Mississippi State fans will be forever grateful their school didn't hire Billy Napier

One of the biggest stories from Week 1 of the college football season was Miami's 41-17 blowout win over rival Florida in Gainesville. In a game that had incredibly high stakes and immense amounts of pressure for both head coaches, the Hurricanes whipped the Gators in all phases.

For Florida HC Billy Napier, who entered this season on a blazing hot seat, losing in this manner was the absolute worst thing that could happen. Napier's tenure thus far in the Swamp has almost entirely been a failure, with the lone positives being a few recruiting wins. And against Miami at home in a game that was expected to be close by pundits, Napier's team looked as bad as it has since he arrived.

At this point, the writing is on the wall. Billy Napier's days as HC of the Florida Gators are severely numbered. It would be an absolute shock if he weren't fired mid-season. And Napier's time leading Florida has given Mississippi State football fans the chance to express their gratitude that he didn't become the Bulldogs' HC back in 2020.

Mississippi State fans couldn't be more relieved now that Billy Napier wasn't hired back in 2020

Late in the 2019 season, rumors were running rampant that Mississippi State was pushing to fire then-HC Joe Moorhead and bring in then-Louisiana HC Billy Napier. The fanbase was collectively done with Moorhead in Starkville, and Napier's success with the Ragin' Cajuns coupled with his SEC experience made him seem to be an ideal candidate.

Moorhead would briefly save his job with a chaotic and infamous Egg Bowl victory, but after fights amongst players in bowl practices and an uninspiring performance in the bowl game, Moorhead was finally let go. Again, Napier was the hot name. But shortly after the job's opening, reports surfaced that Napier had turned-down an offer to become Mississippi State's HC.

At the time, Mississippi State fans were largely disappointed to have seemingly struck-out on Napier. But now, the fanbase couldn't be more thrilled that Napier didn't come to Starkville.

It's now clear that State dodged a massive bullet when Napier said no.

It's been suggested by some that had Joe Moorhead been fired following the regular season as opposed to the bowl game, Napier would've taken the job. Whether or not that's the case, we'll likely never know. But it's fun to add that to the list of things that would've been different if not for the 2019 Egg Bowl's ridiculous ending.

Thank goodness for Elijah Moore...

The Mississippi State program would have been buried under Billy Napier

It's ironic that Napier was pegged as the replacement for Joe Moorhead, and following this loss to Miami, he channeled his inner-Moorhead by calling out fans for their criticisms of his program.

Napier said in his Monday press-conference that his team shouldn't focus on "what some guy in his basement is saying in rural, central Florida". This was eerily reminiscent of when Joe Moorhead said following an embarrassing 2019 loss that he would not "focus (his) time, attention, and efforts on Bob from Bogue Chitto's opinions of the team".

Once that happened, it was painfully clear the Joe would be on his way out. The same is now true for Napier, and we should be incredibly fortunate that he was not ultimately the replacement for Moorhead.

Previous AD John Cohen missing on Napier eventually allowed for Mike Leach to become the Bulldogs' HC. And while we sadly got just three years with The Pirate, those three seasons brought us some of the most memorable moments we'll ever have as State fans, moments that undoubtedly would've never happened with Billy Napier in change.

And imagine the state the program would be in had there been two botched HC hires in a row. We're already seeing the work that Jeff Lebby is having to do to pull State out of the mess left by Zach Arnett, and that was after a strong foundation was laid by Leach.

Things were trending down under Moorhead and only would've gotten worse under Napier. There's no chance State would've been able to hire a coach the caliber of Mike Leach to correct things if the program had been buried in the SEC basement. They may not have even gotten a Jeff Lebby.

So as we sit here about four years and nine months after Billy Napier "turned down" Mississippi State, we should all be grateful for how that coaching search played out.