Winning and losing is everything when you’re a college football coach.

As Florida football coach Billy Napier noted after Florida’s upset win against No. 9 Ole Miss in The Swamp this past Saturday, “I learned a long time ago, they love you when you win, and they hate you when you lose.”

He told ESPNs Molly McGrath that “hope and belief are powerful.”

But I don’t think there were many that had hope, or believed, after Florida’s 1-2 start which included a blowout loss at home to Miami (41-17 on Aug. 31) and the SEC opener to Texas A&M (33-20 on Sept. 14).

In fact, just two months ago he was all but gone as the Gators football coach. From boos from fans to chanting “Fire Billy,” his firing was imminent.

The change was gradual, with a win at Mississippi State (45-28 on Sept. 21) and at home vs. UCF (24-13 on Oct. 5) following a bye week.

Despite a 23-17 overtime loss at No. 8 Tennessee, Florida was turning a corner.

And on Nov. 7, Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin gave his vote of confidence to Napier for another season with a letter to Gator Nation two days before the Gators lost at Texas.

That change started with the lines of scrimmage.

“If you’re going to have a good football team, if you’re going to build a championship contender, you’ve got to be good up front in the trenches and on both lines of scrimmage,” Napier told hosts Peter Burns and Chris Doering on Monday on SEC This Morning. “Just point-blank for me, the way we were playing was unacceptable. It’s not who we are, it’s not who’ve we been in the past, and we had to get it fixed and that took collaboration between players and coaches, and I do think over time those areas were corrected, and I think we created an identity there.”

Those corrections, coupled with the play of true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, among a few others, helped lead to upset wins against No. 21 LSU and Ole Miss.

It was the first time that Florida had knocked off AP Top 25 opponents as an unranked team since Oct. 11-18, 2003 (No. 6 LSU, No. 11 Arkansas), and the first time they had accomplished it in two home games.

The win over Ole Miss marked UF’s first home victory as a double-digit underdog and UF’s second-largest upset win overall in the last 45 seasons (behind topping No. 16 LSU as a 14-point underdog in 2016).

Of the 34 upsets by unranked teams so far this season, Florida is one of six with multiple wins vs CFP top 25 teams.

Florida is 4-1 in games started by Lagway, with the lone loss being to No. 2 Georgia, which the Gators led prior to Lagway departing due to injury.

In the Week 13 upset against the Rebels, Lagway posted his best rating in SEC play (174.8) to raise his season mark to 163.5, which ranks second in the SEC (behind Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart) and 10th in the FBS among passers with at least 125 attempts.

Among true freshman FBS passers, Lagway ranks first in passer rating, first in yards per attempt (10.94) and second in TD percentage (6.7).

Lagway has that “it” factor.

“He’s got a unique presence as a competitor, that’s probably what I’ve learned about him,” Napier said. “When he got here in January, I felt like this was going to be a process from a development standpoint, but don’t forget that he had the ideal scenario in terms of examining (injured QB) Graham Mertz every day throughout the entire process, throughout the entire offseason, and Graham is a consummate professional…he was able to learn how to prepare, how to lead, how to work, how to grind on that playbook, and I think Ryan O’Hara (coaches the quarterbacks) deserves a ton of credit, the amount of time he has spent getting those young guys up to speed and DJ, in particular, has paid off.”

Napier said Lagway’s ability to raise his level has rubbed off on his teammates.

“The playmaking ability gives the team hope, and we watch it every day in practice, and you can’t help but gain confidence as a result of it.”

Florida’s bend-but-don’t-break defense deserves a lot of credit too.

A mixture of second-year players, highly touted true freshmen and transfers make up the 2024 UF defense.

In the past two games, Florida has combined for 20 tackles-for-loss, 10 sacks, 12 pass breakups, 10 quarterback hurries, three forced fumbles, two interceptions and two fumble recoveries while only allowing 16.5 points per game.

The 10 sacks in the last two weeks are tied for fourth-most in FBS and second in the SEC, only behind 12 from Texas.

The Gators have recorded a takeaway in eight straight games and have forced a turnover in 10 of 11 overall.

“I’ve just been really impressed with the effort that we play with on defense,” Napier said. “The physicality, the energy, the motor is running hot. We’re playing well at all levels of the defense, and I think that we’ve really done a good job of patching up the secondary and those guys have stepped up to the plate the last couple of weeks and played good ball…we have made progress. We are not done.”

Florida DT Caleb Banks (4 tackles for a loss) recorded seven quarterback pressures against Ole Miss and is first among all defensive tackles in Week 13.

Banks joined Co-Defensive Player of the Week Bryce Thornton (career-high 14 tackles, 2 INTs) and Special Teams Player of the Week Jeremy Crawshaw in earning SEC Weekly Honors, marking the second-straight week that Florida has taken home three of the conference’s weekly awards.

Florida (6-5), which clinched its 49th bowl appearance in program history and its sixth in the last seven seasons and nine of the last 11, will close out the regular season this Saturday at rival Florida State (7 p.m., ESPN2).

Following the interview with Napier, Doering posed the question to Burns, “What if I told you a coach that was about to be fired in September is the SEC Coach of the Year at the end of November?”

“That’s the case in Gainesville, and now the criteria for what a Coach of the Year looks like, changes from year to year, is it one that exceeds what the preseason expectations was, is it one that wins the most games or wins a championship, is it one that faces the toughest schedule, it doesn’t necessarily define the same each and every year.”

Most fans wanted Napier out of there after embarrassing losses, but as much as he deserved the criticism early in the year, he deserves a lot of credit for keeping this team together through the adversity and against the toughest schedule in the nation. 

He has gone from embattled to emboldened, in six short weeks.

“They may be the hottest team in the conference right now,” Doering said. “Billy Napier, if he wins on Saturday against FSU, deserves to be the Coach of the Year with seven wins in the SEC.”