That and an endless cycle of turnstile coaches leads the program into a hole it may never get out of.
Remember that athletic directors do not get fired for wins and losses in one of 19 athletic programs. Stricklin is considered the #2 AD behind the Stanford AD, and Stanford’s football program is worse than Florida’s. Florida would need to fall $100M in the hole for him to get fired. He just navigated the athletic program through a $50M shortage due to COVID. Florida’s program is among the top 15 in revenue and in the top 10 in profit. To answer the question, Stricklin gets paid $1M a year through 2027. I think his contract is a 4-year base with several extensions. His latest extension nearly doubled his salary, which is #2 amongst all ADs.
You are hinting at the other reason Napier was brought here. Back in ‘79 it was Charley Pell who fixed the guts of the program, got the football program finances back in the positive, revamped the booster/ investor program, expanded the stadium, and got the team back to winning 8 games a year. Dickey had dragged the program into an 9-year hole—not just in terms of wins and losses but also finances and infrastructure. Napier is leading a revamping of the infrastructure, recruiting, relationships with high school programs, finances, and now NIL. Granted, I wish he could also win games and not make boneheaded decisions on the field, but otherwise he is doing well. If he cannot learn the on-field coaching stuff then he better hire an assistant head coach.
True, but Florida’s athletic program is one of the few that is profitable in multiple sports. This administration from the president down loves being the everything school. At other universities the football program funds 100% of all 20ish sports. At UF, football is part of a three-headed revenue generating system. Basketball earns just under $20M. Baseball earns about $1M. Football generally earns $100M alone. Investors will inflate those numbers in favor of football to maybe $150M, but UFAA allocates investments across all sports even if tagged for one sport.
I'm not either and I don't think most people want that. It's just those that think the slam dunk coach is just waiting to come in and save the day.
It’s a no-win situation, you don’t want to fire the guy because the turnover at this position has been disastrous, by the same token you also don’t want to just shut up and accept a substandard product on the field, so what do you do?
You give the guy more than a season and a half unless you got a guy doing stupid stuff on top of it like Taggert.
and here we are..... Begs the question about any top notch coaches out there who would take this job right now? That same question has come up many times over the past 15 years that we have been in the wilderness.
I remember feeling a bit panicked when Stoops, then Shanahan turned us down when Spurrier left. Zook was a consolation hire but, he was not as bad a head coach as some we’ve hired since. I admired the way Zook hung in there after he was fired. He stayed after being fired mid season then, if I’m not mistaken, took us to wins over Georgia and FSU. Contrast that to Mullen who bailed on the team after being fired and continued to draw a paycheck from UF.
We have certainly hired a lot of coaches who didn't work out but I am increasingly viewing that as a symptom of a larger problem with the athletic department and not the cause itself. Think about a lot of the top football schools: Ohio State: They arguably haven't had a bad football coach since World War II. Are they that smart they always hire good coaches or do they have a football factory recipe for success in which the machine just keeps running? Heck, their last interim coach would have been one of the best coaches we ever had. Georgia: They had a pretty long run of not good coaches but the program never got wrecked because the machine kept running in the background. Many of the teams Steve Spurrier boat raced had better talent than Florida. Florida State: They went through a brief rough period but the train never truly went off the tracks. Is Mike Norvell that good or is this what anyone who isn't late period Jimbo Fisher or Willie Taggart would be doing? Oregon: Does it even matter who the coach is? Penn State: Went through the worst scandal any school could possibly go through and a few years later they're back where they used to be. The only schools with our level of expectations that are as lousy as we are are Texas and USC and they have both been a mess institutionally.
Imo, plenty of top notch coaches would jump at the chance to move to beautiful Gainesville and coach at UF. Some even be willing to hire veteran OCs and DCs. Especially if the money is right. I’d like to cut that 400 million in half for stadium upgrades, especially the money spent to “enhance your experience” foolishness. Do not reduce seating. Spend the money on NIL or OCs and ST coaches?
Forgetting the buyout, what torques me is that FSU went the portal route to a 10-win season last year and likely playoff spot this year. Plus, their recruiting is on par with ours now. Meanwhile, we’ll have two losing seasons under Napier, plus an impossibly difficult season next year. We’ll have another losing season in 2024. It’s hard to wait until 2025. We’re stuck with Napier unless we want to go through another coaching change.
