On Sunday, University of Florida football coach Billy Napier was fired after four seasons and a 22-23 record, including 12-16 in Southeastern Conference (SEC) play.

His .489 winning percentage is the lowest of any Florida head coach (minimum two seasons) since Raymond Wolf (.359, 1946-49).

A total of nine schools have fired their football coach since the beginning of the season – Arkansas, Colorado State, Florida, Penn State, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech, UCLA and UAB.

On Monday morning, former Gator wide receiver Chris Doering offered his thoughts to Peter Burns on SEC This Morning.

“Well, you know, it felt like it was a little inevitable, and this kind of thing has been hanging in the lurch for a while now, even dating back to last year,” Doering said. “At the end of the day, the things that have cost Billy Napier are the same mistakes over and over again, slow starts to begin the beginning of the season, the penalties, the self-inflicted wounds, the substitution issues, the fact that you can’t go on the road to win, 0-14 against ranked opponents, letting teams in the fourth quarter come back and get you like Mississippi State did…”

Doering noted that this past Saturday’s game was a lot like the loss to USF, even though Florida held on to beat Mississippi State, 23-21, thanks to an interception by sophomore defensive tackle Michai Boireau with 21 seconds left and the Bulldogs in field goal range.

Former Auburn coach Gene Chizik (2009-12) joined Burns and Doering on the show and said Napier’s firing is the nature of the beast.

“It’s the downside of the game for the coaches, they make a lot of money, the expectations are high,” he said. “You don’t meet those expectations, you get fired. Look, I was the winningest coach in the history of Auburn University my first three years. I was 33-19 and got fired. Well, I can’t cry about that because I didn’t meet the expectations in year four that they expected. That goes with the territory, and we had won a national championship and an SEC championship my second year (2010).”

On Monday afternoon, University of Florida Athletics Director Scott Stricklin addressed the media about the coaching search.

“There’s very few places that provide the opportunities that you have at the University of Florida,” Stricklin said. “There’s somebody out there who can come in here and put this football program in a position where it can win championships.”

Stricklin said the search is going to be “thorough” and “deliberate.”

“Despite speculation about particular candidates or things that have already been done, we are early in this process, and it will be a very thorough process,” he said. “To that end, we have engaged with TurnkeyZRG as a search consultant in this process. I think they can bring a lot of value and looking forward to working with them.”

Chizik said the candidates are being reached out to by their agents.

“And no matter who you’re reaching out to, they’re in the middle of the season right now, more than likely they’re on a really, really good run, and it’s distracting to be honest with you, it’s very distracting,” he said. “But you have to tell your agent yay or nay, right? Like, ‘yes, I’m interested. No, I’m not,’ and then the process will start to slowly drip and begin.”

Doering agreed with Chizik that the best coach out there is likely still coaching.

“Any coach that you’re going to want to go get is likely going to be in the college football playoff,” Doering said. “You’ve got Signing Day coming up in December, you’re going to have the transfer portal opening, and yet, there’s going to be coaches that are going to likely be coaching in the playoff that are going to be unattainable for several months.”

At the top of many Gator fans’ list is Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who still has the Rebels in the mix for a College Football Playoff following their first loss of the season to Georgia.

Doering said Kiffin has an “authentic appreciation for where he is and what he’s doing.”

“Lane has found the next best connection outside of if you didn’t grow up a fan of a school, or if you didn’t go to that school or play at that school…it’s kind of the next best thing,” he said.

Meanwhile, the season isn’t over for Florida, which improved to 3-4 overall and 2-2 in the SEC.

The Gators still have five games remaining on the schedule against No. 5 Georgia in Jacksonville on Nov. 1, at Kentucky, at No. 8 Ole Miss, vs. No. 17 Tennessee, and the home finale against Florida State University.

Florida would have to win three of the five to become bowl eligible.

Stricklin named wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales the interim coach for several reasons.

“Obviously, he’s been around the University of Florida, now in three different decades, been a part of three different staffs, been a part of this place when we were winning championships,” Stricklin said. “He understands that pedigree. This place is important to him. I think he’ll do a great job of leading this group and the staff through the remainder of this season, and believe this gives us the best chance to have the kind of success we want to finish this season on a strong note.”

Napier was Florida’s play caller, but Gonzales said it will be a collaborative effort on offense moving forward.

“Coach (Russ) Callaway is going to be the OC, but I’m going to let Coach (Ryan) O’Hara call the plays,” he said. “I think the most important piece to that is there’s a rhythm piece between him and DJ (Lagway). I think it’s really important that the quarterback is an extension of his teacher. In this particular setting, for the next five games, I think that’s going to be critical. DJ has got a great relationship with both.”

He said Florida has a lot of playmakers and he would “like to be able to spread it out a little bit, hopefully and get some of those players involved.”

“Not necessarily change a lot — here’s the great thing about Coach Napier’s offense, we actually have an arsenal of plays within the system, so it’s kind of basically picking and choosing and allowing our quarterback to be in a position to do the things that he does best,” Gonzales said. “I think that’s the ultimate goal is our offensive staff — again, Coach Callaway does an amazing job. He’s going to continue to keep us together as an offensive staff and put those plays together for us.

“Obviously, we want to be more productive, we want to be more explosive,” he said. “That’s going to be something that we’ll talk about as a staff, offensively, to see what we can do, but I think every player has strengths, and I think the one thing that we want to be able to do is put our players in the best possible position and play to their strengths. If that means tweaking some things where we can get guys — whether it’s RPOs, taking different types of shots, different types of play-actions — that’s all part of it.”

Gonzales said it’s not about the play; it’s about the player.

“It always will be,” he said. “The player is the one that’s going to go make the plays. You’ve got to put them in an advantageous position. We’ve got great players here. If we can get some guys the ball in space and let them work, I think you’ll see a Florida offense that’s ready to roll.”