WHO replaces White?

Welcome to big time college athletics, where the goal is to win and raise the profile of the school

However how can you possibly like White? His teams were full of transfers (“mercenaries”) and he rarely graduated players that he signed out of high school.

No matter who we hire it can’t possibly get much worse than that

 

ok gotcha, you're talking about fan support more than admin support - my bad, I misunderstood.

to me, fan support at a place like UF - or at most SEC or Southern schools where football tends to be king - is a chicken and egg kind of thing. Yes, I agree with you that the support for basketball here in terms of game attendance is not the greatest on a year to year basis (and we've hashed out several ways the UAA could try to make that better, but they don't seem all that interested at the moment), and Gainesville isn't exactly a great basketball town.

but when the Gators are winning consistently and there's some excitement behind the program, attendance gets to be a whole lot better - I feel like you kind of have to understand that as a coach coming in here, and you have to take some of the burden on yourself for putting a consistent product on the court to generate some of that excitement.

but reasonable people can certainly disagree on that, and I understand your perspective there.

 

How do you know that? The fact is there were rumors about him having interest in UGA/LSU, and those didn’t materialize out of thin air. That speculation hasn’t been refuted by anyone yet. The UF job wasn’t open when those rumors first surfaced, and now it is. So this isn’t some out of left field speculation about Drew potentially coming here.

After the 2020 season, we had Mullen to the NFL rumors materialize and it turned out Mullen was really considering it. However, there was no interest on the NFL side and nothing materialized for Mullen. If a coach/agent is putting out feelers, usually through a National columnist, then that means there is a chance that they would listen.

 

I believe these particular items fall on the coach, his plan and thus the AD's belief in coach/plan. It's why Napier was able to get what he wanted. I guess we will see what happens when Stricklin brings in his guy, but I don't necessarily think we can write off that they aren't willing to invest. Could just be Stricklin didn't want to invest in White.

 

Have we had any Gator fans offer their wife to a recruit to get him to sign at UF? Have any Gator fans poisoned trees at a rival’s campus because we lost a rivalry game? Have any Gator fans teabagged a drunk fan after beating their team in a title game?

All we do is complain about coaches who don’t perform to the level we believe our sports programs should be at and try to get a different coach. How is that different than any other fanbase around the world?

 

Fan support does suck right now but, Auburn’s was PATHETIC. But look at what winning and a fan friendly arena does for you. They are taking over buildings on the road now and virtually unbeatable at home. Yea they’ll flame out likely, but their level of success, to many Auburn fans, I am sure was unrealistic pre-Pearl.

 

How do we know this???

 

Yes to Drew.

No to Miller and Matta.

 

Aside from the tree poisoning, probably

 

Interesting point. And I agree to an extend. But here is an oddity:

AU had a fantastic turnout for the SECt a few days ago in Tampa.
I, in my 20+ years of attending… never saw Florida do the same.

 

Napier got what he wanted bc he coaches football.

 

That is very true. It does feel our fan support hits a limit at some point.

 

yes - the “point of diminishing returns”.

 

Aka, you seem hell bent on lowering expectations, with or without White, and mostly blaming it on the fans.

If you win, enough people will show in the stands to not make it an issue. Billy D didn’t win every game at home, but we the fans, generally either expected a win, or knew it would be a dog fight.

The last few years, outside of our cupcakes (which wasn’t a given), it was a crap shot due to a mediocre product, which isn’t motivating to get fans in the stands.

 

I'm on board with McMahon.

And I'd like to publicly state that BEFORE he beats Kentucky in the second round of the NCCAs.

 

Trolls by their very nature don’t hang around very long nor do they have very much in depth knowledge about whatever team they are trolling, they regurgitate easily found information, but things a true Gator fan has personal knowledge about a troll can’t really find that easily, if they linger too long they are generally easy to spot.
I agree we don’t have the depth of passion some other schools have, but those schools generally don’t have a great deal of success in other sports… Kentucky for example (granted some do).
Another problem is one I have personal knowledge of, my wife and I had season tickets well before our Championship runs, we loved going… our seats weren’t great but they weren’t awful, however when the team started experiencing some success, our seats progressively got worse and more expensive until we could no longer afford to pay what they wanted for seats that were awful, and the upgraded seats were ridiculously high.
After they started declining all the people that had jump on board for the championship years did what they always do and stopped coming. We were contacted by the athletic association about renewing our tickets but frankly the whole experience left a sour taste. This didn’t just happen to my family it happened to a lot of long term season ticket holders.
I understand the need to accommodate the people with the financial wherewithal to pay the bills, but you have to balance short term profits with some respect for the people that have supported the team through the bad times and the good times. The UAA (my opinion and experience) does a poor job in that regard.

 

Florida played in Jacksonville for the first round of the NCAA in 2006. Decent crowd but not packed. We went to the team hotel to welcome them back and say congrats, just being fans, and my family was literally the only people there that weren't players family or UF staff. Even at the sweet 16 level it wasn't a crazy crowd. Now the team hotel in Indianapolis was awesome.

We don't have a great basketball fan base and I'm not sure we ever will have what UK, Duke, Kansas, etc have.

 

Bruce Pearl is the single biggest factor in that enthusiasm, IMO. He has an infectious spirit. I saw what he did up close here in Knoxville. I was fortunate to meet him a few times and we had a great time talking Gators vs Vols, and in more than just basketball. He was high-visibility in the local charity scene and his synagogue. I wish he weren't so 'flexible' on rules because he is a helluva person.

 

I'd argue (because apparently I've dedicated today to that noble pursuit ) that the "fan support" element in stadium is more reflective of interest in the city of Gainesville and the student body than Gator Nation at large. While being centrally located is ideal for football, the fact that Hogtown is 2 hrs from major population centers is tough for hoops attendance. A 4 hr roundtrip for a 2 hr game on a Tuesday night is a tough sell.

I'd be interested to know how UF "fan support" stacks up against our rivals in TV ratings. Not interested enough to look it up myself, but interested for someone else to do it and tell me

 

And because he had a plan and knew how to convince the AD. Mullen did not get those things and he was a Stricklin guy. We’ll know more after the next coach comes in, I’m just not convinced yet Stricklin wouldn’t be willing to have that same kind of commitment for basketball.