Florida’s Win Overshadowed by Online Fury at Billy Napier
“Fire Billy” rang through Ben Hill Griffin Stadium from the crowd in Florida’s homecoming win over Mississippi State.
Despite a 23-21 win to bring the Gators to a 3-4 record, fans did not let coach Billy Napier walk off the field without letting him know their disapproval in his fourth season.
According to the social media analytics tool Talkwalker, which takes information from all social media platforms to identify trends, the overall “sentiment,” if the tone is positive, neutral or negative, of search “Billy Napier” between 12 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. on Saturday was 18.5% positive compared to 33.2% negative. In 4.9 thousand results found, there were 32.2 thousand engagements of the content, and one billion people were potentially reached.
Reddit usage in the middle of the night drove the negative sentiment. This continued at 9 a.m. with a thread titled “GET UP GATORS! IT’S BILLY NAPIER’S LAST DAY AS HEAD COACH!”
There was a spike in positivity when a sign shown on “ESPN College Gameday” at the University of Georgia read “Extend Billy Napier.” While recently fired Penn State coach James Franklin was speaking, this sign was a highlight in the sea of Bulldogs fans. However, Talkwalker calculated the sign as a show of support and not the intended joke.
During the game, Napier was heavily criticized for his playcalling and decision making. Hail Florida Hail had the most engaging post on X, stating “Billy Napier earlier this week: ‘Hey guys, DJ Lagway can’t really run’ Billy Napier on 3rd and 7: ‘Hey wouldn’t it be neat to call a QB draw.’”
A video showing Napier booed off the field posted on X by Unnecessary Roughness, a college football podcast in the Barstool Sports family, had the second-most engagements Saturday.
Napier did gain back some positive sentiment after his postgame press conference, where he appeared emotional over his love for football and his players. Social media also flared with questions of if he knows it was his last game with Florida.
“Never going to make everybody happy,” Napier said. “When you get these leadership positions and you’re in charge, these are the things that come with it right. So I love the game of football. I love the game.”
For the game in general, when searching “Florida Gators,” “Florida Football” and “Gators Football,” the sentiment was 13.2% positive and 22.6% negative in one thousand results, including six thousand engagements and potentially reaching 1.3 billion.
The most engaging post about Florida was the video of defensive lineman Michai Boireau securing the game with an interception posted by the SEC on Facebook. Even though this was an exciting moment in the game, it still had an overall negative sentiment in its estimated reach of 95.2 thousand.
This career moment was tainted by the negative opinions about Napier, and the next two most engaging posts were about the coach rather than the team’s win.
UF graduate Dan Thompson posted, “I’m not kidding, this is an absolute abomination of Florida football. Get his ass out of here as soon as the sun rises.” An account called T with just over three thousand followers received 779 engagements when saying, “The worst coach in the history of Florida football. It. Is. Not. Close.”
Time will tell what happens next in Napier’s career, as athletic director Scott Stricklin has a difficult decision looming.
Category: College Football, Football, Gators Football, NCAA, SEC
