Top reasons to not fire Scott Stricklin just because the football team is not winning championships

[Escambia94]

It is hard to believe this post needs to be written, but with losses mounting if it good to have this information on hand for those heated debates over Thanksgiving dinner or Sunday morning Twitter debates.

Scott Stricklin is considered the #2 athletic director in the country. He is a CEO who oversees a $190M business (#8 in the nation) with Billy Napier as an SVP running an $85M business unit (#14 in the nation). Win or lose, Gator investors flow in up to $768M per year in donations (#4 in the nation).

The Internet likes to highlight Stricklin’s mishandling of abuse by Cam Newbauer, but there has been no formal charges on this issue and no complaints have arisen since Newbauer was fired.

All this talk of firing Stricklin, Napier, the special teams coach, or the janitor all needs to stop. This is stupid.

 

[Escambia94]

Athletic programs with largest donor base:

1. Oregon $969M ($500M Phil Knight)
2. Texas A&M $849M ($120M Centennial Campaign)
3. Texas $766M
4. Florida $763M ($22.5M Gary Condron, $12.6M Hugh Hathcock)
5. Georgia $716M

 

[DRU2012]

It is hard to believe this post needs to be written, but with losses mounting if it good to have this information on hand for those heated debates over Thanksgiving dinner or Sunday morning Twitter debates.

Scott Stricklin is considered the #2 athletic director in the country. He is a CEO who oversees a $190M business (#8 in the nation) with Billy Napier as an SVP running an $85M business unit (#14 in the nation). Win or lose, Gator investors flow in up to $768M per year in donations (#4 in the nation).

The Internet likes to highlight Stricklin’s mishandling of abuse by Cam Newbauer, but there has been no formal charges on this issue and no complaints have arisen since Newbauer was fired.

All this talk of firing Stricklin, Napier, the special teams coach, or the janitor all needs to stop. This is stupid.

Yes--and I wouldn't have thought this needed discussing outside the most troll-ridden sites EITHER...but I TOO have noticed the sudden surge in appearances of this specific sentiment in some previously comparatively reasonably-toned sites that up til now were devoid of such ignorance and idiocy.
However, for the moment at least, given the actual "built-in relative immunity" of Strickland's positional support, AND the (albeit temporary) nature of Billy's current unfireability (for the moment rendered purposefully financially forbidding) allows HIM to mostly ignore such caterwalling--and us right along WITH him...So let us for the moment indulge ourselves in our ability to (thankfully) IGNORE THESE FOOLS.

 

[Leakfan12]

I do agree, football is a major sport but it's one of 17 programs unless you count dancing and cheerleading teams as well. The Baseball were CWS runners-up. Unsure about the other programs, how are you doing?

 

[DRU2012]

Well, here's the danger:
Bad news now starting to break against us in terms of our once-building recruiting haul:
We lost TWO important 4-star defensive commits over the weekend...commit LB Mack flipped to Texas, and once-solid commit Edge rusher Waller flipped to AUBURN, was there fir a visit while WE were losing to LSU.
There are apparently several other wavering commits from the defensive side--and this was a class necessarily focused on improving our Defense, as unfortunately this last game has hammered home all the harder.
Not only can we NOT afford to lose any MORE on Defense (which to hear the panic in the voices of fear-mongering click-bait like that weird guy from Gatirs Online, is not just "possible" but "more and more likely), but it probably DOES mean that we WILL need to both at the very least both shore UP our ties to the rest of the current collection of recruits AND redouble efforts to pick up a couple more 4- and 5-stars, now more than EVER.
In addition, it becomes all the more inescapable that we make real headway in adding some experienced upgrades from the transfer portal this time.
Only the prospect of holding onto what was projected as a historic haul in recruiting, then proceeding to even IMPROVE on it may now have slipped away, and perhaps the BEST we can do from HERE is to do enough "plugging and mending" to keep ourselves in nearly as much promise and stature overall.
Our one clear and bright, shining "ray of HOPE" is now threatened--so protecting, even IMPROVING it somehow from here becomes a new and necessary challenge: One requiring us to redouble our efforts in this regard!
Fortunately, if there is one area in which our Coach and staff have shown themselves relentlessly adept at mastering, repeatedly thriving and converting successfully at it is this.
OUR future is tied to THEIR future, and that future is tied to them now successfully redoubling their efforts--and THOSE "efforts" to now yield RESULTS..."results" in the form of 2 or 3 more additional surprises!

 

[Escambia94]

Going back in time to this post with an updated perspective. Here are the problems and potential solutions to fix Florida Gator football:

• Problem 1: The Gator football program business model is outdated and entirely dependent on success experienced under Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer. As mentioned above, Florida football as an institution became arrogant and complacent. The Florida football model under Spurrier and Meyer worked under the Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance and Bowl Championship Series era from 1995-2014, but not the College Football Playoff era that started in 2015.
• --Solution 1: UF should hire an external agency to evaluate its business model for football and overall athletics. Consider adding an independent non-profit organization just for football operations with its own general manager who reports to the university president co-equal to the athletic director, or add a board of interested parties (UF alumni with connections to the NFL) to add gravitas to the GM position that is subordinate to the athletic director. One of those two directions is probably the right way to make the Gator football program relevant as a pipeline to the NFL. If the solution is to fire Scott Stricklin, then it needs to be done in conjunction with the hiring of a football general manager and a new athletic director who can lead or co-lead all varsity athletics with football being operated as differently as the NCAA rules allow.
• Problem 2: The University of Florida lacks a modern vision for modern "semiprofessional athletics". Jeremy Foley will go down as one of the greatest athletic directors in history. His vision for the football program and all 19 varsity athletics was cutting edge for most of his tenure from 1992 to 2016. However, he still wields power within the University Athletic Association (UAA) today as AD Emeritus. I have seen reports that current AD Scott Stricklin is often treated like the figurehead or a lesser influential vote compared to Foley and some of the more influential members of the UAA. The members are listed near the bottom of this page: Overview & History. Since nobody of note has been allowed to report from the inside what the board of directors does in UAA meetings, we can only speculate how bad things are by looking at the results or by extrapolating from sparse information. It is safe to conclude that at least in terms of football and likely with other sports affected by NIL that UAA is outdated in its thinking and is no longer the innovator of college sports as a revenue driver. In terms of revenue, Florida has fallen from #3 in the nation during the Meyer era down to about #15 in the Mullen and Napier eras.
• --Solution 2: With revenue sharing becoming a reality in 2025, UAA needs to revamp itself now to take advantage of NIL deals and revenue sharing across all sports, and it should probably coexist with another non-profit just for football.
• Problem 3: The Everything School has become the Everything-but-football School. The University of Florida is among the top 5 in terms of donations from athletic boosters at around $760M of endowment but is not listed in the top 20 for NIL collectives. Granted, the metrics for "top NIL collectives" are highly speculative, but we can safely conclude when watching athletes flip to schools ranked with higher NIL collectives that NIL must be a factor. There is a report stating that Florida leads in one aspect of NIL--amount of NIL deals. For all we know, that could be 5,000 NIL deals each worth a $20 gift certificate at the nearest Flanigan's. That might be 4 hours away. UF president Kent Fuchs and Ben Sasse successfully led Florida to an era where UF is considered one of the top public universities in the USA and a top "public ivy school". All that is great, but looking at the publicly accessible annual financial reports, the UAA brings in twice as much funding as the UFRF (University of Florida Research Foundation). The University of Florida Foundation (UFF) is the top revenue stream other than UAA, with UAA being the top revenue stream other than UFF. Gary Condron and Hugh Hathcock are the two big name donors that most of us talk about on social media, because we do not have alumni who are CEOs of national brands like Phil Knight at Oregon (Nike, Inc) or Doug McMillon at Arkansas (Walmart, Inc). To make matters worse, out of the 413,000 alumni (14th largest) or 6 million fans (6th largest), it is hard to convince enough of us to donate more than $120 a year. Nobody knows the NIL donation rates amongst schools, but we can safely assume that is it not 100% and it is not 0%. It will take a change in the product on the field to convince more fans to donate to NIL. At some point the wealthy donors will experience donor fatigue if they have not already.
• --Solution 3: The Gator Boosters and the actual UF staff need to figure out a way to navigate today's era of football as being integral to the national identity of the University of Florida and not treat it as a nice windfall of cash that will always be there even with losing seasons.

Summary:

• Do not fire Billy Napier without a plan to hire a general manager for football and possibly a new athletic director.
• Do not let Scott Stricklin hire the next football coach without first hiring a new general manager for football operations.
• Do not fire Scott Stricklin without creating an independent football non-profit organization.
• Restructure the booster and NIL donation programs across all academic and athletic endeavors at Florida.

 

[DRU2012]

Let's go back to the title of this thread:
It probably was more applicable to an argument against replacing Dan Mullen...But that was in a different context entirely (he could manage double-digit wins, but appeared to have lost all interest in recruiting).
It isn't just the people he has brought in, but the back-end loaded contracts he has signed then to.
I don't know that I have much faith in his fixing the future here.

 

[Escambia94]

Let's go back to the title of this thread:
It probably was more applicable to an argument against replacing Dan Mullen...But that was in a different context entirely (he could manage double-digit wins, but appeared to have lost all interest in recruiting).
It isn't just the people he has brought in, but the back-end loaded contracts he has signed then to.
I don't know that I have much faith in his fixing the future here.

That is exactly why we should stop talking about firing the wrong people. The Florida athletics program will continue to decline across all sports if things do not change now. Focusing on a football coach and an athletic director is just begging for more of the same. The game changer will be revenue sharing in 2025. Alabama and Tennessee are already postured to take advantage of their ~$20M revenue shares to leap past Florida. Meanwhile we stupid Gator fans are making up shit to justify firing Scott Stricklin and Billy Napier. While Florida is repeating its mistakes since 2002, every one of our rivals is modernizing their athletics programs. If Florida cannot recognize the problem then perhaps we deserve what will happen over the next decade.

 

[DRU2012]

That is exactly why we should stop talking about firing the wrong people. The Florida athletics program will continue to decline across all sports if things do not change now. Focusing on a football coach and an athletic director is just begging for more of the same. The game changer will be revenue sharing in 2025. Alabama and Tennessee are already postured to take advantage of their ~$20M revenue shares to leap past Florida. Meanwhile we stupid Gator fans are making up shit to justify firing Scott Stricklin and Billy Napier. While Florida is repeating its mistakes since 2002, every one of our rivals is modernizing their athletics programs. If Florida cannot recognize the problem then perhaps we deserve what will happen over the next decade.

Have you read Saban's recent comments/observations regarding this very subject? I don't claim to have any real insight into the backroom economics you seem to be citing, E--, but questioning the hires Stickland and his buddies have made, the financial choices and MISCHOICES they have made over the years (again, I cite Saban) I DO follow, and I just don't agree that QUESTIONING some of those, even holding the responsible parties RESPONSIBLE does NOT make us "stupid Gator fans".
I am sorry you feel that way. I don't claim to know what the right move is, but SOME missteps are staring us in the face, and we want to at least see them considered, perhaps even addressed before the NEXT "MOMENTOUS DECISION" is made.
Is that so blindly "stupid"?
You talk about "not firing the wrong people", then go on to warn against the consequences of "not recognizing the problem"...
How in HELL do we avoid either without a frank and open discussion addressing ALL OF THAT AND MORE?
Anyway, there are forces at work that, right or wrong, are influencing and will CONTINUE to influence the actual on-scene REALITIES, financial and emotional.
Do not underestimate the power of EITHER in changing that "reality", Iike it or not.
We may have to deal with rapidly changing circumstances--"stupid" or not.
All we are trying to do here is puzzle through what to make of the fix we are in. Personally, I am not so concerned with "BLAME" as I am with somehow figuring how we best react in order to begin to turn it around--and above all, maybe "GET IT RIGHT" this time?

 

[DRU2012]

...which now in turn brings us to the NEXT obvious question:
What would YOU recommend, E--?
Are you in favor of simply "standing pat"?
If "yes", make your case.
If "no", What THEN?

 

[DRU2012]

Well, no one HERE will address this, it seems, and meanwhile there's all KINDS of moment on it online and at large!
After Nick Saban (whose remsrks I WILL at least listen to and consider), then the rest of the College Gameday bobbleheads (whose views I am normally somewhat LESS inclined to take seriously), followed by Paul Finebaum (whom I have come to see more sbsmore an "erudite blowhard" as time goes on) and now a growing stampede of the typical "me too!"-media crowd have all jumped on Saban's well-founded remarks to ride his coattails on thus subject, it gets harder abd harder to ignore.
I'm talking about his condemnation of how abs why we fell behind, were behind ti STATT with back when Urban was here winning Nattues and failed to upgrade our program and its facilities THEN, continued those failures in ensuing years even as the product ON the field detiorated, and finally missed the boat ENTIRELY when NIL came and as the CFB Reality changed entirely.
Just in case anyone missed the underlying point Nick was making and the "dark side of the force" he was referring to when he talked about "it not being the COACHES who were the problem at UF" (the very THING, by the way, that almost certainly played a large part in his leaving his position of Coach at the most successful CFB program in modern history)--NIL!!! Saban is far from the only "old school" Head Coach who didn't like where the College Game was headed...He was just the highest profile one and first to outright WALK AWAY.
NOW he is telling us that it was our failing to recognize, properly prepare for, organize and above all PUMP VAST AMOUNTS OF CASH INTO our then nascent NIL PROGRAM back when it was all about to begin. We let schools with nowhere NEAR our resources get way out in front on this (Miami, Colorado, others) and it is STILL biting our butts, costing us big time in any number of ways.
That's how I read his comments, anyway. It just took Aly Peak to read between the lines and spell it all out for the rest of us. Well, we are surely in deep doo-doo NOW, folks.
But here's the thing: We CAN throw MONEY at this problem. We've got it, and whether. we spend it on "Billy's Big Buy Out" and/or whatever ELSE, we have and will HAVE to bite one MORE "Big Bullet" and pump a bunch more in that one OTHER place we failed to fund properly in a timely manner before now: That whole strange new world of "Pay For Play"!
I don't claim to know how all thus is gonna work; I DO know that I really don't like the way the College Game I love is more snd more morphing into the Junior NFL...I fear it will ruin it for fans like me. But if we wanna keep up, properly rebuild snd once more eventually be WINNERS again, that is the path we must not just get on.
WE MUST BLAZE IT!

 

[Escambia94]

Well, no one HERE will address this, it seems, and meanwhile there's all KINDS of moment on it online and at large!
After Nick Saban (whose remsrks I WILL at least listen to and consider), then the rest of the College Gameday bobbleheads (whose views I am normally somewhat LESS inclined to take seriously), followed by Paul Finebaum (whom I have come to see more sbsmore an "erudite blowhard" as time goes on) and now a growing stampede of the typical "me too!"-media crowd have all jumped on Saban's well-founded remarks to ride his coattails on thus subject, it gets harder abd harder to ignore.
I'm talking about his condemnation of how abs why we fell behind, were behind ti STATT with back when Urban was here winning Nattues and failed to upgrade our program and its facilities THEN, continued those failures in ensuing years even as the product ON the field detiorated, and finally missed the boat ENTIRELY when NIL came and as the CFB Reality changed entirely.
Just in case anyone missed the underlying point Nick was making and the "dark side of the force" he was referring to when he talked about "it not being the COACHES who were the problem at UF" (the very THING, by the way, that almost certainly played a large part in his leaving his position of Coach at the most successful CFB program in modern history)--NIL!!! Saban is far from the only "old school" Head Coach who didn't like where the College Game was headed...He was just the highest profile one and first to outright WALK AWAY.
NOW he is telling us that it was our failing to recognize, properly prepare for, organize and above all PUMP VAST AMOUNTS OF CASH INTO our then nascent NIL PROGRAM back when it was all about to begin. We let schools with nowhere NEAR our resources get way out in front on this (Miami, Colorado, others) and it is STILL biting our butts, costing us big time in any number of ways.
That's how I read his comments, anyway. It just took Aly Peak to read between the lines and spell it all out for the rest of us. Well, we are surely in deep doo-doo NOW, folks.
But here's the thing: We CAN throw MONEY at this problem. We've got it, and whether. we spend it on "Billy's Big Buy Out" and/or whatever ELSE, we have and will HAVE to bite one MORE "Big Bullet" and pump a bunch more in that one OTHER place we failed to fund properly in a timely manner before now: That whole strange new world of "Pay For Play"!
I don't claim to know how all thus is gonna work; I DO know that I really don't like the way the College Game I love is more snd more morphing into the Junior NFL...I fear it will ruin it for fans like me. But if we wanna keep up, properly rebuild snd once more eventually be WINNERS again, that is the path we must not just get on.
WE MUST BLAZE IT!

Nick Saban won a national championship at LSU in 2003 before taking the job at Alabama in 2007. That gave him the gravitas with the Alabama president through the athletic director to make the changes that he recommended, with many of those changes being a transformation into a professional organization like the NFL. Saban's comments are basically in my recommendations above:
- Scott Stricklin needs to hire a professional general manager--a real one, not a director of player personnel who only has college experience as a subordinate to the coach.
- Kent Fuchs needs to reorganize the UAA. The goal is to get Jeremy Foley and his cronies to get out of the way of a complete modernization effort.

Nick Saban did not address my other point because Alabama does not try to be a public Ivy League school or Harvard of the South. Florida has the resources to be both an esteemed academic institution and a football power, but it starts with following Saban's advice on the football program. Changing head coaches without changing anything else is asinine.

 

[DRU2012]

Nick Saban won a national championship at LSU in 2003 before taking the job at Alabama in 2007. That gave him the gravitas with the Alabama president through the athletic director to make the changes that he recommended, with many of those changes being a transformation into a professional organization like the NFL. Saban's comments are basically in my recommendations above:
- Scott Stricklin needs to hire a professional general manager--a real one, not a director of player personnel who only has college experience as a subordinate to the coach.
- Kent Fuchs needs to reorganize the UAA. The goal is to get Jeremy Foley and his cronies to get out of the way of a complete modernization effort.

Nick Saban did not address my other point because Alabama does not try to be a public Ivy League school or Harvard of the South. Florida has the resources to be both an esteemed academic institution and a football power, but it starts with following Saban's advice on the football program. Changing head coaches without changing anything else is asinine.

OK--but that still leaves us having to make the change at COACH as well.
I understand and by now clearly see the need to make the changes YOU insist must ALSO be made, E--...I even have come around to the idea that we'll need to make a host of SURROUNDING coaching changes TOO--may HAVE to make those BEFORE hiring the new Head Coach! Otherwise, maybe the underlying structure doesn't change.
Have you seen today's "In All Kinds Of Weather" ("IAKOW")? The one entitled, "With loss to USF...the worst Coach in Gator History"?
(And a loss would be close to making that STATISTICALLY "true", by the way.)
We are now approaching THAT kind of "record of futility"--without all the assorted baggage or endless excuses that set the stage for those earlier "bad times" (little things, like World Wars that coincided with or just preceded them).
Billy Napier is a nice guy, clearly a decent man--but so far there is not much evidence that he is a great Coach, or at all READY to BE a HEAD Coach at this level...and we just don't have the time to "see" if he'll eventually "grow into it"!
I happen to also believe that the so-called "braintrust" or "power brokers" responsible for finding and HIRING the right guy(s) to get that done have had more than their fair share of chances here.
Let's not argue about it, OK?
It ain't a MATTER of "if" or "WHEN?" anymore, but rather "Who?", "How?", and the further details beyond all that...and we DAMN well better get it RIGHT this time!!!
Right across the BOARD!

 

[Escambia94]

OK--but that still leaves us having to make the change at COACH as well.
I understand and by now clearly see the need to make the changes YOU insist must ALSO be made, E--...I even have come around to the idea that we'll need to make a host of SURROUNDING coaching changes TOO--may HAVE to make those BEFORE hiring the new Head Coach! Otherwise, maybe the underlying structure doesn't change.
Have you seen today's "In All Kinds Of Weather" ("IAKOW")? The one entitled, "With loss to USF...the worst Coach in Gator History"?
(And a loss would be close to making that STATISTICALLY "true", by the way.)
We are now approaching THAT kind of "record of futility"--without all the assorted baggage or endless excuses that set the stage for those earlier "bad times" (little things, like World Wars that coincided with or just preceded them).
Billy Napier is a nice guy, clearly a decent man--but so far there is not much evidence that he is a great Coach, or at all READY to BE a HEAD Coach at this level...and we just don't have the time to "see" if he'll eventually "grow into it"!
I happen to also believe that the so-called "braintrust" or "power brokers" responsible for finding and HIRING the right guy(s) to get that done have had more than their fair share of chances here.
Let's not argue about it, OK?
It ain't a MATTER of "if" or "WHEN?" anymore, but rather "Who?", "How?", and the further details beyond all that...and we DAMN well better get it RIGHT this time!!!
Right across the BOARD!

That is why this thread is titled

Top reasons to not fire Scott Stricklin just because the football team is not winning championships​

There are other threads for discussions on the head coach. We all know he sucks. Nothing can change the fact that he will go down as the worst coach in Gator history--at least nothing short of a a miracle stretch where everything happens to reverse itself and the Gators win out. It is worth noting that at this time, the head coach hiring and firing decision is actually not as important as the changes that need to happen from the university president down to the head coach. Swapping out the head coach now does not fix the problem. All that does is kick the can down the road as our competition is making the changes.

 

[DRU2012]

That is why this thread is titled

Top reasons to not fire Scott Stricklin just because the football team is not winning championships​

There are other threads for discussions on the head coach. We all know he sucks. Nothing can change the fact that he will go down as the worst coach in Gator history--at least nothing short of a a miracle stretch where everything happens to reverse itself and the Gators win out. It is worth noting that at this time, the head coach hiring and firing decision is actually not as important as the changes that need to happen from the university president down to the head coach. Swapping out the head coach now does not fix the problem. All that does is kick the can down the road as our competition is making the changes.

Sigh. Yes.
Yes, yes, YES!!!
BUT:
WTF DO WE DO NOW???

 

[DRU2012]

(In a frustrated huff, I just impulsively cancelled "ESPN Plus" on my Firestick account: I had it partly for a kind of "back up" in case a "lesser" Gator game wasn't picked up anywhere else in the course of this season as we continued our sinking "national relevance", and also just because while I USED to be a rabid college football fan, between the changes coming to modern CFB (like NIL quickly/steadily morphing into "Pay For Play") and that same descent in the quality and relevance of GATOR Football, I am less and less inclined to spend my Saturdays, morning, noon and night watching as various games alternate with clueless talking heads missing the point entirely. So I'll be damned if I will pay NOT to watch it!
All of which is symptomatic of how these realities have affected one loyal fan. I can only imagine how far and deep this kind of alienation goes among those who were never as fervently committed nor for near as long as I have been (OVER 50 YEARS).
It will eventually affect the Swamp in various ways too--and if they wait until it is actually felt in TICKET SALES, well, it will be a very long time coming back--if it EVER DOES!
Are these guys, this so-called "braintrust", so irresponsibly STUPID that they do not understand this already? Whatever is going to be done from here, we can only HOPE that "the panic point" has already long since knowingly been passed, some kind of flexible "MASTERPLAN" is in place, and somehow it simply requires patience and the proper timing.
It sure doesn't APPEAR so--but that doesn't mean it ain't the case. But EVERYONE is ultimately judged by the results of their efforts--and so it is with whomever is in charge of steering this program. I'm tired of excuses, frustration, anger and blame.
I want, NEED to see actual positive moves with OBSERVABLE RESULTS. If THAT is now too much to ask, then to hell with ALL OF 'EM!
I mean it; Things have gone that far for me--and I doubt that I'm alone in feeling that way.
I had a chance to go to the Gator game here in Austin in a few weeks--and I turned it down. Unimaginable as that may had been until very recently, at this point I just have no interest in spending that kind of money (hundreds of dollars) to see my Gators get embarrassed for all the world to see. I had DREAMED of this meeting some day, and if I had even A SMALL SPARK OF HOPE, I would have thrown the money DOWN regardless, just for the chance to be there to witness the possibility of another GREAT GATOR MOMENT. But "HOPE" is all but GONE by now...and it isn't the money so much as how little of that "hope" that I have LEFT that I just cannot afford to squander.
So: Until I see adequate sign that bright and responsible persons have a viable plan that they indeed are enacting, and that it is beginning to gain traction and produce TANGIBLE RESULTS, like so many others I must hunker down and for the moment suspend judgement AND support.
I am a Gator ALWAYS, and "Won't Back Down"...But right now, that makes me an underdog, an "afterthought" in any talk about "the future of college football".
And yes, if you think that makes me angry,
YOU'RE DAMNED RIGHT IT DOES!!!