Media is ready to write Billy Napier’s epitaph, but are they justified?

Saturday’s rivalry matchup was a difficult one for the Gator Nation to stomach as the Florida football program suffered a rollercoaster of emotions en route to a 34-20 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs.

Much of the game was a drunken mess — as if EverBank Stadium partook in the libations of the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party ahead of the kickoff. Both starting quarterbacks suffered on the field in different ways, with Florida’s [autotag]DJ Lagway[/autotag] going down with a potentially devastating injury and Georgia’s Carson Beck tossing a trio of ducks into the Gators’ hands.

But what matters most are the results. [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag] fell to 4-4 in his third season in Gainesville with three top-25 matchups on deck and a real chance of missing out on a bowl berth for the second straight season. Not to mention the likely possibility of a fourth-straight campaign ending with a losing record.

Subsequently, many believe the defeat will ultimately be the final nail in the coffin for the Gators skipper. But how fair is that to him, especially given that he has lost not one but two starting quarterbacks to injury this fall?

Media reacts to Florida’s loss of Lagway

It took little time for the media to react to Week 10’s outcome, including Sports Illustrated’s Mike McDaniel who opined that this could be the “final nail in the coffin” for Napier if Lagway is out of action.

“If the Gators don’t have Lagway for games on the road at No. 6 Texas, home against No. 16 LSU or home against No. 19 Ole Miss, Florida’s offense could be in a world of trouble,” McDaniel notes.

USA TODAY Sports writer Matt Hayes was also ready to write Napier’s epitaph on Sunday morning, believing that the damage had been done and the writing was clearly on the wall.

“(I)t’s over now. There’s no coming back from this,” Hayes laments.

“Look, this thing isn’t easy,” he continues. “With a healthy Lagway, Florida may have gotten its biggest win under Napier and the momentum could’ve taken the Gators to a big second half of the season — and Napier to 2025 and another season to figure it out.

“But coaching college football is a brutal undertaking, one that ends in unemployment for nearly every coach. No matter how close you are to turning it around.”

Is Napier’s situation fair to him?

While his peers were penning Napier’s obituary, The Athletic’s Matt Baker took a look at how the injuries complicate the head coach’s hot seat. With incumbent starter [autotag]Graham Mertz[/autotag] sidelined for the rest of his collegiate career and true freshman Lagway’s injury questions still unanswered, the team is a shadow of what it was in August.

“It’s fair to consider the difficulty of possibly starting a third-string quarterback as we judge Napier’s make-or-break third season,” Baker points out. “But it’s also fair to ask why the Gators are left with a walk-on Ivy League transfer in the first place.”

Speaking of fairness, in my prediction ahead of the Florida-Georgia game, I suggested that Napier’s situation will be determined on a sliding scale based on Saturday’s outcome.

“The results… will be judged on a spectrum, and if Florida can at least make a game of it as they did at the Tennessee Volunteers, it could give the program enough of a boost to inspire an upset over one of the following three (ranked) opponents.”

Well, so much for the boost. At the very least, the Florida football program should be making its final decision on Napier with all the facts on hand and the program’s recent improved overall performance cannot be ignored.

But as we all know, life is not fair — and college sports certainly are not either.