? Urban was easily the top available coach. Spurrier was a pretty major commodity in 1990. I guess your point might be true if you only consider five or six coaches out there big names.
Doug Dickey from ut was pretty big at the time. Fact is, most head coaches are a crap shoot, you just never know and we still don't.
As a rule, hiring a head coach at an SEC school with head coaching experience is high on the checklist. But, Ray Graves really turned Florida around in the 60’s and I don’t think he had a lick of head coaching experience. I remember having a bad feeling when Graves stepped aside to become AD and Doug Dickey was hired. And my worst fears were realized.
Not who you asked but it seemed to me Mullen was the right coach until he got burned out which was unfortunately pretty quick. Muschamp was a solid pick at the time, too, who was expected to get HC offers. Mac seemed like we just threw a dart at a map and hired whatever coach lived closest to where it landed. I'm not too sure about the current guy either as success at lower levels (or even higher level) doesn't always equate to success at this level. A year of no progression didn't help allay this concern. Tbh I was hoping for a proven big time program HC which for some reason we don't seem to hire in football or basketball. Odd too since we don't go the low budget route.
A philosophy thread. I like them! Okay, post-Meyer. Meyer set the program back by breaking it with double standards. It made the cleanup by Mus-take hard to do. I am not up to snuff on history, but someone please tell me WHO could we have gotten instead of Mus-take who turned out to be a MUCH better choice? Stop with the "Shanahan or Stoops" references. They weren't choices. Anyways, back to Mus-take. He was a damn fine college QB who could not make it in the big leagues, analogy speaking. He tried and flamed out. It happens. Next came Mac, who IMO was THE brain fart hire by Foley. I am not sure there was another great hire (again, exactly who?) but Foley was still nibbling around the edges instead of eating steak. My guess is that we got caught in an effort to upgrade other sports' facilities while there was a gold rush in college football. It appears to be a battle lost. And so we have been playing catchup. Mullen could have been a HR hire but he appears to have had more interest in the NFL than college. Could Stricklin had a better handle on his long-range focus? Probably. And so we could say that the administration has two strike-outs.
We can’t have it all. Under Fuchs we have become a top five Public University. Quite honestly, if I had a choice of improving our academic ranking above most schools we compete against in sports or dominating those teams in sports, I’d choose the former. Napier will bring in big name people, and unlike Mullen, he will create a dominant running game with or without a dual threat QB. Thst fsct alone spells a turn around for our program. With Webb coming in and Etienne and Johnson coming back along with an experienced and unified offensive line, we are at least plus three in wins from this year. The defense has a long way to go, but will be aided by our ball control on offense.
Eh... Spurrier was alumni so we had an in but he was the big name coach in 89 that plenty of schools and the NFL were after and of course everyone was after Urban in 2004, if you mean taking a coach from another big school then you have UF taking Pell from Clemson and Dickey from Tennessee when they both had more in the trophy case then UF did.
Foley hit the lottery with Billy Donovan. I believe it gave him the idea that he had the magic hiring formula. History shows that he didn't.
Definitely needs to play out But I have this feeling that it's just another train wreck for this program. Everything felt off after the Utah game.
I think we have two critical needs: QB and a tackling machine ILB, but need upgrades everywhere....particularly on Defense.
I liked coach boom, he just couldn’t trust any of his folks at all. Never cared for the next two at all. Trying to keep the faith with CBN. We have heard the same fan speak after each hire, and yet, weak sauce, but Napier does seem different. Fingers crossed for ESN and portal poaching
Only 2 years (2020) since we contended for an NC with a Heisman finalist until late in the season (inexplicable loss to inferior LSU). This makes us still relevant. That and giving some of the top teams (or eventual Champions) their toughest matchup of the year (Utah, Bama, LSU, etc.)
I was disappointed with the end result. I bought into the concept that hiring a huge staff with gobs of analysts would mean we could solve problems more quickly than previous administrations. This turned out to not be the case and I am wondering if having too many people leads to nobody being responsible for change. I'll chalk 2022 up to "new staff finding their bearings" but I'm definitely expecting greater things (quicker adjustments) for next year.
Analysts can't change much when you don't have players. Still, do you wait until you get players to hire them or get them in first? No one talked about Alabama's analysts until after they started winning National Championships, but Saban had them in place long before that happened.
UGA is #16 public school. In the real world is tied for 5 that much better than 16? In terms of job offers (aka what matters)? I’d honestly take the UGA route…. If we were talking #100 public school then yeah I’d rather the academics
