Tag: Yahoo! Sports

Florida’s head coach on another sports media hot seat ahead of 2024

A majority of the sports media believes that Billy Napier is on the head coach hot seat. Let’s see if he can prove the haters wrong.

It is starting to sound like a broken record, but with the start of the 2024 college football campaign on the threshold, the sports media simply cannot stop talking about the Florida Gators’ upcoming schedule and Billy Napier‘s head coach hot seat.

Senior writer Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports was among the latest to opine on the third-year skipper’s job security, with Napier headlining his “hot” tier. With UF on the hook for $25-27 million of his salary, so tough decisions might be on the horizon for the once-storied program.

“Gone are the days where a coach automatically gets a fourth season. Napier, known as a patient program builder, feels like he’s got the Gators pointed in the right direction,” Dellenger begins. “But it might not matter. He’s entering the third season of a seven-year contract paying him about $7 million in salary.”

A major point is based on the cost-benefit analysis of whether to cut bait with the current HC and his staff or to ride out the storm. But what Florida is looking at is the collegiate gridiron equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane.

“While his buyout is high, Florida’s fan base is restless enough that Napier needs a strong showing to calm the natives (eight wins? Nine perhaps?). The schedule is a miserable slate of top-25 teams, with a final onslaught of Georgia in Jacksonville, at Texas, vs. LSU, vs. Ole Miss and at Florida State. Whew.”

Napier’s outlook in Gainesville

“Napier’s situation in Gainesville was made more interesting with the resignation last month of the school’s president, Ben Sasse,” Dellenger continues.

“How does that impact Napier’s future and that of athletic director Scott Stricklin, the man who hired Napier? Kent Fuchs returns to campus as the interim president. He originally hired Stricklin in 2016.”

Others who have Napier on hot seat

Dellenger is far from alone when it comes to the high-temperature prognostications for the Gators head coach. USA TODAY Sports writer Scooby Axson published his 10 college football coaches with the hottest hot seat entering this season and had Napier as his headliner.

The Athletic’s college football columnist Stewart Mandel recently published his predictions for the upcoming campaign, foreseeing a 6-6 finish during the regular season but a hot seat under Napier nonetheless.

Meanwhile, 247Sports also has him on their hot seat, but expect him to survive and coach for at least another season in Gainesville.

Florida’s season opener for 2024

The Florida Gators and Miami Hurricanes square off on Aug. 31 in Gainesville, Florida, to open their schedule for the 2024 season. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ABC Sports.

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SEC coaches express frustration over lack of transparency, per sources

The beef seemingly stems from the selection process for the 2 non-divisional teams assigned to each school to fill out the 10-game schedule.

All is not well in the land of the Southeastern Conference as the league continues to sort out how it will handle playing its football schedule amidst the novel coronavirus pandemic.

National college football reporter Pete Thamel for Yahoo! Sports tweeted the following on Friday afternoon.

“Sources: The SEC coaches call on Thursday became contentious. At least five SEC coaches expressed frustration over the lack of transparency regarding the inability to produce a “formula” for how the two additional league opponents were chosen.”

The beef, it seems, stems from the selection process for the two non-divisional teams assigned to each school to fill out the 10-game schedule. Apparently, based on what Thamel reported on Twitter, the protocol — or lack thereof — led to a situation where the picks were made arbitrarily, rather than using a “formula” that would evenly distribute the teams.

So far, it appears that the SEC is on track to conduct its conference-only season but nothing has been set in stone just yet. The news of in-fighting within the conference certainly puts an added wrinkle to the uncertainty surrounding Florida’s, the SEC’s and the nation’s college football season this fall.

Answering five major questions facing Florida Gators fans

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Mike Tyson: Deontay Wilder must put ego aside to succeed

Mike Tyson said that Deontay Wilder can beat Tyson Fury in a third fight only if he acknowledges his own culpability in their second fight.

Deontay Wilder will give himself a chance of beating Tyson Fury in a third fight only if he acknowledges his own culpability in their second fight and builds from there.

That’s the take of Mike Tyson, who acknowledged in an interview with Yahoo! Sports that he played the blame game after his own setbacks and didn’t take personal responsibility.

Wilder was criticized after he blamed his seventh-round knockout loss against Fury this past February at least in part of a heavy ring-walk costume, which the former heavyweight champ said weakened his legs.

“Wilder’s stuff’s a lot of [the same] energy that I once had,” Tyson said. “We have to be able to accept our mistakes, stand up and say, ‘Hey, I messed up, the best man won.’ We can’t be consumed with our egos. Nobody was more consumed with their ego than me.

“We always look for excuses when we lose and say, ‘Well I couldn’t lose, there must’ve been a mistake, somebody had to cheat me.’ So we have to look at the perspective that a loss is a form of education.”

Wilder has exercised a clause in his rematch contract with Fury that allows for a third fight, although it’s not clear when that fight might take place given the uncertainties of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yahoo! Sports asked Tyson whether Wilder can beat Fury.

“I don’t know anything about beating Fury in the third fight,” he said. “In order for him to do that, he’s gonna have to beat himself in life. He’s his biggest opponent at this moment in life. He is not gonna stand a chance with Fury if he doesn’t beat himself.”