Billy Napier keeps finding ways to make his old job the headline instead of the one he has now.
The former Florida coach, who was let go last October and hired by James Madison in December, told On3 this week that he was, among other things, “stubborn” for not hiring an offensive coordinator. That’s not exactly a revelation. Florida’s offense was dull and ineffective, and Napier’s insistence on doing it all himself looked like insecurity more than leadership, especially once the season started slipping away.
He had a better moment back in April when he spoke with former Times-Union and current USA Today writer Matt Hayes about leaving Gainesville for Harrisonburg, Va. That conversation did the right thing in broad strokes: it acknowledged mistakes at UF and introduced the JMU chapter.
But even there, Napier couldn’t resist a dig when he said JMU has “alignment from top to bottom,” something he said wasn’t the case at UF. The problem with that line is simple: the head coach is the one who is supposed to create that alignment in the first place.
That USA Today piece should have been the last word on Florida. Instead, the On3 interview dragged the old story back out.
Napier said his staff “really struggled to manage the workload that came with NIL (and) that came with the portal.” Sure - every staff has had to deal with that burden in the NIL era.
Florida just handled it badly.
There’s nothing wrong with a fired coach revisiting what went wrong. But at some point, the people at JMU have to be wondering why so much energy is still going toward the Gators.
Be where your feet are, Billy. Focus on the Dukes.
About the Jaguars, there’s a clear expectation for Travis Hunter heading into training camp later this month: the team plans to manage his workload as he comes back from last October’s right lateral collateral ligament injury. The first practice open to fans is July 29, and being fully cleared won’t automatically mean he’s going full speed.
Hunter also had a limited camp last year because of a lower-body injury. Looking back at the Times-Union’s practice tracking by Garry Smits, he didn’t begin two-way work until Aug. 5, when he took 10 offensive snaps and nine defensive snaps.
He practiced only five more times before being shut down, with his busiest day coming Aug. 14, when he logged 17 snaps on offense and 16 on defense. However the Jaguars divide his time this summer, the expectation should be obvious: he needs to be ready to play 100% cornerback, and some offense on top of that.
There’s also a sharp little data point on first-round picks that says plenty about how hard it is to keep premium talent in one place. Ryan Paganetti, a former NFL analyst for three teams, has been posting research on “X” that digs into long-term draft trends.
From 2000-16, only 69 of 539 first-round picks - 12.8% - stayed with the team that drafted them for at least 10 years. At running back, it was just 2 of 42, or 4.8%.
Off-ball linebacker had the highest rate at 22.2%, with eight of 36. Quarterbacks were at 15.6%, with seven of 45 reaching a decade with their drafting team.
For the Jaguars, the numbers are rough. Only tight end Marcedes Lewis made it to the 10-year mark, giving Jacksonville a 5.9% rate in that span.
A group of first-rounders lasted only one to three years, including Dante Fowler, Jalen Ramsey, Reggie Nelson, Derrick Harvey, Blaine Gabbert, Justin Blackmon and R.J. Soward.
Another cluster landed in the four-to-six-year range: Mike Williams, Blake Bortles, Eugene Monroe, Byron Leftwich, Matt Jones and Luke Joeckel. John Henderson, Marcus Stroud and Tyson Alualu each got to seven or eight years.
Lewis was the lone 10-plus-year holdover.
For Jaguars fans outside the local TV market, there is at least one practical note: the preseason opener at New Orleans on Aug. 15 at 4 p.m. and the Aug. 21 game against Carolina at 7:30 p.m. will be available live on the ESPN App.
Elsewhere, the U.S. men’s soccer team’s five World Cup matches produced plenty of attention, but not much movement in the bigger picture. The program ended up right where it was four years ago, out in the Round of 16. There was no real leap forward, and the gap remains wide behind Belgium and much wider behind France, Spain and Argentina.
The news that late Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland was posthumously diagnosed with CTE also landed hard. Kneeland died by suicide in November 2025 at 24, and the Boston University CTE Center noted that post-mortem CTE should not be considered the cause of the suicide.
Still, the fact that he was already at Stage 1 of 4 is alarming. That’s a frightening number to see attached to someone that young.
Shad Khan made another change at Fulham this week, hiring Alvaro Arbeloa as his ninth full-time manager since buying the club in July 2013. Arbeloa, 43, played for Liverpool and Real Madrid before moving into coaching, and he finished last season as Real Madrid’s interim manager with an 18-8-2 record. Fulham opens its English Premier League season Aug. 24 against Chelsea.
And Justin Verlander’s retirement announcement after the season is another reminder that some milestones may be disappearing for good. The Detroit Tigers right-hander, now 43, will finish with 266 wins.
I’ve followed Verlander since interviewing him by phone in July 2005 after he was drafted by Detroit and I was working for the Newport News (Va.) Daily Press.
He played at Old Dominion in nearby Norfolk. Only 16 current pitchers have at least 100 wins, and 12 of them are 35 or older, which makes it feel like we may go a very long time - maybe forever - before another pitcher reaches 300 wins.
Only 24 have done it.
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