Buddy Martin Blog/ The Great Coaching Caper: Scott Stricklin May Have Gotten The Pick Of The Litter

Can Billy Napier turn out to be the best hire of the Big Three? (UL Photo)

I’ll preface my comments by saying the procurement of Florida’s new coach by Scott Stricklin was beyond leader-in-the-clubhouse impressive. The employment of Billy Napier is looking like a home run hire – with the bases loaded in the ninth inning.

Rule No. 1 for romance and the hiring football coaches: Beware of falling in love on the first date. I have a friend who, after divorcing in middle-age, had a habit of asking me: “Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” To which I would reply, “Yes! But not every week!” Seems like recently some big schools and big-name coaches were ready to marry 10 minutes after a blind date. It was like Wall Street panic set in on campuses, with ADs making a Black Friday lunge for coaching talent at beyond warp speed.

Speed dating may be dangerous to the long-term health of athletic directors. This ain’t The Bachelor. Last weekend over 72 hours, it was almost like national signing day for coaches. I’ll be interested to see how the crop of recent signees turns out to survive this insane period of Las Vegas-style quickie marriages.

Of course, this was all propagated by the early signing day frenzy that places schools in jeopardy around Thanksgiving, when they are at risk of not having a coach in place in time to reap their bounty of recruits (or not). So don’t blame the poor ADs for pushing down on the pedal.

I’ll preface my comments by saying the procurement of Florida’s new coach by Scott Stricklin was beyond leader-in-the-clubhouse impressive. The employment of Billy Napier is looking like a home run hire – with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. Kudos to Stricklin for getting the guy he wanted when some of his critics (including me) mistook his deliberance for bewilderment.

And while we don’t yet know the true financial details of Napier’s contract – doesn’t everybody get $95M ?? – it seems Florida may have retrieved some dough in order to settle up Dan Mullen’s severance package. And then some.

Every new coach hired is a home run, until it’s not. Of course, lots of hard-hit baseballs eventually wind up as only warning track power flies, easily snared by awaiting outfielders. It’s a home run now, but will it be a home run in 2023 when the wind is blowing in from left field?

The real pearl in this spate of new coaches might have been the one plucked out of the oyster patch in Lafayette, La. Only it got buried under an avalanche of other activity of coaching news and overshadowed because Napier worked in somewhat of an obscure environment.

Oddly enough, as Paul Finebaum said on his show, Napier going to Florida was “the most under-reported story” of the week because of what happened hours later: Back-to-back shockers by USC and LSU.

After the word began circulating that Lincoln Riley was LSU’s next coach and then him turning up as the Trojan’s doorstep, BOOM! That was bombshell #1. Bombshell #2 was Notre Dame’s all-time winningest coach doing an 11-minute drive-by goodbye to his Fighting Irish team and then LSU pulling off a smash-and-grab for its new coach, Brian Kelly.

I don’t to want to be That Guy Who Said Their School Got The Best Coach. But based on my conversations, emails, talk show interactions, research and tea-leaves readings, it does seem Scott Stricklin was the winner of the coach-hiring sweepstakes. And no, I am not sending a marriage proposal to Coach Napier. It does seem, though, there are a lot of man-crushes on Florida’s new head coach.

The two-time Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year stayed to coach his team. (UL/Adidas Photo)

“Love the pick,” was the common refrain from many people I asked about the hiring of Napier. “Can’t find a single thing bad about him,” was another. “This is what people around Louisiana feared: Somebody hiring away the hottest coach in the country and him coming back to haunt LSU.”

One big alumnus from another school (not LSU) told my friend Terry Bradshaw, “we’re glad he (Napier) is getting out of here because he’s building something special.” It was as though Napier had found the secret formula for the next nuclear weapon.

On my show when I asked MrCFB Tony Barnhart which of the Big Three hires most impressed him most, he quickly responded: “Billy Napier by Florida.”

Meanwhile, as I did my own diligence, not one person out of about 15 asked had a single negative thing to say about Napier – nor had they heard of anybody who had.

“Great recruiter.” Tommy Bowden once said of Napier, ". . . like a Pitbull. He gets his teeth in one and he don’t let go.”

Even The Goat, Nick Saban, praised Napier: "Billy did an outstanding job for us. He was a very good coach, great recruiter. Had great relationships with the players. He was a good teacher on the field. There's nothing bad I could think of to say about Billy Napier in terms of what he did here."

Among those singing his praises are also Louisiana high school coaches, who said in a video what they appreciated about him was his tenacity on the recruiting trail, loyalty in doing things the “right way” and not bloviating about his interest in one of their players. That “loyalty” showed up when Napier told Stricklin that leaving UL before the Sun Belt title game was non-negotiable. He was staying to coach his team in the championship game — period! The bowl game? TBD.

The term “gentleman” was invoked often to describe Napier. His ability to craft a winning program with limited resources and his consistency in posting three straight double-digit winning seasons put him on the horizon as a rising star. Not rising fast enough, apparently, for LSU, which told him “no thanks” when Napier went after the job.

Conversely, there are unconfirmed stories about Brian Kelly having his agent Trace Armstrong reach out to Florida and being told Stricklin had no interest – perhaps if true, because he already had Napier? That, indeed, would be more gasoline on the fire for the already hot Florida-LSU series.

Lincoln Riley being hired by USC allegedly happened in the middle of the night while nobody was watching as he apparently woke up and found that the tooth fairy had made him the Trojans’ coach. Home run! Except for small details about the transition. How are his neighbors going to accept a new USC coach with two dogs named Boomer and Sooner?

Of course we believe everything Riley said about his Sunday morning epiphany, and for the first time since he’d been in Oklahoma, deciding to talk to another school about coaching there. And by the way, the check’s in the mail, and I’ve got some real estate deals for you in the Everglades.

Brian Kelly: On his way to the SEC. (Fiile photo)

As for Kelly, I appear to be in the minority, but I’m not all that impressed with his hiring. His resume is strong. And while he’s familiar with the SEC, having played a decent schedule that sometimes included top SEC teams, or meeting them in a playoff, it’s not the same. Lining up nine times a year, week after week, against the Alabamas, Georgias, LSUs, Floridas, Texas A&Ms and even Mississippis, Kentuckys, Arkansases or Mississippi States isn’t the same as Navy, Duke, Western Michigan, Bowling Green, etc. The so-called “Residual Impact” of playing an SEC schedule takes its toll on players in November, like the same heavyweight champion boxer fighting the No. 1 contender every month. It takes a toll on bodies. So mark that one down to remember.

Kelly talks about “alignment” and how important it was at LSU in getting the president, AD, boosters, etc. on the same page -- and we get that. But let me warn him he’s not taking his car into to Firestone or Goodyear to get his wheels balanced.

No matter, overall it was a coaching coup like none other, the likes of which will never be seen again. Here’s how unusual all this was:

The last Notre Dame coach to leave for another college job was Thomas Barry, who in 1908 went to Wisconsin to coach football and baseball. The last Oklahoma coach to do so was in 1947, when Jim Tatum was hired at Maryland. It took Kelly and Riley only a matter of days. And, oh yeah, Florida has never hired a coach from that hotbed, University of Louisiana/Lafayette.