Insider notebook: Ripple effect of Florida keeping Billy Napier, what ails Carson Beck, coaches on hot seat

As tends to happen by Week 11, much of the college football fan interest begins turning to off-field things like the coaching carousel, recruiting and the transfer portal. This week’s insider notebook attempts to make sure fans are well-served in both — and if you’re looking strictly for on-field happenings, the CBS Sports college football home section is a great page to bookmark. 

Here’s what we’ve got on tap in this week’s insider notebook. 

• The impact of Florida keeping Billy Napier, even as it relates to the 2025 hot seat market
• Scouts and analysts size up this weekend’s QB duel
• A survey of the Group of Five head coach hot seats
• How an earlier Signing Day in December will impact the movement of assistants
• Kenny Dillingham’s latest star QB pupil

Four reasons why Florida did not fire Billy Napier

Florida’s decision to retain embattled head coach Billy Napier for another season may have caught fans off-guard, but the feel for multiple weeks among sources had been that it was trending toward athletic director Scott Stricklin bringing Napier back for a fourth season.

Why is Florida retaining a coach with a 15-18 record? Especially after Napier’s predecessor, Dan Mullen, was fired during his fourth season with the Gators despite a 34-15 record and three New Year’s Six bowl appearances?

There are a few primary reasons. 

First, Florida has played better in recent weeks, especially in a win over Kentucky and a close game against Georgia, with multiple industry sources pointing out that the team had clearly not quit on Napier and was improving as the season went on.

While the Gators are just 4-4, they may be 6-2 with signature wins over Tennessee and Georgia if not injuries. They led 10-0 during the second half against Tennessee prior to losing starting QB Graham Mertz to an injury. They also held a 13-6 lead over Georgia and had the game tied at 20 with less than five minutes remaining despite having to play two-plus quarters with walk-on transfer Aidan Warner at QB after Mertz’s replacement, star freshman DJ Lagway, suffered a hamstring injury. 

Prior to the injury, Lagway had a 43-yard touchdown pass, one of a number of signs thus far that Florida has a promising young QB to build around. It’s worth noting too that Lagway and his family have a close relationship with Napier.

“They clearly have their quarterback of the future in DJ and some other really strong building blocks as underclassmen,” an industry source told CBS Sports. “You don’t want to do anything to disrupt what they’ve done on the player personnel side.”

Keeping Lagway in Gainesville, on its own, should be considered a primary motivator for also keeping Napier. Lagway was the No. 3 prospect and No. 1 QB recruit in the class of 2024, per 247Sports. Had Florida fired Napier, there would have been a feeding frenzy to pry Lagway out of the Sunshine State. 

“Lagway doesn’t want Napier to get fired,” somebody close to Lagway told 247Sports’ Chris Hummer. “He loves the offense. The Gators got a guy that wants the Gator nation to be great again. He sees the support this city and the alumni have for him.”

A third reason is the combination of the significant money it’d take to dump Napier ($26 million) and the uncertainty of what the candidate pool would look like, especially in the first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff. We’ve previously written here about how that situation loomed over a potential major coaching search like Florida. If you have to spend major money to get rid of Napier with no obvious guaranteed options to replace him and a $20 million annual revenue share charge looming over the future, it becomes easier to talk yourself into keeping him for another year. 

And if you’re looking for reason No. 4, look no further than the jimmy’s and the joe’s. Recruiting has suffered considerably with firing talk hanging over Napier’s head — the Gators currently have the nation’s No. 51 recruiting class — and the timing of Stricklin’s announcement was no coincidence. After a disastrous early NIL experience that included the infamous failed Jaden Rashada deal, Florida’s NIL efforts have improved and with a little more clarity of what the program’s future looks like now, expect the Gators to be aggressive in trying to finish strong with top high school and transfer portal options. 

All that said, the risk associated with keeping Napier is next season’s hot seat could be jam-packed with big names. Our college football analysts all project possible openings at Auburn, Oklahoma and USC in 2025, depending of course on how how Hugh Freeze, Brent Venables and Lincoln Riley, respectively, fare next fall. If the 2025 seasons are abject disappointments at Michigan and Florida State as they’ve been in 2024, then perhaps those jobs are open, too. 

Florida may well still be the top option among those jobs, but the competition will be much more intense, which would drive up the starting salaries. 

Carson Beck has gone from a potential first-round NFL draft pick in the eyes of NFL scouts to a vexing question mark for Georgia as the No. 3 Bulldogs enter a road matchup against No. 16 Ole Miss, which has a top-50 pass defense. 

Through his first 17 games as Georgia’s starting quarterback, Beck had just six total interceptions. In the last five games alone, he has thrown 11. That includes three last week during a win over Florida, a game that was tied with as little as four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter before two late Bulldogs touchdowns. 

When it rains on Beck, it also pours: he also threw three interceptions in the loss to Alabama and the road win at Texas. The Bulldogs have an elite defense that can weather those turnovers. Most teams would be 0-3, and not 2-1, against SEC foes when their quarterback tosses a trifecta of picks. 

While Beck does rank third in the SEC in passing yards with 287 yards per game and passing touchdowns with 17, his QB rating is down from 167.92 last year to 143.95 this season. That rating ranks 40th nationally and only seventh-best in the SEC.

The performance against Florida came a week after Beck was limited to 175 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions during Georgia’s 30-15 win over Texas.

“He’s definitely pressing,” an opposing defensive coach said. “Forcing it. Trying to do too much. Throw it away, scramble and slide or check it down (at certain points). Just feel like he’s for sure forcing it.”

How NFL scouts view Beck’s Saturday counterpart, Jaxson Dart

While Beck is coming off a shaky performance heading into this weekend, that’s not the case at all for his Saturday counterpart, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart.

Even without star wide receiver Tre Harris, Dart threw for a school-record 515 yards with six passing touchdowns and no interceptions while leading the Rebels to a 63-31 road victory over Arkansas. The 63 points tied an Ole Miss record set in 1979 for points against an SEC opponent.

It was a step forward performance of sorts for Dart, who’d averaged 285 passing yards with just three total touchdowns in the Rebels’ first four SEC games. It also didn’t go unnoticed among NFL scouts, though scouts do still have some doubts about Dart as an NFL prospect.

“Well, he’s coming off the best game of his life (but) he’s a low-end starter or high-end backup (as a prospect),” an NFL personnel official said. “Has some athletic ability and just enough arm but I worry about his innate accuracy. Super competitive, maybe a little over top. Somewhat in the same boat as Bo Nix. Has some traits but some negatives and not as accurate. 

“(Would be) overdrafted as a (round one pick). Probably a second- or third-round pick. … It’s a college RPO-based offense. Not much NFL carryover.”

Another scout shared something similar.

“Someone probably takes him earlier than he really should go,” he said. “Average to above average arm. Average anticipation. Has gotten better there. Doesn’t really stand in the pocket and deliver enough, drifts away but at least he takes care of the ball.”

Group of Five jobs you need to be watching

There are currently five open FBS jobs, all of the Group of Five variety. Here are more than could open by the end of the month. 

Heating up

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs: Sonny Cumbie is just 9-23 in three seasons at Louisiana Tech, including a 9-3 loss to Sam Houston Oct. 29 that dropped the Bulldogs to 3-5 this year. There was even some belief among industry sources that Louisiana Tech could move on from Cumbie coming out of that game, especially with the Bulldogs entering a bye week. While that didn’t happen, industry sources still feel like this job is trending toward opening. Each of Louisiana Tech’s next three games are against teams with winning records: 5-3 Jacksonville State, 6-2 Western Kentucky and then a 5-4 SEC opponent in Arkansas.

Marshall Thundering Herd: Charles Huff has passed up signing new contracts with Marshall in the past and is now in the last year of an expiring contract. Industry sources believe that there’s a good chance this is Huff’s last year with the Thundering Herd. He’s 27-20 in four seasons at Marshall, including 5-1 this year against non-Power Four competition.

UMass Minutemen: Don Brown met with UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford in recent days and it continues to seem like this will end up being Brown’s last year with the Minutemen. The 69-year-old Brown, a former two-time Broyles Award finalist as the defensive coordinator at Michigan, is 6-26 the last three years at UMass.

Up in the air

Florida International Panthers: Coach Mike MacIntyre inherited a difficult rebuild with the Panthers. But he’s just 11-24 overall in nearly three full seasons at the helm and hasn’t helped himself this year, losing to Monmouth and UTEP. He needs a strong finish to the season as the Panthers sit at 3-6 overall.

UAB Blazers: The Trent Dilfer era hasn’t gone particularly well. UAB won six-plus games every year between 2017 and 2022. Dilfer went 4-8 in Year 1 and has stumbled to 2-6 this season. Dilfer is owed a fair bit of money — $4.1 million — and is tied pretty closely to the school’s athletic director. But industry sources are still watching this one.

Tulsa Golden Hurricane: Aside from a 46-45 comeback win over UTSA Oct. 26, when Tulsa overcame an early 20-point deficit, the Golden Hurricane’s only other FBS victory came against 3-5 Louisiana Tech. Kevin Wilson, a former head coach at Indiana and ex-offensive coordinator at Ohio State and Oklahoma, is 5-14 in his two seasons at Tulsa. Even though he’s just in Year 2, industry sources have continued to view this job as a possibility to come open.

Charlotte 49ers: Like Dilfer, coach Biff Poggi was an outside-the-box hire during the 2023 cycle. But things haven’t gone well. Poggi is 3-6 this year, on a three-game losing streak and 6-15 overall with the 49ers, though there are some winnable games for Charlotte down the stretch against South Florida, FAU and UAB.

Temple Owls: After going just 3-9 in each of his first two seasons at Temple, Stan Drayton is now on track to potentially fall short of the four-win mark once again in Year 3. The Owls are 2-6 with two of their final four games being against teams with winning records — 7-2 Tulane and 5-3 North Texas.

Ball State Cardinals: The 2020 season feels like a while ago for Mike Neu. Since the Cardinals won the MAC championship, they haven’t finished a season with a winning record and are just 3-6 overall this season. The temperature around Neu was very warm earlier this year but a 2-2 run over the program’s past four games has somewhat cooled things down. Still, there’s a thought around the industry that Neu needs to win down the stretch.

Kennesaw State Owls: Coach Brian Bohannon had considerable success with the Owls earlier in his career, going 49-10 from 2017 to 2021 as a member of the Big South at the FCS level. But things have been tough the last three seasons, including Kennesaw State’s 2024 FBS debut, in which the program sits at just 1-7 overall. The Owls picked up a huge win over Liberty a few weeks ago, but Bohannon could use some additional momentum down the stretch. Of note, FIU and Louisiana Tech are on the schedule.  

How wonky calendar will impact assistant carousel

It’s not simply the new 12-team College Football Playoff that could create complications in coaching searches. 

For the first time, the early signing period, which begins Dec. 4, will start before conference championship weekend. Head coaches and coordinators playing in conference championship games are typically reluctant to seriously engage in discussions before those games take place. 

Steve Sarkisian and Brent Venables, then coordinators at Alabama and Oklahoma respectively, both refused to interview for the vacant Auburn job in 2020 until after coaching in the conference championships. Even more recently, then-Tulane head coach Willie Fritz wanting to wait until after the American Athletic Conference championship game in 2022 contributed to him not being hired as the head coach at Georgia Tech. Fritz left Tulane this past offseason to take over Houston.

It’s a tricky situation for athletic directors to navigate when weighing the best course of action. The longer you wait, especially if the meeting isn’t a formality but a true interview, the more risk an AD takes on. If an AD insists on waiting until after conference championship weekend and the interview doesn’t pan out in a hire, the school could really be behind the eight-ball with not only the early signing period but also the transfer portal which opens on Dec. 9th this year. 

Here’s what a Group of Four AD told CBS Sports.

“Say the (offensive coordinator) at Georgia is the guy I think would be the right hire for me but I’ve never met him. I hear good things about and I’m impressed by their success but if I’ve never met him and the guy says I can’t talk to you until the season’s over, I’m not sure I’ll wait on that. If I know the guy or we’ve already talked and had some substantial conversations and I’m (like) ‘This is the guy,’ then I don’t mind waiting.”

The double whammy is if that assistant coach’s program also makes the CFP, though multiple industry sources told CBS Sports they believe it is manageable with the right plan. No coach has done double duty since Oregon hired Dan Lanning in 2021 and he stayed on through Georgia’s national championship run. The transfer portal and NIL have made doing two jobs at the same time even more challenging, requiring key hires to get on the ground running right away if a coach is splitting his time through a deep playoff run.

“Here’s four, five people I’m hiring: strength and conditioning coach, general manager, maybe an associate head coach or former head coach,” an industry source explained as an ideal playbook. “They are all there getting everything in place. I think that’s a lot more doable.” 

The top coordinators ready to take the jump to a head coaching job list is lighter than usual this year but the scenario could impact coaches like Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson or others such as BYU defensive coordinator Jay Hill.

Get to know Kenny Dillingham’s latest success story

At Florida State, Kenny Dillingham helped Jordan Travis go from six touchdown passes and six interceptions as a first-year starter to an eventual ACC player of the year and fifth-round NFL draft pick.

Then, at Oregon, he was key in Bo Nix transforming from — to be polite — an uneven starter at Auburn into a Heisman finalist and first-round NFL draft pick.

In his second year as the head coach at Arizona State, Dillingham has his latest QB success story in redshirt freshman Sam Leavitt.

Leavitt, a class of 2023 four-star recruit, transferred to the Sun Devils in the offseason after spending last year at Michigan State. He then beat out multiple quarterbacks for ASU’s starting job, including former Georgia Tech and Nebraska QB Jeff Sims. Leavitt is one of the keys to the Sun Devils’ resurgence. 

At 6-2, Arizona State has already matched its win total from the previous two seasons combined. It’s also ASU’s best start since the 2014 Sun Devils team that finished 10-3. Leavitt, who missed one game due to injury, is 6-1 as ASU’s starter.

“His ability to make plays off platform is incredible, but his preparation and competitiveness is what will continue to separate him,” Dillingham told CBS Sports. “He is highly intelligent and it matters to him!”

Multiple opposing coaches have told CBS Sports that Leavitt is one of the top young quarterbacks they’ve seen this season and that they expect him to be widely-known as one of the better quarterbacks in the Big 12 next year.

In his last three games — wins over Oklahoma State, Utah and Kansas — Leavitt has accumulated eight touchdown passes with just two interceptions while helping ASU average 35 points per game. During ASU’s 42-21 win over Oklahoma State last week, Leavitt was 20 of 29 with a career-best completion percentage of 69 percent, a career-high 304 passing yards, three touchdown passes and no interceptions.

Leavitt’s QB rating in conference play (149.3) ranks third-best among Big 12 quarterbacks. He’s also the only Big 12 QB aside from Kansas State‘s Avery Johnson averaging at least 210 passing yards per game and at least 40 rushing yards per game.

“His biggest growth,” Dillingham said, “has been (understanding) protections and taking what the defense gives him and not forcing the ball down field.”

Arizona State is an important team to track the next couple weeks. The Sun Devils play two teams vying for a Big 12 Championship in the next four games — at No. 22 Kansas State on Nov. 16 and home vs. No. 9 BYU on Nov. 23. The Sun Devils would love playing spoiler as they gear up for of their own at a conference championship next season with Leavitt at the helm.