If You Could Go Back to November 2021, Who Would You Hire?

I kind of addressed this one upthread. I’m just not sold on the “Mullen quit on the team” narrative. It could be true, but it also could be what we tell ourselves to justify his emotional firing after the Mizzou game. Seems to me he finally fired Grantham, admittedly too late, so there was a sign he was willing to make some changes. Maybe not. We will never know. And, of course, I agree that Mullen had some real deficiencies with recruiting. I’m just sold on the narrative that Napier’s classes have been so much better despite finishing in roughly the same place in the rankings. From my perspective, they both underwhelm in recruiting.

 

I don't blame you for being skeptical about Mullen.
it's a crappy thing to do.
But actually he was FORCED to fire Grantham and Hevesy after the USC game.
Stricklin forced it.
I'm not insider but it was all over this board.

The next week was Samford and the team hardly tried. Esp. the defense. They did not care.
The next week was Mizzou and as I said- it came out Mullen didn't even watch film of Mizzou the week before.
He made his game plan without it.

Don't get me wrong- I'm SURE Mullen has his side of the story.
I'm sure he would say the Admin put so much constraints on him, or some excuse, and they made it impossible to do his job.
Or something.
But he wouldn't get his buyout if he quit, so he said "they can just fire me."

 

I have never trusted him since he left Gainesville to play for the dogs when SOS failed to chow up for his PWO interview. That kind of impetuousness was always a red-flag to me.

 

Quick correction for ya, I did not say Billy isn't nor doesn't have an SEC squad. IMHO Billy has recruited a very good team. My comment was directed at Mullen, having another year, would NOT have recruited and left a hypothetical Kiffen hire 0 SEC talent to work with.

 

I have seen top 12 in blue chip ratio, guy just flat can't coach or motivate.

 

Ahh, but class ranking don't equal talent or blue chip ratio. DM took tons of non qualifiers to boot up the ratings, how many of his recruits that left went to SEC teams? Meanwhile Billy has a blue chip ratio on par with Meyer. Look it up. But now 4 or 5 teams eat up 80-90% of all the 5* talent and it's why the playoffs were the same boring handful of teams every year. I think DM was pissed he couldn't get an NFL job so he gave up, so I agree with other posters when they mention he has not taken another HC job. He could EASILY remedy his imagine at some mid tier ACC or BIG 10 school needing O, but he hasn't done that.

Btw I am no longer defending Billy, just pointing out their ranking are literally night and day apart even though they rank similar.

 

The two guys that feel the most like what's worked here (swagger, passion, confidence, points) in the past, Spurrier and Meyer, are Kiffin and Gundy to me. After that, I'd take Eli Drinkwitz or Hugh Freeze.

 

Billy Napier. I will go back to the magic time machine rather than tainting my response with what we learned between November 2021 and today. I ranked the following coaches by winning percentage at their current schools, overall winning percentage, and salary/ buyout and ranked my choices as follows:

1. Luke Fickell 76.27% AAC
   
2. Billy Napier 75.51% SBC
   
3. Dan Mullen 70.83% SEC
   
4. James Franklin 67.35% B1G
   
5. Kalen DeBoer 66.67% MWC
   
6. Lane Kiffin 65.00% SEC
   
7. Mel Tucker 64.71% B1G
   
8. Jamey Chadwell 58.70% SBC
   
9. Jeff Hafley 57.14% ACC
   
10. Mark Stoops 47.06% SEC
    
11. Jeff Lebby n/a
    
12. Joe Brady n/a

At the time it made sense to go after Napier as one of the top head coaches in terms of overall winning percentage and SEC experience. Also note that Louisiana had a better NIL program in 2021, albeit with a smaller dollar value and using the loose NIL guidelines that existed in 2021. Most of us assumed Fickell would have been the best hire on paper, but he was not going to leave the Midwest. Napier had the next best winning percentage, albeit from the Sun Belt Conference. Mullen still had a great winning percentage, but as some of us have concluded, he stopped caring or got burned out. James Franklin was not going to leave Penn State. Kalen DeBoer had a similar winning percentage as Billy Napier in a G5 conference, but did not have any SEC experience. The one thing DeBoer did have in his favor was a longer head coaching history. Lane Kiffin was my personal favorite. Given what we knew at the time, the best choices with a realistic chance of coming to Gainesville were Napier and Kiffin.

 

Florida hired Urban Meyer and he did not have any Power 5 head coaching experience. He came from the Mid-American and Mountain West conferences.

 

Kiffen. End of story.

 

Before Mullen I said it should be Kiffen, and it is still Kiffen.

Kiffen at Florida would be a problem for Georgia.

 

I think this gets lost, Utah was not in the PAC yet. Urban had achieved higher highs, but he was not all that dissimilar to BN.

 

Nah. It’s easy to forget but Mullen basically checked out after not getting an NFL gig after the Covid year. We had no choice but to cut ties.

 

I recall the general consensus is that the fan base was sold on his organizational and recruiting strengths, and his plans to rebuild the foundation of what many believed to be a breaking program.

But,there were very big question marks as to whether his mundane offensive scheme would or could win consistently in the SEC, something particularly questionable because Napier had done such a good job out-recruiting the rest of the Sunbelt giving his teams the better players. There was considerable talk in the boards then that the hope was he would bring in an innovative OC to address those concerns.

That said, I don’t think anyone envisioned the total collapse of our once proud defensive unit under Napier’s leadership.

 

I don’t see how we can afford to hire anyone other than a sure thing this time around. We are a desperate program.

 

How do we even know whether our talent is elite? We can’t go based in recruiting stars alone, and our players are not placed in situations to maximize their talent. It’s all a big mystery.

 

I like it!
(Remind me again, who is that sure thing guy?)

 

Fair point, for sure, and I am not paid to research, interview, study and decide that question. But I think the place to start is track record in terms of recruiting, wins, schemes, management, talent acquisition for both coaches and players, and then study cultural fit. Alabama, for example, quickly hired a guy who had a proven record in these areas. As a fan, the guys I would look to first would be Lance Leipold, Lane Kiffen, and I’d make a call to Lincoln Riley to see how much he actually enjoys that Hollywood lifestyle.

 

I want to go back and roll out the red carpet for Spurrier after Meyer. Perfect liason to transition into the next coach. At the very least exciting teams that would be competitive yearly and would have recruited well for when he retired for the next guy.