WHAT HAPPENS NOW for the Florida Gators after their loss to Miami in the Swamp? | What went wrong for Billy Napier?

Read and React’s Roman Harper and Cole Cubelic spoke with SEC Network colleague Paul Finebaum on Monday about Florida’s atrocious performance in the season opener.

In short, Harper and Cubelic praised the performance of the Gators, who lost 41-17 at home to No. 19 Miami on Saturday afternoon.

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“You have to work harder on both sides of the ball,” said Harper, who starred as a safety at Alabama and then with the New Orleans Saints. “Florida has to play harder. You can’t have one player miss a tackle and the running back run 15, 20 yards right behind that one player. Where are the other players running for the football?”

“You have to have too many players. I don’t think they played well. I thought they played hard at the beginning, but when things didn’t go so well, I thought, ‘Eh, I guess this is that kind of game.'”

Cubelic, who played center at Auburn before becoming a voice in the SEC media landscape, also added his two cents.

“I have something I call execution effort,” he said on the Paul Finebaum Show. “I think you can really put in the effort sometimes, but it has nothing to do with the game. You have to engage and block somebody, you have to chase a ball carrier and tackle them. It’s not enough to just move your hands quickly or pretend to get in front of somebody and then get out of the way.”

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Florida, and head coach Billy Napier in particular, faced the brunt of college football criticism on Sunday and Monday after the Gators got off to an embarrassing start to the season against an in-state opponent in an annual rivalry.

Quarterback of Miami Cam Ward battled through Florida’s secondary, rushing for 385 yards and three touchdowns. The Gators allowed 11 plays of 20 yards or more, the most of any team that has played a single game this season, and the 11 missed tackles they recorded – according to Pro Football Focus – certainly didn’t help.

Defensively, Florida looked little better than the team that allowed 38.3 points per game during its five-game losing streak ending last season. The Hurricanes managed 529 yards of offense in their decisive win. And the Gators were assessed two roughing the passer penalties in the first half, both of which resulted in touchdowns.

To make matters worse, Florida’s starting quarterback Graham Mertz left the game in the third quarter and was placed in the concussion protocol. He was sacked three times and threw a pick.

Napier’s seat is getting hotter by the day. Having earned the job after three consecutive seasons of double-digit wins in Louisiana, he led Florida to six and five wins the last two years, respectively. Saturday was hardly the start to the 2024 season he had hoped for.