After stepping away from football for a short spell, Billy Napier sat down with Chris Hummer of CBS Sports to reflect on his four-year run at Florida. Even with a reported $21.7 million buyout and a new Group of Five head coaching job, Napier says his biggest regret was not losing his own post, but watching dozens of staff members lose theirs because of his firing.

“It’s your responsibility, and you failed. You came up short,” Napier told CBS Sports.

He said the hardest part was looking his assistants in the eye and knowing their families would feel the fallout. In college football, one head coach’s exit can wipe out more than a dozen jobs overnight. For Napier, that human cost is what still stings the most.

The assistant coaches were not fired immediately after Napier’s dismissal following a 3–4 start. When Jon Sumrall, the former Tulane head coach, took over in December 2025, he cleared out almost all of Napier’s staff. According to Hail Florida Hail, Sumrall let go of 9 of the 10 main on-field assistants. Even Billy Gonzales, who served as interim head coach right after Napier was fired, was told he would not be retained.

The only coach from Napier’s staff who was kept on was defensive line coach Gerald Chatman. Sumrall retained him, citing their prior work together, and later gave him an extension and the title of the assistant head coach.

Most of those nine assistants found new jobs in Power Five programs, but Napier still carries guilt over the cleanup. He believes Year 4 in Gainesville could have looked very different. Florida entered 2025 ranked 15th in the AP preseason poll, with many expecting the Gators to be their best team under Napier after DJ Lagway’s 2024 breakout.

Jacob LaFrance, Napier’s former general manager at Florida, still believes that roster was underrated.

“The roster we had in Year 4… I would have stacked it against anyone in the country,” LaFrance said.

Napier’s 22–23 record at Florida hides how well his staff evaluated and developed talent. The Gators had seven players selected in the 2026 NFL Draft, among the most of any program, and three more former signees were drafted after transferring elsewhere.

When Billy Napier thinks about what he could have done differently to save his job, he keeps returning to one particular issue, and that’s that he failed in delegation.

“Offensively is probably the biggest area, having a coordinator play caller,” Napier said. “I needed to delegate more and empower more, and then I think that that dilutes your strengths. You’re not able to bring the same level of detail to certain areas. And that catches up with you.”

Running a smaller Sun Belt program is one thing. At Florida, where he built one of the largest and most expensive staffs in college football, trying to oversee every detail became a liability. Most successful head coaches in the SEC and Big Ten hand play-calling to a coordinator so they can focus on the bigger-picture duties.

Napier called the plays during his final season in Gainesville, but the results just weren’t there. Against FBS competition, his struggling offense only managed to clear the 25-point barrier once in six games. Napier now believes that approach cost him his job. In hindsight, he says he should have handed over play-calling sooner.

Napier’s not done

Now, Napier is getting a fresh start as the new head coach of the James Madison Dukes, and he’s not done yet.

“I’m nowhere close to being done,” Napier told CBS Sports. “I love every single part of the job. I just love the leadership challenge. I love building a culture. I love impacting people. I love the strategy. I love to evaluate and build teams and rosters. I love to recruit. I love being part of a team. JMU, I can’t help but think that was a godsend to some degree.”

After reflecting for a while, he is determined to finally put his painful Florida lessons to good use. This offseason, Napier traveled to Georgia and North Texas to study how ultra-successful programs operate and to get back in touch with his “Sun Belt Billy” form.’

Unlike before, this time around, Napier has officially promised to hand over the playbook to a dedicated offensive coordinator at JMU so he can step back and finally act like a true program CEO.