I appreciate and respect your thoughts here and share them whole heartedly, with one minor amplification. In each of the instances in which I've been around for the beginning of a new HC's career at UF, the four coaches whom I consider to be program builders and true difference makers were clearly the causative force behind an atypical spike in UF's FB fortunes. Since Ray Graves arrived in 1960 and more or less reinvented Florida FB, we have watched Pell's fire and determination transform a soft, directionless program into a juggernaut that steamrolled opponents like few Gator teams ever have. If he had realized that his get out of jail free card from his days at Bama had expired, his contributions to the program might have been far greater. I obviously don't have to tell anybody here about the HBC and Urban, or their exploits. My point is that we aren't in a position to attract a modern analog for any of those guys. We are simply not a hot property at the moment. FTR, we haven't had the heavyweight coaches exactly banging on our door during any of the failed hires that have brought us to this point. The bottom-line, IMO is that we are strong enough overall to win championships with an exceptional HC. The problem is landing one and then doing what has to be done to retain him. We have not been great at doing that for quite a while now. I do hope and believe that Billy can be successful in getting us back to relevance. TBH, I'd be happy to be just very good for a minute - if it sets the table for something better in another year or two. Being this far down for this long is pure torture.
If we top out as a 9-10 win program who ruins seasons of rivals and do it with integrity, I’m good with it overall. I never want to trade titles for the kind of organizations that we see in Tally and Athens. If this results in some of the N.C. at all costs fans to find a new team, I will still sleep soundly at night.
I definitely don’t let it bother me as much as I use to. During Dpurrier, I’d be pissed by a loss for for or five days usually. It’s much more common now or maybe I don’t care as much? I think I just haven’t had my hopes up in a long time. The shoe was the last time I was really pissed but got over it sort of by Monday. Kid is still a dipshit though.
There’s a ton of schools trying to hire the next Saban. Bama had several whiffs before they got the right one. I guess it’s not an exact science.
He made his bed the moment he kept crappy assistant coaches, and never fired one of several dead weight clowns. A good/great coach is never afraid to fire bad assistant coaches.
The last 3 coaches were clearly in over their head. Napier is not. Not a Spurrier or Meyer but He's a keeper. He does face unprecedented challenges which might have him moving on, spurred on by those who want a Spurrier or Meyer.
Your right it is not an exact science, but if you look at Bama's hires they almost alway hire a proven P5 coach and for the most part they usually do pretty well, just not well enough for Bama. The disaster they had was hiring Mike Shula an unproven P5 coach. Our only 2 coaches that did well here since 1990 were SOS and Urban both were proven P5 coaches before they were hired. It is a very steep learning curve if you have not done it. The odds are much higher finding a good coach who is already doing well at the P5 level. So there is some science to it. I feel like most of us could have done a better job hiring a good coach or at least ones that don't sell Barbecue sauce on the side. I'm not sure why we need to keep trying to find the diamond in the rough, but I hope we got one.
I agree with your classification of CBN as a "potential" keeper. But he has got to show that this year's team is way better coached and way more disciplined when playing. I don't know if 7-8 wins are in the cards for this year with the schedule we have. However, I will be more than willing to give CBN more time if the team is competitive through the whole game with the ranked teams. If we lose a close game because the other team is just a bit better than us, then okay. However, if we look so unprepared and keep making the same stupid mistakes, that's not okay. For the lesser teams we should beat, I want to see us put them away by no later than the middle of the third quarter.
If Mike Shula was a disaster for Bama then I would take that over some of what we've experienced. He was a ho-hum Muschampian coach, but the real disaster at Bama occurred when wunderkind Mike Dumbose, who had only worked as a Coordinator for 1 year under Stallings, was promoted to HC. He and his cohorts (Swinney was one of 'em) cratered that program with rampant cheating that was inspiring even by Bama standards.
Duke? Really? I certainly didn’t see Spurrier taking the sec by storm. Utah wasn’t a power either although Meyer did have a bit more hype.shula wasn’t their only dud either. Theirs lasted about a decade too.
Mike Shula was a last minute fill in after Bama fired Mike Price after his stripper incident. They didn’t have many choices due to the timing of things.
The Glory years are over and in the distant past. I feel so fortunate to have been a student from 91-97 and witnessed incredible games with the last one being the FSU 97 games. This sport runs in cycles and we all see who the top teams are now. They wont be 5-10 years from now. Look at Nebraska...they have not come close to their glory days and most likely never will again. We have a chance to be a consistent 7-9 win team with maybe a potential break through season..who knows...but another dynasty run is not coming.
That's what I'm saying. At least be successful at the P5 level before hiring someone for this massive job. (Not a huge bar.) SOS did win the ACC with duke, the only title they have had in the past 60 years. Also, Urban went 13-0 with Utah. To me that is the kind of things you look for before you pay someone millions to coach at this level. Guys like James Franklin, before hired at Pen State, just stand out to me, and would have loved to be our coach. This is not a place to come and learn. Fans are way too impatient. A job like this can snowball in a positive direction, but much more easily in a negative direction. That is why he must know what he is doing and hit the ground running. I feel like the fans have been very patient with Billy, much more patient than any coach since SOS and I hope it pays off. I really like Billy and I hope he is our coach for a long time. Once he fixes this program, from the past incompetence, there is no real reason to ever have less than 8 wins again other than incompetence.
