Fortuna Files: The Florida conversation will loom over this entire season

So, too, will the Group of 5 Playoff race — a conversation that got more exciting after Week 3.

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Eighteen thoughts for Arch Manning’s 18 pass attempts Saturday.

1. Let’s start with some quick reference points. The first performance-related head-coach firing last year didn’t come until Nov. 12. In 2022, Sept. 11. In 2021, Sept. 6. But the date I have in mind is Sept. 13, 2021. That’s when USC fired Clay Helton two games into a season that was doomed before it even began.

2. Billy Napier entered 2024 on the hottest of hot seats. Having a comically tough schedule only added to the chatter about his job security. And then Florida got smoked at home twice in the first three weeks of this season — by two teams the Gators were only minimal underdogs against (4 points or fewer).

3. Now what? Napier is still employed as of this writing. For what it’s worth, USC waited 48 hours after getting blown out by Stanford to fire Helton. But the ending here is inevitable. And the storyline will hang over the college football world the rest of the season.

4. Florida is a blueblood. Like USC, it has semi-recent championship history, and, perplexingly, it has fallen on hard times. As was the case with the USC opening, tons of good coaches are going to get asked about this. And tons of good coaches are surely having their agents ask about this already. Remember Brian Kelly and Mike Tomlin answering questions about USC in 2021? (Yes, one handled it more convincingly than the other.) As I have written in this space before, an opening of this magnitude is likely going to screw up someone’s Playoff plans this season. There is no way around it.