The Post-Billy Forum

[DRU2012]

Yes--here is where we take our first real steps into "a better(?) tomorrow".
Elsewhere I have already posited (if somewhat belatedly) MY first candidate, controversial (not to mention somewhat time-worn) as it may be:
Lane Kiffen, in all his flamboyantly opinionated, high profile, attention-grabbing way, might be just what we need now--sort of the "ANTI-Napier"!
He IS an imaginative risk-taker, and though we might have waited a year too long, the contrast between the "comfortable-but-limited-level-already-achieved" of where he is and the "proven-potential-heights-of-the-Florida-job" that still exists, this one at least seems doable--assuming subtlety and patience can be managed and supplied on both sides over the next couple of months while we all somehow get "from here to THERE".
(And by the way: Lane and Finebaum do not like each other--ANOTHER point strongly in Kiffen's favor, in my view.)
Again, THINK ABOUT IT AND GET BACK TO ME.
I KNOW there are some other potentially attractive alternatives--the best coming with progressively more potential baggage and obstacles...But I'm probably missing a few good ones, and we need to get 'em all out there for open discussion NOW, when we might actually DO something about it.
We have GOT to get it RIGHT this time somehow.

 

[Leakfan12]

Honestly, you might be right. They need to hire Lane Kiffin. He knows to coach in the SEC and has less baggage than Bobby Petrino. They tried an assistant coach (Muschamp) and two coaches from Group of Five school with SEC experience (McElwain and Napier). They need to hire a guy with power 4 conference experience. Then again, it didn't really work with Dan Mullen. Could be Kiffin, Dabo, or throwing this out there James Franklin. He did lead Penn State to the playoffs last season and coached at Vandy plus appearances from Keegan Michael-Key.

Fun Fact: Napier was on McElwian's staff in 2012 at Colorado State.

 

[DRU2012]

@Leakfan12,
You and I are pretty well thinking similarly...
I'd still take Muschamp as a Defensive Coordinator were he willing, but he is happy out of Coaching...his general mismanagement, culminating in the hiring of Charlie Weis as his OC, DOOMED himself (and us along with him) as Coach here.
McEllwain was (and is) another unready, unprepared Group of Five Coach we (well, STRICKLAND) gambled would learn on the job here. He failed. In retrospect it seems ridiculous that we (well, STRICKLAND) would try it again in hiring Napier. Big surprise: He ALSO failed.
It is interesting that point about Billy having earlier coached UNDER Mac at Colo. State (hadn't realized that--one more "maybe we SHOULD have noted and HEEDED that!")...Well, maybe STRICKLAND--alright, alright, you get the idea here...but at THIS point, the most disgusting part is how Penn State shows so much greater urgency--not to mention a much higher standard--in firing Franklin, half-a-season removed from his and his team's latest appearance in the CFB Playoffs, while our A.D. continued making excuses and even now stalls and avoids ANY kind of forthright decision, as our high expectations are by now forgotten for a team this Coach built and continues to mismanage as they flounder through his FOURTH SEASON HERE.
Franklin isn't a particularly "flashy" or exciting a choice--he isn't much of an "offense-oriented" Head Coach--but he's been solidly, consistently successful at a high level, and would be a clear UPGRADE over Napier.
There are a handful of others in similar category--competent and highly-regarded--and if we cannot get "that one guy we really WANT", we'll need (whether publicly or privately) to do some deep and detailed interviewing before making any offers.
Dabo might be an interesting "out-of-left-field"-hire here, but I don't get the feeling that he'd be a particularly good "FIT", know what I mean? The last time we brought in a successful Head Coach from Clemson was 1979, when we hired Charlie Pell...but he had a long history as an assistant under Bear Bryant at Bama before moving on to successfully leading Clemson, and eventually back to the SEC at UF. Dabo has little in the way of SEC ties--and ZERO Florida connection, far as I know.
Is HE ready to "bleed Orange and Blue"???
I just don't get that impression (and let's face it, THAT is what will be required, coming in).
Perhaps I'm wrong about Dabo, but if LANE were to take the job, it WOULD be with that kind of "FULL COMMITMENT"!
HE would come in with the kind of absolute, full-on, "WIN OR DIE!" attitude that, along with his offensive mind PLUS access to top "Florida and beyond" talent, have things hopping here in a hurry.
He might well be able to hold a significant portion of our team in place, maybe even a substantial portion of the currently well-ranked prospective recruiting class--and no matter what, if there ARE resulting holes he is well-practiced in successfully negotiating the transfer portal, when necessary--He HAD to be a friggin' MASTER, able to quickly fill sudden spaces using it annually and throughout the season, in establishing an annual contender at Ole Miss, and somehow lately KEEPING them there.
I think he might be able to TEAR IT UP here at Florida--and I suspect HE thinks so TOO!
Fans are gonna love having an aggressive offense again--and even MORE having an outspoken, smart-ass and quick-witted spokesperson out front: Before, during, and AFTER games, no matter what...
No more meally-mouthed excuses, or endless claims about "how CLOSE we are".
UGH! I am SO tired of all that.
I swear we were close to giving out "participation awards" instead of gameballs after games, win or lose, at those sickening post-game pressers. When did that kind of "soft-sell Loser Speak" become acceptable here at University of Florida?

 

[DRU2012]

It's Tuesday, and the more this "ominous silence" continues, the more frustrated Gator Nation becomes (even our QB-1 is feeling it, expressing it out loud) and the more my concern deepens.
I have been open regarding my preference for Lane Kiffen as our next Head Coach, but the more this frozen Inaction goes on (especially in conjunction with other events, additional "candidates" becoming "availabe"), the more I feel any real shot at that evebtuzllycoming to pass slipping away.
I don't know that we can get him now, to be honest; we may have waited 6 months to a year too long. Developments may have carried that opportunity away, in a number of ways--at the very least made it much more conditional upon now additional pending factors.
And now comes the once seemingly unthinkable, unforeseeable series of disterous turns at Penn State, and the clear opportunity for our A.D., the worst in bigtime College Football, to find a new way to screw this up--for like what? The FIFTH TIME IN A ROW?
I think that Strickland hires James Franklin to another ill-advised contract as our next Head Coach.
There are a host of reasons this may well now happen--but my main one is just a gut feeling:
Thus guy ALWAYS gets it wrong--and there are so MANY WAYS to get this one wrong, just this way.
I hope am wrong, and I will wait to see what actually HAPPENS before diving into all the detailed ins and outs of all this...I mean, why put ourselves THROUGH it unnecessarily?
But I suddenly saw it all with potential clarity, and wanted to at least "voice my fears".
Yes, it would still be an "upgrade" over Billy, but we all know that we GOTTA do better than THAT this time. Better than a "safe do-over", a relatively temporary "kick it down the road".

 

[DRU2012]

NOTE:
Today's (Tueday, Oct. 14, 2025) headline on "Hail Florida Hail", with regard to this past weekend's outcomes, and the contrasting responses from different programs, nicely (quite aptly and succinctly) sums up the situation:
"Penn State Showing Urgency Makes Florida's Delay Look Indefensible"
In point of fact, way PAST "indefensible"!
We OUGHTA have got on our boosters a yesr ago and run BOTH Coach AND A.D. outta town kn a rail...and yes, I was (and AM) as guilty as anyone of somehow buying into Billy's snake oil WAY too long--way PAST its obviously having proved its ineffectiveness. By now, listening to even the first sentence or two of the latest pile of hollow, self-contradictory excuses that pass for his "opening remarks" at the latest presser, amounts to a frustrating parody of his own earlier promises.
It is WAY too late, way past TIME to tell us how "CLOSE WE ARE"! You have YOUR TEAM, in your 4th YEAR here--and you're getting flattened by teams led by Coaches in their SECOND SEASONS here, whose programs were in every but as troubled states when THRY got there when THEY arrived.
We just don't care to HEAR it anymore, "Sun Belt".
Even LESS wanna SEE it on the field.
And is there NO WAY to fire the whole PACKAGE? Get rid of this one AND the dope who keeps saddling us with expensive Losers, time and time again? Does this really ALL go back to not having a proper University President--OR the apparently the power currently to choose and hire the one that WE want, without national politics somehow
getting in the way??!
ENOUGH!!!
I am frankly TIRED OF THE ENDLESS BABBLE.
The terrible SHAME of it is that right here, right now, we appeared to HAVE the very collection of talent that, with thie right guy at the helm COUKD well have done our "talking on the FIELD"--Through the AIR. A healthy and unfettered DJ Lagway, with thus group of exciting young receivers, a talented RB tandem and all the rest, properly prepared, led and schemed, and mot only are we WINNING-We are winning BIG, with a quick-strike offense that ought to have shut EVERYONE up by now!
Somewhere out there in the "multiverse" there is a version of the 2025 Florida Gators who are DAZZLING the CFB WORLD as they slice through "the toughest gauntlet of an SEC CFB Season anyone can recall"...
Unfortunately, it ain't here or now.
Talk about "missed opportunities".
Some fans talk about how different things might be if we'd faced a typical ACC season instead...
Screw that. You think Spurrier woulda seen it that way, approached it that way??!
HELL no! He'd have seen it for the "opportunity" it WAS...and he'd have had his TEAM WITH him every step of the way.
As things are, it us left for our sophomore QB-1 to voice team frustration and angst--to decry the inherent SUBMISSION in our onfield attitude and resulting performance. Not the Coach, calmly talking about how "Close we are" as he subtly, quietly lays it off on everyone but himself--abd doing so as if he is being patient znd generous in his offers of excuses.
No no NO! Your QB has it right--and YOU are FULL OF SHIT!
Aright...I'm more ir less just repeating myself here now--and fir that I apogize--but a'kart if me just feels so strongly that the point needs to be driven HOME:
We are where we are BECAUSE of these same old endlessly repeated errors that YOU have made, continue MAKING, Coach.
We liked abd respected you, trusted you snd gave you every opportunity to first, do things all you'd jwn wzy--abd when they didn't WORK, we (and everyone around you) gave you every opportunity to adapt and FIX what WASN'T working.
But you DIDN'T--IN FACT, YOU CONSCIOUSLY AND OPENLY REFUSED.
Outside of a few historic despots, I don't think I have ever SEEN quite such an extreme display of stubborn narcissism, in all its self-destructive "glory"...I mean, I'm sure all our haters cross- and down-state and throughout the South are continuing to enjoy every minute of it.
But WE will NEVER get used to it.
So. Here we are again.
We MUST get this fully fixed and turned the other way. Not "eventually". Not even "SOON".
It is time for a major change NOW--one we can ALL feel "turning and burning" from the very start.
THAT is the kind of seismic shift we are somehow looking for now.
It is in THAT vein that I have come to find myself offering here in my various comments, tinged as they are with anger and desperation.

 

[Leakfan12]

I'm guessing if the Gators lose to Miss State then Billy Go BYE-BYE

 

[DRU2012]

I'm guessing if the Gators lose to Miss State then Billy Go BYE-BYE

Yes, our then having booted the mathematical possibility of attaining the supposedly ultimated minimum of 8 wins, PLUS with the bye week right after, it becomes the supposed "unofficial likeliest-for-Strickland" date...and therefore, I sadly, for the first time in memory, actually find myself considering rooting AGAINST THE FLORIDA GATORS this Saturday...In fact , if I lived in Gainesville I MIGHT even have contemplated throwing an anti-Gator, "Lose-and-we-lose-BILLY!" Game Warch Party.
Not sure that'll fly here in Austin...Hell, I don' know that I can even manage it ALONE.
BUT I really am inclined to cheer for our loss; I mean, no matter HOW I consciously approach it, whether I go into the game rooting for our Reptiles (my automatic defacto position) or NOT, given the circumstances I can NOT say that I'll be particularly unhappy should we stumble once again. WEIRDED OUT, though.
It sure takes the "edge" off for this one, though.
Coming inti the season, I WOULD have been less worried about this one's outcome due to the usual position of MSU in the SEC pecking order...
But with the Bulldogs at 5-2 and having their best season since Mullen left them to coach US, THIS one was looking like another potential loss already ANYWAY. NOW maybe at worst it doesn't really matter--but if I WERE now to find myself fairly certain that a loss might seal the deal on a much-longed-for Napier firing, bad luck and the way things GO with "Sun Belt Billy" might well GUARANTEE a big WIN!
You know, when I say that out loud, I find myself
really HOPING for a loss--a complete EYESORE of a performance!!!
(LOL...Losing, and the growing bitterness it brings, really does manifest strangely. A realization and general experience I could have EASILY done without becoming aware of, let me tell you!)

 

[DRU2012]

Frankly, the more I think about it--and, in light of the gathering certainty that our feckless A.D., the very man who has overseen the hiring of FOUR COACHING FAILURES IN A ROW, and NOW reportedly personally, stubbornly and firmly refuses to even consider, let alone pursue Lane Kiffen as our next Coach, basically it would seem because he suspects (quite correctly) that Lane would do things his own way--thus finally and mercifully ending Stricklin's long dismantling of our once proud program--it comes into ever-sharper focus that as much or even MORE important a firing needed is at ATHLETIC DIRECTOR.
What would REALLY be great, the "Big Surprise Shocker" headline Sunday morning concerning the Florida Gators would be the announcement that it was SCOT STRICKLIN, Florida A.D. who was to be promptly fired:
That Billy Napier instead will be allowed to continue (whether as "official" or de Facto "Interim Head Coach"), keeping things mainly "status quo" as he finishes the season with his team until the boosters and NEW A.D. can get open access to and with the handful of worthy candidates that might constitute a "proper fit" as the NEXT Head Coach here at UF.
Look, I KNOW this is not anything LIKE what is about to transpire, but at this point, in the middle of us all collectively "twisting in the wind" that characterizes what is currently passing for our "reality", can I not be allowed my harmless happy fantasy??!