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GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 18: Head Coach Billy Napier of the Florida Gators arrives for Gator walk before the start of a game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on October 18, 2025 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Billy Napier was king of the Sun Belt.
Prior to the 2018 season, he accepted a head coaching position at Louisiana. The first-time head coach didn’t need any time to acclimate to his new role — he built a dynasty from the get-go. In four years at Louisiana, he produced a 40-12 record and qualified for the first four Sun Belt Championship Games, claiming one shared Sun Belt title in 2020 (game was canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic) and another outright in 2021. The Ragin’ Cajuns claimed two bowl wins, three 10-win seasons, and two AP Top 16 season-end rankings under the head coach.
Napier leveraged his Sun Belt success into a position at Florida, where he finished 22-23 in four seasons — peaking at 8-5 in 2024. The head coach was dismissed seven games into the 2025 campaign, immediately following a 23-21 victory over Mississippi State.
Instead of taking a year off to figure out his next move, Napier returned to the conference that shaped him. On Dec. 4, he was named the head coach of reigning Sun Belt champion James Madison. However, Napier recognizes the 2026 Sun Belt is a strikingly different league than the one he excelled in.
“The amount of turnover within each roster each year,” Napier said at Sun Belt Media Days in New Orleans, when asked about the biggest difference between Sun Belt tenures. “Every team has a set of issues that come with that. For us, we have 63 new players. Last year that number was around 50-plus. Two years ago it was 68. What it’s done is caused me to evaluate our processes. It’s an annual process. You fight like crazy to recruit, to develop, to retain, but it’s a reality that your better players are gonna have an opportunity to move up, and you have to get comfortable with that. Every team in our league is 40-plus new players. That’s the biggest difference. It’s still very talented, it’s still extremely competitive, it’s still a deep league, and you gotta be ready to go every week.”
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Napier is walking into a completely different situation than the one he encountered at Louisiana. At Louisiana, he was tasked with rebuilding a program fresh off three-straight losing seasons. At James Madison, he faces immediate pressure to sustain the winning culture created by Curt Cignetti and sustained by Bob Chesney. Seven months ago, the Dukes became the first-ever Sun Belt representative in the 12-year history of the College Football Playoff.
Chesney led the College Football Playoff practices, but Napier carefully observed from the sidelines to determine what shaped James Madison into an immediate Sun Belt power — a key step in preserving the Dukes’ success going forward.
“The 49 players that are returning from last year’s team have been huge. They’ve been an asset to myself,” Napier said. “We’re fortunate there’s a big chunk of those guys that played for Coach Cignetti and Coach Chesney. They’ve been through a transition year before. They learned those lessons — what went well that year, what needed to be better, and that’s allowed us to get out in front of that. Being at the College Football Playoff practices were huge. You don’t get to do that. That doesn’t get to occur when you’re taking over a job. So for me, I’ve tried to keep the things intact that were centerpieces of the program. Having a chance to observe that was key.”
Napier observed what made James Madison click in the Chesney era, but the head coach is also implementing some of his own methods from Louisiana and Florida, in hopes of creating another Sun Belt dynasty. The incumbent players already recognize Napier’s expertise, excited to spend fall camp learning under the soon-to-be 47-year old head coach.
“For the past seven months, there’s definitely been a very good learning curve,” defensive end Amar Thomas said. “You can tell he’s coming from a higher level. He’s passing it down throughout the whole faculty, staff, the players, everything, whether it’s meetings, practice, film — he’s just teaching us a lot, and I made sure to tell my parents that. For the first couple weeks or first couple months as he joined us at JMU, you could definitely tell the difference. I’m gonna gain a lot of knowledge from this, and it will be very beneficial.”
James Madison is 40-11 since joining the FBS in 2022. Only Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, Michigan, and Notre Dame boast superior win percentages over that 4-year timeframe. While James Madison only returns one offensive starter and two defensive starters from its 12-2 team that qualified for the CFP, the Dukes’ expectations remain lofty. The league’s head coaches selected the Dukes to win the Sun Belt East Division in the preseason poll.
“Look, at James Madison, that’s almost expected to some degree,” Napier said. “I go back to those conversations that we had with our veteran players. There is an expectation that they embrace, that we embrace, and that energy starts in January. You can feel it in our community. You can feel it on our campus. There is a player-led culture that has been handed down. It’s what we do.”
James Madison operated under a different mindset last December. The Dukes were the No. 12 seed in the CFP field, slated as three-touchdown underdogs to Oregon. While the Dukes acknowledge their recent success, their players prefer operating in that doubted, underdog state.
“Going into the season projected as No. 1, it doesn’t really faze me,” Thomas said. “Most of the time, we’ve been the underdog. We’ve been doubted. Truly, I really wish that we were doubted again because I love proving people wrong. I love when my team gets to prove people wrong, when my team makes those Twitter fingers be quiet, make those people on the couch be quiet, make the fans that haven’t put in the work since January be quiet. All that stuff doesn’t matter. Every day we put the work in, and it’s gonna show. So we’re going in as No. 1, but I really wish it was No. 4, No. 5, or No. 6, or wish it wasn’t there at all.”
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A refurbished coaching staff and 63 new players are in place, but the returning James Madison contingent is ensuring the new guard understands what it means to don the purple and gold.
“When transfers, when freshmen, and when kids decide to come back to James Madison, there’s an expectation that they’re committing to and that they’re coming into,” center Zach Greenberg said. “That’s the ideology and expectation that we have in the locker room every single day. It’s not really about the outside noise or what any poll says. It’s about us and about showing up every day to prove ourselves right and to prove our work right and to prove what we know and what’s really important down the line.”
The buy-in is mutual. The players embrace the former Sun Belt champion head coach as their new frontman. On the other side of the street, Napier is sold not only on James Madison’s winning culture but the program’s atmosphere and fanbase, looking forward to his Sept. 5 debut when the Dukes host Liberty in Harrisonburg, VA.
“If James Madison University was a stock, I’m buying it,” Napier said. “I’ve been very impressed with the place. I had someone tell me when we first started this journey that our number one resources was our people. We have an incredible following. Our fans are special. We have the best gameday atmosphere in ‘group of six’ football. They throw this term around — ‘the Valley’s team’ — and I think that is real. It’s blue-collar, and I do think it rubs off on our players.”
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