Usually it’s pretty easy to look back on a program’s descent in purgatory and identify a juncture where it all went wrong. Usually, it’s a bad hire, or a series of bad hires.
What makes Florida’s current malaise so ironically tragic is that, in my humble opinion, they didn’t ever really make “terrible” hires on paper, anyway.
Will Muschamp was a sought after guy in 2011, as you remember. Mack wanted him as the next UT head coach.
Jim McElwain was an up and comer who had won two natties under Saban and was then turning around Colorado State.
Dan Mullen obviously had a lot of success relative to his position at Miss State, and had previously been a major part of two extremely special Florida squads in 2006 and 2008, so there was even a level of familiarity there.
Billy Napier had a lot of success at a cellar dweller mid major and also had a lot of experience coaching and recruiting in the south in general.
Now, I understand if one of these guys doesn’t work out long term. That’s life. It’s even to be expected that two of them can’t cut it in a conference this tough.
But four? All of them? Those are four very decent “paper hires”. The chances of all four of these coaches not working out are pretty slim. It would roughly be equivalent to us hiring Chizik, Gus, Haskins, and Freeze, and ALL FOUR failing to win anything.
What’s up with UF, bros? Is it an institutional thing? A financial thing? A culture thing? Why is Florida suddenly so hard of a job?
What makes Florida’s current malaise so ironically tragic is that, in my humble opinion, they didn’t ever really make “terrible” hires on paper, anyway.
Will Muschamp was a sought after guy in 2011, as you remember. Mack wanted him as the next UT head coach.
Jim McElwain was an up and comer who had won two natties under Saban and was then turning around Colorado State.
Dan Mullen obviously had a lot of success relative to his position at Miss State, and had previously been a major part of two extremely special Florida squads in 2006 and 2008, so there was even a level of familiarity there.
Billy Napier had a lot of success at a cellar dweller mid major and also had a lot of experience coaching and recruiting in the south in general.
Now, I understand if one of these guys doesn’t work out long term. That’s life. It’s even to be expected that two of them can’t cut it in a conference this tough.
But four? All of them? Those are four very decent “paper hires”. The chances of all four of these coaches not working out are pretty slim. It would roughly be equivalent to us hiring Chizik, Gus, Haskins, and Freeze, and ALL FOUR failing to win anything.
What’s up with UF, bros? Is it an institutional thing? A financial thing? A culture thing? Why is Florida suddenly so hard of a job?
