Below I will present some stylized facts about coaches who have won FBS National Championship and some thoughts on what that means for UF as we look for one/hope Billy is the one.

1. There are currently 9 active coaches who have won an FBS championship. This is the lowest amount since the BCS started in 1998 and down from a high of 15 active coaches at the start of the 2004 season. 5 of those 9 (Carroll, Saban, Brown, Swinney, and Smart) are clearly not options for UF to hire at the moment. What does this mean for UF? If we were to move on from Billy Napier and try to hire a coach who has proven ability to win a National Title our options would be Stoops, Chizik, Orgeron, and Fisher. What is my opinion? Stoops should probably be put in the group that isn't hirable by UF. I doubt many UF fans want to hire any of Chizik, Orgeron, or Fisher as head coach.

2. At the start of the 1999 season (when the newest title winning coach Kirby Smart started coaching) there were 13 future title winning coaches who hadn't won yet. What does this mean for UF?There is an unknown number of future national title winning coaches currently coaching football. But probably not more than around a dozen. There are at least 10,000 coaches currently employed in the United States. The odds of picking a national title winning coach at random are very at least 1 in 1,000. What is my opinion? Certainly whoever is UF's AD should be doing better than picking at random. But the odds are that Billy Napier is not a title winning coach. If Napier is fired the odds are that his replacement is not a title winning coach either. Its not clear to me that the best strategy for sustained success is firing a coach once it seems he will not have the ability to win a national title.

3. Suppose there are 13 future title winning coaches out there for UF to try to hire. Suppose they are currently working the same sorts of jobs that the 13 future title winning head coaches were working in 1999. What would that look like? 1 graduate assistant, 3 college position coaches, 1 NFL position coach, 2 G5 coordinators, 1 P5 coordinator, 1 FCS HC, 3 P5 HC, 1 NFL HC. What does this mean for UF? Even if there are 13 future title coaches currently coaching, the feasible pool to hire from is much smaller. What is my opinion? If Billy Napier is fired and Scott Stricklin hired a GA, position coach, G5 coordinator, or FCS head coach, UF fans would be extremely angry. Given our experience with Muschamp many UF fans would be unhappy with a P5 coordinator. Given our experience with Mullen many UF fans would not be happy with one of the P5 coaches from 1999 (Saban from Michigan State). In 1999 that would have left UF choosing from a small group of Brown at Texas, Stoops at Oklahoma, and Carroll in the NFL. Luring NFL or major P5 coaches to UF would be a difficult and extremely expensive with no guarantee that it results in a title.

4. Since the founding of the BCS 17 coaching hires have resulted in a title. What were they doing immediately before taking the job? 1 FCS HC, 5 internal promotions, 2 P5 coordinators, 1 G5 HC, 6 P5 HC, 2 NFL HC. What does this mean for UF? Title success has been found in one of two routes. Internal promotions or top level college or NFL experience. What is my opinion? Occasionally there is a Tressel at an FCS, Meyer at a G5 or a Stoops/Smart working as coordinators that can successfully make the jump to a P5 HC position and win a title. More often it seems like the best option is to either value continuity and promote internally a guy with some talent who already knows his way around the program (Fulmer, Coker, Orgeron, Fisher and Swinney) or get a P5/NFL HC (Bowden, Miles, Meyer(@OSU), Brown, Saban(@LSU,@Alabama), Carroll, Chizik).

5. Excluding Bowden who won a title pre-BCS, title winning HC hires have taken an average of 3.875 seasons and a median of 3 seasons to win their first title at the school. The quickest was Larry Coker at Miami in his first season and the longest have been Mack Brown at Texas and Dabo Swinney at Clemson. What does this mean for UF? If Billy Napier is a title winning coach we should expect him to win a title at UF in 2024 or 2025. However, if he fails to win in 2024 or 2025 there is still historical examples of coaches taking longer. What is my opinion? The two all time great coaches of the the BCS/CFP era Meyer and Saban took 2,3,3 and 4 seasons to win titles between their 4 combined title winning HC positions. But if we were hoping for Napier to be the next Meyer or Saban that was a fool's hope anyways. The "tier 2" of the BCS/CFP era which I would say is Carroll, Swinney and Smart took 3, 6, and 8 years. It seems that building a program capable of competing for a title every season can take some time.