The athletic director at UF never hires a football coach in a vacuum. Many people are consulted, including high level boosters. Bill Arnsbarger wanted to hire Mike Archer, not Steve Spurrier. Ben Hill Griffin and others changed his mind.
5 head coaches in 13 years — if I’m a head coach offered the UF job, I wouldn’t consider it without a ridiculous buyout. Without it, and considering the demonstrated lack of patience from our fan base, there would be no reason to think I would ever get enough time to do the job right
High profile college head coach is one of the very very very few professions where a HBC is paid more to fail than succeed. IMO, it's ludicrous. If i were writing that contract, I would have eliminated the 85% and put in remaining balance * win/loss percentage at UF.. Any coach who would not take that wouldn't deserved to be hired.
I've read interviews with Sexton who indicates his success is because he finds creative ways to match the prospective buyer's needs and desires with the prospective sellers. In this case, I think that Sexton completely read the room of UF's strong desire for a stable, non-mercurial coach and convinced Stricklin the best way to get that stability was to hire a safe program builder and structure the contract in such a way that the security (giant buyout) was built-in. That + his ability to persuade UF to over-pay for a coach unproven at the top level lead to an undeserved contract out of the gate for Napier. Personally, I hope that Stricklin's gamble proves to be the correct one and I'm the idiot for being the doubter. I just don't see a lot of signs that point in that direction at the current time.
If I'm a coach that is confident in my ability, was coaching the equivalent of the Louisiana mud-dogs, and had my salary almost quadrupled? I would have been on that like a chicken on a June-bug regardless of a massive buyout. Massive buy-outs are for coaches that everyone has heard of and everyone wants to hire....not for an unknown coach from the FBS hinterlands. That should be reserved for the second contract or contract extension once there are some positive results.
I’m talking in general. And I have been told more than one prospective HC turned down the offer because of our roster - or lack there of. As for CBN, yes UF was a huge step up. So since we agree on that, how can we not recognize that our new HC would be on a steep learning curve stepping up to the big time? It’s a given. And yeah I hear all the people beating their chests and proclaiming that UF should not be an OTJ training position, but that’s not reality. A decade of irrelevance and a depleted roster are not going to lure a superstar coach, no matter how much some don’t want to accept that. It is what it is — we got a solid dude who has done a lot right and still has stuff to learn. Torpedoing his efforts at every turn by running down the program he’s trying to build (not speaking specifically of you here) doesn’t get us a great coach - only makes it harder for the one we have to succeed.
Whoa, lets slow down some. Billy Napier was not unknown in coaching circles or unwanted. He was on two of the best staffs in college and was coaching a Louisiana team that was ranked in the top 15. He had been considered for the Auburn job the year before, but HE did not think Auburn was a good situation and knew he would have other opportunities at big time schools. He convinced the administration that it needed to implement Alabama like resources to football if it wanted Alabama like results. It is quite curious and more than a little concerning that his team at Louisiana was ranked higher than his teams at Florida... IDK if he will be a great coach at Florida, but I generally think that the way most people succeed long term is by making repeatedly ingenious reactions to new problems (never making a mistake), so much as it is learning from and correcting your mistakes. (Like Spurrier embracing the shotgun). In the two seasons he has coached Florida, college football has fundamentally changed. Let's see how reacts to those changes rather than castigating him for not seeing them in advance or something.
My comments are also more in general. You may be right about not being able to attract a top coach after the Mullen fiasco, but that doesn't mean you have to sell the farm like we did to get an up and comer similar to Napier. Since you brought up Napier personally, his own and his administration's missteps have done way more to torpedo his chances at success than the fanbase has done. The fans have been wildly supportive (look at the attendance growth figures as well as glowing media reports of the game environment on those special nights like Utah in 2022 or UT in 2023).
As I said, methinks you are going to be in the minority when we see an unvarnished minor league to the NFL. And yes, I see it coming, sooner or later. It is just about how far UF will be "all-in". It appears as if we want to be "a little bit pregnant" in the short term. Not sure about after that.
I think pandora is already out of the box, the only thing that can rein in a bit of this are NIL rules and transfer rules. I dont think the model where both are infinite works and is sustainable.
IMO, what is going to rein it all in is 1) players getting cut and not being paid what they thought they deserved followed by 2) a players' union. Yay! As I have posted plenty of times, the inmates are running the asylum. And I don't mean just the players.
“sell the farm like we did” to hire Billy? I think our Venn Diagram is two independent circles on opposite ends of the page
Before you worry about letting Stricklin off your "naughty" list perhaps you should work on getting yourself off the look at me, look at me poser list. But I am sure that Stricklin is relieved to be off your "naughty" list. God knows he is not into that sort of thing. You don't have any expertise in how college athletics work. You don't know how the hiring process for a football coach works. I'm pretty sure you weren't a college athlete. I am also pretty sure you don't work in an athletic department, and never have, probably never played football, much less coached it. In other words, you have zero expertise upon which anyone should rely. Yet you ponce around like some expert. Oh, you naughty, naughty boy!! You don't know what happened with regard to Napier's hiring, you have no information, no connections and you know it. You aren't an influential booster, if you are a booster at all. You entirely make things up. Yet you post over and over again, poncing, posing, and acting like you know what you are talking about. You must so like the attention. You naughty, naughty boy.