{"id":6982,"date":"2025-12-05T00:11:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T00:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=6982"},"modified":"2025-12-07T07:44:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T07:44:06","slug":"reports-james-madison-to-hire-ex-florida-coach-billy-napier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=6982","title":{"rendered":"Reports: James Madison to hire ex-Florida coach Billy Napier"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<section id=\"0\" class=\" w-full\">\n<div class=\"xl:container mx-0 !px-4 py-0 pb-4 !mx-0 !px-0\"><span class=\"text-0.8 leading-tight\">Sep 20, 2025; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier call for a timeout against the Miami Hurricanes during the fourth quarter at Hard Rock Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images<!-- --> <!-- --> <\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"section-1\">\n<p>James Madison will hire former Florida coach Billy Napier, according to multiple reports on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"section-2\">\n<p>The job at JMU came open this week when Bob Chesney was hired to be the new head coach at UCLA. Chesney is staying on to coach the Dukes against Troy on Friday night in the Sun Belt Conference championship game, and UCLA has agreed to allow him to continue if No. 25 JMU makes the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"section-3\">\n<p>James Madison is not expected to comment on a new head coach until after Friday&#8217;s game, with ESPN reporting a formal announcement is expected on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p><\/p>\n<section id=\"section-4\">\n<p>Napier, 46, also was reported to be one of five candidates who interviewed to replace Jon Sumrall at Tulane. Sumrall took Napier&#8217;s former position at Florida.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"section-5\">\n<p>Florida fired Napier on Oct. 19 after a 3-4 start to his fourth season in Gainesville. He was 22-23 with the Gators, including 12-16 in the Southeastern Conference.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"section-6\">\n<p>Florida entered the season ranked No. 15 before losses to South Florida, LSU, Miami and Texas A&amp;M.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"section-7\">\n<p>Napier has a 62-35 overall coaching record. He posted a 40-12 mark with Louisiana (2018-21) and appeared in four Sun Belt title games, winning two.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p><\/p>\n<section id=\"section-8\">\n<p>&#8211;Field Level Media<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sep 20, 2025; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier call for a timeout against the Miami Hurricanes during the fourth quarter at Hard Rock Stadium. Mandatory&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":6983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1037,1830,8056,3434,2535,4113,8057,1658],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reports: James Madison to hire ex-Florida coach Billy Napier - Frisco Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Deadspin | Reports: James Madison to hire ex-Florida coach Billy Napier\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=6982\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reports: James Madison to hire ex-Florida coach Billy Napier - 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