Despite beating Mississippi State on Saturday, Florida football has gone ahead and fired Billy Napier as the head coach of the Gators’ program. To finish out the season, it’ll be wide receiver coach Billy Gonzales holding the interim tag.
Gonzales has served as Florida’s wide receivers coach from 2023-25. In 2022, Napier’s first season, he was the pass game coordinator and wide receiver coach at FAU.
However, Gonzales has a long history with the Gators. He was first the receivers coach at Florida from 2005-07. From 2008-09, he remained the receivers coach, but also took on the duties of recruiting coordinator. After an extended time away from the program, he returned in 2018 as the co-offensive coordinator and receivers coach. He followed Dan Mullen from Mississippi State, where he coached from 2013-17. He coached alongside Mullen for the entire tenure in Gainesville.
Other stops along the way for Gonzales have been at MacMurray, Kent State, Bowling Green, Utah, LSU and Illinois. He has won two national titles as an assistant coach, both at Florida in 2006 and 2008.
Gonzales played receiver for Colorado State in the early 1990s. He is from Thornton, Colorado, the same hometown as Tennessee basketball legend Dalton Knecht.
More From RTI: VFL Chris Burke Talks Tony Vitello, Tennessee-Alabama Recap, Florida Fires Billy Napier | The RTI Low-Down
Florida is 3-4 on the season with a 2-2 record in conference play. The Gators have wins against Long Island, No. 21 Texas and Mississippi State, with losses against No. 19 South Florida, No. 10 LSU, No. 2 Miami and No. 4 Texas A&M.
Napier was in the midst of his fourth season in Gainesville when the news came out on Saturday. With his firing, Napier’s final record at Florida is cemented at 22-23. His Gators were 1-1 in bowl games, with a loss in the 2022 Las Vegas Bowl and a win in the 2024 Gasparilla Bowl.
Napier’s tenure at Florida began in the 2022 season. He spent four years at Louisiana before that, going 40-12 with the Ragin’ Cajuns. Napier went 6-7 in 2022, 5-7 in 2023, 8-5 in 2024 and was 3-4 before his firing in 2025.
Josh Heupel’s Tennessee teams went 2-1 over Billy Napier’s Florida squads during their overlapping time as head coaches. The Vols won in 2022 and 2024, which were both games in Knoxville, and lost in Gainesville in 2023. The two coaches won’t see a fourth meeting, considering that game takes place later this year on Nov. 22 in Gainesville.
