A thoroughly informative and encouraging piece overall...But the fact still remains that given his position, and the facts of how and why his and Billy's fates here at UF are, more than ever, so well-entwined, there is STILL an obvious element here of "of COURSE he'd say that".
I'm just saying...
How so? This interview shows that half the crap we see on message boards is created by people who have no idea how the world works. Some of these people have the audacity to charge fans for premium access to uninformed statements. This interview comes straight from the source.
Example 1: Why did Scott Stricklin only consider Billy Napier rather than commissioning a hiring panel to consider coaches like Brian Kelly, Dan Lanning, Jedd Fisch, etc? Message boards would have you believe that Stricklin should be fired for hiring a loser like Napier and it should have been obvious without any hindsight that anyone else would have been better. Stricklin told us in multiple interviews before and after the hiring that he was looking for a man of character who had a vision for navigating through changes in college football. In December 2021 Stricklin said he knew before firing Dan Mullen that he wanted Napier. Despite all this, message boards spread false information. Stricklin has been consistent in his messaging. There is no “of course he’d say that”. Stricklin wanted a man of character, and Napier is that unlike some jackass like McElwain who lied to Stricklin. He wanted a coach with vision for navigating a program through massive changes, and Napier was the only coach who guided a program out of NCAA sanctions, and through a major rebranding campaign. Napier also came from a school that despite its smaller size, already had an NIL program and an assistant athletic director. Stricklin goes over all that in the interview.
Example 2: Why is Stricklin not doing more with NIL? Why is UAA not doing more with NIL? The answer to both is that it is not allowed. Message boards and podcasts consistently get this wrong. It is a good thing none of us message board members are the AD for Florida, because we idiots would land Florida in NCAA sanction hell with blatant Level I violations. As it stands now, Florida will be lucky to escape with Level III violations at best— even if it turns out that no member of Napier’s or Stricklin’s staff were privy to the Rashada NIL deal. Stricklin goes over all that in the interview.
Example 3: Why is Stricklin not investing enough in Gator football? Why is UAA not prioritizing football? Stricklin explained in the interview that Gator football is the top priority for him and UAA, but it is not the only priority. Fair enough. I have been guilty of accusing UAA of spreading its funding too thinly across all sports. At the end of the day he does have to manage 19 NCAA athletics programs and overall at least one per year earns a conference championship or finishes as runner up— which is why Florida is one of 3 programs to finish in the top 3 of the Learfield Director’s Cup each year since 1991(?). There are things about UAA and NIL that he is not allowed to say, and my guess is that one of them is the old thinking of emeritus AD Jeremy Foley, older UAA board members and older UF affiliated boosters. To be fair, some of those older folks are preventing UF from facing Level I NCAA violations.
Example 4: Why is Stricklin trying to shrink the capacity of the Swamp? It turns out that his statements from last year were taken out of context. The entire statement was to the effect that as a steward of public and private funding it was his responsibility to consider every possibility while meeting statutory and regulatory requirements. There was a possibility that the repairs and ADA compliance retrofits would have cost more than the $400M estimate without reducing capacity. The team that won the contract will provide its estimates and courses of action in a few months, so any talk about shrinking the stadium is just rumor until those contractor estimates are formally proposed to UF facilities management. Stricklin also goes over this in the interview that the money used for the stadium is not the same money used for NIL— that is not allowed. Furthermore, Stricklin stated that he is too early in the contract process to know if $400M is the final price. That cost bogey comes from an independent assessment made a couple years ago when that was the going rate for similar stadium repairs.
Could some of the funding for the stadium be pulled back and used elsewhere (like the situation at Ole Miss)? The answer is no. Ole Miss already made major changes to its stadium in 2016 so they already addressed statutory and regulatory issues. Any modifications to their stadium are purely optional. By law, once Florida decides to alter a section of the stadium it is required to make certain changes regardless of that results in lowering capacity. From there it is optional to use additional funds to recoup that lost capacity. Stricklin will not know the dollar amounts and the payment structure until the contractor provides a refined cost estimate with options as defined in the contract request for proposal. My take on that is that Stricklin intends to use public bonds to fund the must-do renovations (fix the leaks, meet ADA regulations, upgrade restrooms). He can seek private donations for things like expansion of the luxury suites. The question is how he can legally fund that party in the middle—the capacity lost to statutory/ regulatory repairs and expansion of luxury suites. That money does not come from reduction of ticket costs (so fans can donate more to NIL as some suggest) nor does it come from rich boosters who listen to whiny fans.
It is a perfectly fine opinion to say you do not like Stricklin or Napier, but it is asinine to believe every rumor on the internet over the actual experts who get paid to make these desperate and who have everything to lose as a consequence for making bad decisions.
