BUDDY MARTIN BLOG: Maybe It Was Time For A Change. But So Far Scott Stricklin’s Coaches Are 0-0-0.
"Promising though the future looks with the employment of newbies Billy Napier and Todd Golden (seen here), as much as Gator fans are patting themselves on the back for 'getting it right' with their procurement, the reality is that neither of them have ever won anything of Power Five significance. Put that in your Analytics Pipe and smoke it."
“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” – George Santanyana
This has been a bloodless coup. It’s called a “reset” in business and life. For Scott Stricklin and the University of Florida, the odometer is 0-0-0. For the first time ever, the two major sports at UF are guided by coaches without a single victory – or even a result.
Speak to us, oh analytics, if you can. And don’t feed us the company line about the overall greatness of the Gator Nation and the success yielded from all the many sports. Around here it’s about revenue sports. That being football, mainly, and basketball.
Promising though the future looks with the employment of newbies Billy Napier and Todd Golden, as much as Gator fans are patting themselves on the back for “getting it right” with their procurement, the reality is that neither of them have ever won anything of Power Five significance. Put that in your Analytics Pipe and smoke it.
Do I like the hires? Yes. Do I love the hires? Give me some time. No, not yet, but mostly because of my own lack of knowledge or my ignorance. And a resistance to the notion of falling in love on the first date. I suspect Napier might wind up being a home run, but I'll wait on some results before making that declaration. And I only met Todd Golden yesterday. Check that, I only heard Golden’s press conference. I’m having to trust my colleague Franz Beard when he tells me Golden was an excellent choice.
Mr. Stricklin, you are facing a more uncertain future of complex issues than any AD in Florida history, rife with challenges of NIL, The Transfer Portal and more intense fund-raising pressures than ever. You are going to earn that million-dollar-a-year salary. Good luck!
This is the harsh reality of the high stakes in college sports these days: Money not only talks, it screams. You’ve got to win on the field or court in order to ring that cash register. And you’ve got to wrap it all up in a pretty package to sell the fans, alumnae and players.
The next question being, where do things go from here?
Meanwhile, in this reset, the GPS must not only project the pathway forward, but also calibrate from whence you came.
Let’s start by counting what’s most recently in front of us: Scott Stricklin’s scorecard since being hired in 2016. This is an arduous task, somewhat unfair, but all we can do is show the numbers “on his watch.”
Stricklin officially came aboard in November 2016 when Jim McElwain was football coach, promptly presiding over his demise – McElwain starting the season 3-0 and finishing it 3-3. He posted a 9-4 mark after the Outback Bowl win over Iowa. So Stricklin’s share of that is 3-3.
The following year, 2017, McElwain’s tailspin led to his firing as Florida finished a miserable 4-7 mark whereupon McElwain was fired after the Georgia loss and alleged “death threats” against him. Attributing the partial 2016 season to him, on Stricklin’s watch the McElwain era produced a 7-10 record.
Time to hire his first coach.
After a brief courtship with Scott Frost at UCF (who went to Nebraska) and a close encounter with Chip Kelly (who went to UCLA), Stricklin brought in his former coach at Mississippi State and for a couple of years, it looked like Stricklin had gotten it right with Dan Mullen. Turns out, despite early success, he didn’t.
Upon a final autopsy one day, maybe we’ll discover the reason for his Humpty-Dumpty crash and burn. Mullen departed with a game left in 2021 under a cloud of disappointment and a curious show-cause infraction for recruiting which was never fully acknowledged or even explained. And a record of 34-15. Counting interims, that adjusts Stricklin’s football numbers to 41-26.
By the time Stricklin arrived in 2016, Mike White was already coach, having been hired by predecessor Jeremy Foley. With a 21-15 to his credit in 2015 following the takeover from Billy Donovan, White went on to average 20 wins per season and left for Georgia of his own volition with a career mark in Gainesville of 141-88. On Stricklin’s watch, 121-73.
Which brings us to the current 0-0-0 in football and basketball at Florida.
Now, going backwards on the GPS to trace footprints, measure failures and success, how and why we’ve reached this point. Here’s where I like to put on my old-timers spectacles and drill down on the past. I’ve seen all the movies.
Basketball is harder. As Golden pointed out at this presser, for 30 years Florida had only three coaches: Lon Kruger, Billy Donovan and Mike White. All three of them left of their own volition. We could argue about Norm Sloan, but at the very least the last time he left Florida, Sloan was pushed out by AD Bill Arnsparger under threats of an NCAA probe.
Some will argue that fan disdain and disrespect drove White into the arms of Georgia.
No matter, it was likely time for a change of environment for White, who could reinvigorate both his career and Georgia’s basketball program.
So for many reasons, including the freshness of a new start, Todd Golden appears to already be trending upward in the addition-by-subtraction calculus.
I was a fan of Mullen’s offense, but not so much his stand-offish, quirky personality. I say Mullen was afflicted by what is known as “the duck syndrome.” That’s what psychiatrists call it when people who appear to be calm on a “superficial level” are “frantically paddling hard down below in trying to keep up with demands.”
Turns out there were apparently things that went begging under Mullen, including the disconnect in recruiting and a lack of team discipline.
That brings us to March 2022 and these questions.
Basically, almost every coaching change in the two sports has been the result of Newton’s Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Looking for the pot of gold, or trying what we perceive is broken. Coach B was hired because Coach A didn’t do this … and may I remind you of the mission at hand: Winning championships with integrity in environment of academic excellence.
Now I leave you with these questions –
1)Who’s really keeping a watch on the store?
2)Who are the Guardians Of The Gator Galaxy?
3)Who eventually takes the torch?
Your move Scott Stricklin. And you’re on the clock.
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