After just a week, Florida’s coaching search quickly came on Sunday when it was announced that Louisiana coach Billy Napier would leave the Sun Belt for the SEC after spending four years as the head coach of the Ragin’ Cajuns.
Prior to that, Napier spent one season as the offensive coordinator at Arizona State after a four-year stint as Nick Saban’s receivers coach at Alabama. This is Napier’s first head coaching job at the Power Five level, as has been the case for five of UF’s last six coaches.
Napier will coach Louisiana in the Sun Belt Championship game on Saturday against Appalachian State before officially taking over in Gainesville on Sunday. An introductory press conference is set for the same day.
While it isn’t necessarily a move that will send shockwaves through the college football world like Lincoln Riley’s decision to leave Oklahoma for USC, which leaked shortly after the announcement of Napier as the hire, there are many reasons to like this move for Florida.
Here are five of them.