier as the Gators’ up coming soccer mentor, and, barring a collapse in the talks, a deal could be announced as early as Sunday, sources verified to ESPN.
ESPN documented previous 7 days that Napier was the Gators’ best goal to switch Dan Mullen following he was fired on Nov. 21.
Napier options to mentor the Ragin’ Cajuns in Saturday’s sport (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN App) versus Appalachian State in the Solar Belt Meeting championship activity.
Napier, 42, has been at Louisiana the previous four seasons and led the Ragin’ Cajuns to 10 or extra wins in each of the earlier a few seasons. Before his arrival, Louisiana had hardly ever gained 10 online games in a season in system heritage. Napier turned down a number of SEC head coaching chances in recent a long time, and all over again emerged as a target for quite a few higher-profile positions this time.
Florida wasn’t the only university fascinated in Napier during this using the services of cycle. LSU and Virginia Tech also experienced curiosity.
Napier, a former Furman quarterback, coached beneath both of those Dabo Swinney at Clemson and Nick Saban at Alabama. He was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Arizona State for a person time in advance of landing the Louisiana head coaching task in 2018. A tenacious recruiter, Napier’s offenses at Louisiana have averaged 31.9 details or a lot more per video game all 4 of his seasons in Lafayette.
If a offer is reached, he would replace Mullen, who was 34-15 in four seasons at Florida and took the Gators to the SEC championship game a 12 months in the past. But Mullen lost 4 straight game titles to Energy 5 teams this time and was just 2-9 against Energy 5 foes dating again to the final a few game titles of the 2020 season.
Florida defeated rival Florida State 24-21 in Saturday’s typical-season finale to complete 6-6 and qualify for the postseason. The Gators’ 2-6 document in SEC game titles was its worst in the league because 1986.
Napier would be the fourth various Florida head coach to start off a time going back again to 2014, Will Muschamp’s ultimate time in Gainesville. The Gators past won an SEC championship in 2008. Amongst the several years of 1991 and 2008, they received 8 SEC titles, 6 of those by Steve Spurrier.
