Napier, fired from Florida, lands James Madison job. He returns to the Sun Belt aiming for a triumphant comeback after SEC struggles.
Things move fast in college football. As first reported by On3 Sports and confirmed by Yahoo! Sports, former Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier is finalizing a deal to be the next coach of the James Madison Dukes. Napier was reported in the mix for both the Dukes role and also a top candidate for the Tulane Green Wave opening as one of five candidates who interviewed.
Napier was fired by the Gators this season after going 22-23 in his three-plus years in Gainesville, and this would be a return to the Sun Belt conference he once rose out of. Napier went 40-12 as head coach of the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, and 20-5 in conference play. They won two conference championships and appeared in the title game every year Napier coached from 2018 to 2021. He is set to replace Bob Chesney, who is taking the job with the UCLA Bruins after his team’s run this season.
The Dukes were ranked No. 25 in the penultimate CFP rankings and could find a way into the 12-team College Football Playoff should some ACC chaos transpire with the Duke Blue Devils. But they are poised to hire their next leader before their title game.
Napier started as a graduate assistant with the Clemson Tigers before becoming the quarterbacks coach at SC State. He returned to Clemson to coach tight ends, and later was promoted to offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2009. He then went to Alabama to join Nick Saban’s staff as an analyst, and went to Colorado State after to be assistant head coach. He then returned to the Crimson Tide as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, which is when he was poached by the Ragin’ Cajuns.
Then Napier rose in the rankings to be hired by an SEC school to coach himself. However, things weren’t rosy in Gainesville, as he only won six games his first year, and then the team went 5-7 in 2023. They finished 8-4 in 2024, but Napier’s seat had begun to feel warm. The program gave him another year and presumably more resources – it didn’t pan out.
But he was more than successful at the Group of Five level, and knows the Sun Belt conference from his time at Louisiana. JMU is betting on that return to form. They’ve had a strong track record in hiring coaches recently. They replaced Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti with Chesney, who is 20-5 as the Dukes’ head coach and is now also off to the Big Ten.