Scathing Stricklin article from All kinds of weather

They used the threat of that to negotiate down the buyout. I thought Dan might step up his recruiting game, and I was excited about his offense. Who knew he would be such a burn-out.

 

How do you think NIL will be changed?

 

You obviously never worked in the business world.

No one does business like this.

It will change.

 

You'd make a great moderator.

 

Not really. In all kinds of weather you support the university. Doesn't mean you support all the staff, and if you don't then you support the university anyway and hope they hire different people.

 

I am no Striklin fan, but you lay out the best defense of him I have read.

 

However, Foley inherited an athletic program that had underachieved for decades. He cleaned it up and raised it to heights it had never seen...among the top 5 all around programs in the country. Foley was the GOAT. SS inherited a top 5 athletic program. It's not fair to expect SS to live up to that, but I never expected the program to fall so quickly under his leadership.

 

Almost seems like propaganda when stated that way Scott.

 

It is institutional, but it is not academic, it is the UAA. People love to blame our top 5 public university for issues, but success in the physics department does not cause failure on the football field.

Our UAA did not fund football facilities (Foley). Then we hired several coaches not up to the task (3 Ms). Now our boosters are matching top 20 NIL but our UAA is focused on a stadium renovation? Talk about fiddling while Rome burns!! Folks pointing at academics and that leadership are missing the mark - it is not Tigert Hall but the UAA that has dunked our program. This article is correct that Stricklin’s record is a disaster and how he has handled serious issues is horrendous to date.

 

lot of people here hated Foley at the end, some of which due to his handling SOS and failure with facilities. I always thought he was right with SOS, no interview, no job.

 

The decline in Gator athletics was happening prior to SS. Foley had not invested in facilities and we were woefully behind. We now have competitive facilities with others, not better. Will agree that SS coaching hires have been poor. Tried to find a cheap lower level coach that can make transition to top of P5. Other ADs spend more for coaches that have already proven themselves. This lack of brand hurts in recruiting. Golden has no reputation to attract HS recruits and must go international and portal due to HS recruiting failures thus far. Could also be SS does not have budget for hiring or stealing top college coaches??? Could be funding shortfall??

 

But the guy he hired instead won two National Championships. Not sure Spurrier would’ve done that.

 

I think Foley took his foot off the gas, which was the beginning of our decline.
It's human nature to become content with what you have and think it will last forever.

OTOH, he certainly was responsible for a lot of our unprecedented success.

 

I agree mostly but I don’t think stricklin wants our football team to fall behind as they have. He didn’t withhold the money needed to keep our class together. He’s more bummed than we are as it’s his job on the line. He doesn’t make those decisions.

 

It's ludicrous to think that Stricklin wants to bury our revenue sports. I'm sure he cares greatly as his
job depends on it.

He's just not qualified to fix this. He's a meh AD from a meh school who is very much in over his head.

He brought the Stark to Gainesville and we're living with the results of it.

 

Stands out …

“It’s no secret anymore that the days of “love the logo” and “I only want guys who want to be Gators” are gone. Paying players, aka NIL, is the way the game is played, and whether you as an individual fan like that or not does nothing to change that reality.

On July 1, 2021, NIL became signed into law, and each school faced an existential choice: get with it, or get left behind.”

 

I dunno about that. It’s very possible his hands are tied. He’s an employee. If I were he, I’d have kept our class together with some of that 400 mil stadium cash. I’m certain that option wasn’t on the table for him but Kiffen got exactly that. It’s doable but don’t blame Stricklin for decisions that come from above

 

Leon Orr said every player on the team was on the payroll. Do you think he was making that up

 

Of course SS, Jeremy, Billy and everyone else wants our football program to succeed. Hell, I don’t get paid millions and I want it to succeed, so these guys whose livelihood depends on it certainly pine for success. Him wanting to succeed or “being bummed” at failure is not relevant.

The truth is that the AD is the boss of the football coach (unless you are Saban). If my job was to hire/fire our HBC and I believed, for example, that one of our OL coaches needed to be replaced with an experienced OC who could recruit, I would insist on it. You empower employees to succeed based on their ability to succeed and you push them if they are not. Allowing them to flounder and fail hurts the organization and likely will lead to your own firing.

As to money being “withheld” that could have kept our class together? First, is it known to be true that money was available? The Alabama AD openly supports their NIL, while SS has not said one thing - SS should be pushing for that money. Second, I have heard that big $ NIL donors want to see proof that we have the right staff before committing more money. Ensuring that happens is Stricklin’s job.

SS has been at UF since 2016, has been paid millions and has led football/basketball to losing tens of millions in coaching buyouts and poor on field results (including historically poor football). He literally ignored allegations of student abuse (physical/emotional) multiple times. His record is trash and he (and BN) need to own the crappy current record and fix it. That is the job.