The second week of the college football season is mostly about misery avoidance. After the rush of blockbuster Labor Day matchups, this is traditionally a spot in the calendar where things settle down a little bit and coaches mostly want to play games that won’t get them fired before conference play.
Ah well, that’s too bad for you, Florida head coach Billy Napier.
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Because when most of your fan base thinks you should have been relieved of your duties last year, and then you come out nine months later and lose to an in-state school with a fraction of your resources, there is nobody coming to save you.
Ironically, it was former Florida athletics director Jeremy Foley who once explained his philosophy on coaching changes with the following bit of wisdom: “What should be done eventually, must be done immediately.”
Scott Stricklin, who now occupies the AD chair, did not heed that advice last year when he decided beating LSU, Ole Miss and Florida State to end last season was enough to give Napier a fourth year.
Whoops.
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After Florida’s ghastly 18-16 loss at home to South Florida, it’s clear everyone involved in this charade of a football program is just wasting time and, more importantly, wasting money.
It’s over. Over, over, over.
There’s plenty to nitpick from Napier’s coaching disasterclass Saturday. We can start with the Gators’ three-play, 2-yard drive that took just 27 seconds off the clock after South Florida missed a go-ahead field goal with 2:52 to go. Why was Florida, leading 16-15 at the time, throwing on first down in that situation? Don’t even try to explain it because you can’t. Or why did Napier wait until there were just 22 seconds left to start using his timeouts after USF got in position to kick the winning field goal with a minute to go?
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This is remedial-level coaching stuff that Napier completely botched.
But that’s almost beside the point.
When you’re Napier and you lose at home to South Florida in Year 4, you can’t blame it on NIL. You can’t blame it on resources. You can’t blame it on the previous coach.
It’s all on you and the administration that kept you even though there was plenty of evidence in Years 1-3 that this coaching staff wasn’t up to competing in the SEC.
The last time Florida fans were happy with their program was 2019, which feels like an eternity. The next time they’ll be happy with it is the day they give Napier his buyout. But since it’s only September, that may be awhile. With the next couple months poised to feel like dog years, Florida reigns as America’s most miserable fan base in Week 2.
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Conference Champions of Misery
ACC: Though a large number of SMU undergrads may have been born on third base, its football program was not. And sometimes they need to be reminded of that. You know who loves doing the reminding? Other private schools in Texas. Baylor’s 48-45 win in double overtime after trailing by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter was the kind of big brother smackdown that will make for some awkward coffee breaks at the tony law firms in Dallas and Houston this week. SMU may have danced between the raindrops last year in its ACC debut, making the conference championship game and College Football Playoff, but the target on their back will be considerable this season. And Baylor, of all schools, being the first to draw blood will sting.
Big Ten: At this point, Iowa football feels like such an ossified brand that even if you gave Patrick Mahomes one more year of college eligibility and put him in black and gold, there’s no guarantee you would juice up that offense. Hawkeye fans must be tired of this. The latest 16-13 loss to Iowa State was a Kirk Ferentz greatest hits album, with 214 yards of offense and no passing game to speak of even though Iowa reportedly spent big money to bring in fifth-year senior quarterback Mark Gronowski from South Dakota State after two FCS championships. But the even deeper cut for Iowa fans is that Iowa State is now just a better, more dynamic, more fun program to be a part of.
Iowa lost to in-state rival Iowa State on Saturday with a similar script: the Hawkeyes couldn’t get much of anything going on offense. Fans must be tired of this. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
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Big 12: If fraudulence had a name, it would be Kansas State. Last year, these guys were picked second in the Big 12 and finished 5-4 in the league with a horrible loss to Houston. This year, the Big 12 didn’t do a media poll, but the Wildcats were ranked 17th in the AP preseason poll, effectively making them the second-favorite again in the conference behind Arizona State. But through three weeks, the Wildcats once again look like they’re going to badly disappoint their fans. Maybe you could excuse a close loss to Iowa State in Ireland. But since coming back stateside, Kansas State was lucky last week to escape with a 38-35 win against FCS-level North Dakota and backed that up this week with a loss at home to Army — the same Army that lost to Tarleton State just a week ago. That’s not a coincidence, Kansas State. You just stink, and it’s our fault if you fool us again.
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Group of Five/Six: If you’re looking for a program that might be so bad its entire fan base quits before the end of September, keep an eye out for Middle Tennessee. On paper, the Blue Raiders’ 42-10 loss to Wisconsin was pretty standard stuff. They even kept it close for a half before giving up four straight touchdown drives to start the third quarter. But last weekend, Middle Tennessee lost 34-14 at home to Austin Peay, and next week they travel to Nevada where they’ll be underdogs again. Middle Tennessee gave Derek Mason, the former Vanderbilt coach, nearly $1 million per year, which is at the top end of the pay scale for Conference USA. But for that investment, he’s gone 3-11 with wins over Tennessee Tech, Kennesaw State and UTEP.
Headset Misery
Rich Rodriguez: There are many reasons why West Virginia brought him back, but if we’re being honest, not all of them had to do with football. As with most things in college sports, politics matter. And Rodriguez was the right political answer to a tough predicament in the wake of basketball coach Bob Huggins crashing out a couple years ago and six seasons of Neal Brown mediocrity. Hiring Rodriguez made a lot of people feel good. But West Virginia is a much different job than it was when Rodriguez left in 2007, and despite all the big talk now about how much he regrets that decision, more losses like 17-10 to Ohio might make everyone regret this one, too.
Mike Gundy: This week, Consumer Cellular released a somewhat funny but mostly cringey commercial for a cell phone company where Gundy reenacts his infamous “I’m a man, I’m 40!” rant. It brought to mind the sad ending of “Raging Bull” where Jake LaMotta is looking in the mirror doing an impersonation of Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” signaling how washed up he knows he is. When Gundy has spoken publicly the last couple years, you sense for that lack of fire and verve he had when he was 40. It’s just not there anymore. Gundy is 58, really rich, comfortable in his cocoon at Oklahoma State and not the same football coach he used to be. When a program that has been as consistently good as Oklahoma State slips to the point where it loses 69-3 to Oregon, all options need to be on the table.
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James Franklin: Any Penn State fan who watched their 34-0 win over Florida International had to come away with one question. Is this team as good as everyone seems to think it is? Sure, the scoreboard looked the way it should look at the end. But this was a 10-0 game at half, and the Nittany Lions never really broke free until they cashed in some garbage time points. With that defense, you’ll take quarterback Drew Allar going 19-for-33 for 200 yards and two touchdowns most of the time in a CFP game. But at home against FIU?
Brent Pry: When you schedule a home-and-home nonconference series with Vanderbilt, that’s supposed to be a gift for your head coach. At Virginia Tech, however, it has become the manifestation of a hot seat raging at 100,000 BTUs. Brent Pry or Brent Fried? Either way, he lost to Vandy in back-to-back years. And after overhauling his coaching staff in an attempt to course correct this season, that 44-20 score in Blacksburg on Saturday isn’t much of an endorsement for the new approach.
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Sherrone Moore: The Michigan coach was desperate last year to land a stud quarterback recruit. Thanks in part to Barstool Sports founder and Michigan mega-donor Dave Portnoy, he got that quarterback in Bryce Underwood. But during Michigan’s 24-13 loss to Oklahoma, Portnoy posted on X/Twitter: “I’m about 2 seconds away from texting Jolin and telling her to call Sherrone right now and tell him he’s gone if we don’t let the kid throw the football.” The Jolin he’s referring to is Keren Zhu, the wife of billionaire Larry Ellison who was also part of the Underwood recruitment. It’s Week 2. Good luck, Sherrone.
Moments of Misery
Arizona State didn’t finish: Mississippi State’s 24-20 upset win over the No. 12 Sun Devils happened for two reasons. With 1:52 remaining and the game tied at 17, Arizona State had a first-and-goal from the 3-yard line but couldn’t punch it in and settled for three points. Then, needing a stop, receiver Bulldogs receiver Brenen Thompson completely worked over his defender in 1-on-1 coverage and scored an easy 58-yard touchdown. That one is going to hurt big-time if the Sun Devils are on the CFP bubble.
An Alabama fan had plans: We all dream from time to time about what we might do if we had the winning Powerball numbers. The CBS affiliate in Huntsville did a segment where they asked people buying tickets how they’d spend the $1.8 billion jackpot. Susie Conerly of Guntersville didn’t hesitate with her plans for the first $70 million. “I’d pay off Kalen DeBoer and get him the heck out of the University of Alabama, and then I’d take whatever else it took to get rid of (athletic director Greg Byrne),” she said. She didn’t mention a yacht. She didn’t mention an estate in the French countryside. She wanted a new football coach. Roll Tide, baby.
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Virginia completely blew it: The Cavaliers’ last two drives in their 35-31 loss to NC State illustrate why Tony Elliott is 12-24 as a head coach. With 6:37 remaining, Virginia went for it on fourth-and-1 from the NC State 8-yard line and was stuffed. Then, after their defense forced a punt, Virginia got the ball back needing to go 81 yards in 2:06 to win the game. Quarterback Chandler Morris drove Virginia all the way to the 12-yard line with four downs and 62 seconds to work with. On the next play, Morris rolled right and saw 1-on-1 coverage for his receiver against a linebacker in the corner of the end zone. Morris just didn’t throw a very good ball, it never had a chance of being completed and NC State’s Cian Slone picked it off to effectively end the game. That’s 109 yards of offense for Virginia on its last two drives with no points to show for it.
Fran Brown made his team run sprints: Syracuse won 27-20, but the head coach was so upset by the way his team played against UConn that he kept them on the field for postgame running. Was the punishment warranted? Well, Syracuse looked dead in the water with 7 minutes left, trailing 17-6. Two quick scores flipped the game and put the Orange on top 20-17 with 48 seconds left, but they couldn’t stop UConn from driving 52 yards in 47 seconds to send the game to overtime. Brown was not a happy camper in his postgame interview, and you can understand the frustration. But the wind sprints felt a like a Pop Warner gimmick that makes Brown look like a performative disciplinarian without addressing the underlying issues.
Nico made a bad decision: Quarterback Nico Iamaleava leaving Tennessee over a money dispute and ending up with less at UCLA was rough enough. But playing for a team this bad is only going to make matters worse. UCLA’s 30-23 loss to UNLV is one of those moments where you realize that Iamaleava ended up with a team that might win just two or three games while his former program competes at the top of the SEC. Whatever spin anyone from the Iamaleava camp wants to put on it, it’s clear he got bad advice.
