Who Should Florida Hire? What Might It Mean For Texas?

Who should the Gators evaluate to replace Billy Napier, assuming Napier doesn’t pull a rabbit out of his hat in consecutive years?

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That would be some rabbit, and some hat.

More importantly, how might this process presage Texas’ own hiring process at some point in the future?

Let’s hope a distant future.

It’s not often a program like Texas gets to watch rough market comps in action.

I’m guided by a few precepts:

1. Florida is a top 10 college football job. That’s probably being conservative. A lot of people struggle with differentiating recent results on the field and program potential. When Florida is humming, they’re a juggernaut that can win titles. They’re the major state university of Florida. Which is in Florida. Which is in the SEC. They have a legit fanbase. They have a recent track record of prior dominance. Tradition and their pre-Spurrier pedigree is irrelevant. It’s not 1963.
2. Getting your guy isn’t always easy. Your guy may not agree that he is your guy. There are also interpersonal dynamics, timing, and school administrators may not inspire confidence. It’s not great when the AD’s guy is different from the power broker’s guy who is different from the common fan’s guy.
3. Changing coaches because of failure is a different dynamic from changing coaches because of success.
4. Beware oversteer. It creates false binaries. Last guy was tough? We need a player’s coach. Last guy was all defense? Offensive whiz. Last guy was a G5 up and comer? We need an established P2 coach. Last guy was an Xs and Os ace? Recruiter! I get it. You have to resist that impulse. The last coach’s failure can’t solely define your new direction. Don’t let that last coach beat you twice.
5. The Portal is a blessing and a curse. You can get pillaged, but you’ve also freed up budget for new acquisitions. Those players didn’t win enough games. You sure they’re awesome? The problem is that your portal budget, new hire budget, and pay off of the old guy budget are not distinct line items. It’s all the same pot. The offseason wisdom that you can’t fire Napier because you’d lose Lagway & the team has taken on a different meaning of late. You may want to lose a few. But keep the right ones.

So who are we looking at?

Longshots

Too many to list. These coaches will come to Florida because they decided that they can’t achieve what they want where they currently are. They come in different forms.

Names as disparate as Dan Lanning, Dabo Swinney, Jeff Brohm, James Franklin.

I don’t think Franklin requires an explanation. You’re creating an instant unassailable floor. Ceiling? Well.

Lanning would be coveted. Why would he leave Oregon? Because he doesn’t think he can achieve the ultimate prize there.

A lot of Florida fans would (rightfully) fear that Dabo Swinney is a more accomplished Jimbo Fisher (catching a falling knife, set in his ways) and Jeff Brohm, like Bronco Mendenhall, is a great coach who has lifestyle considerations he may value more than winning titles.

Realistic Priorities

1. Lane Kiffin
2. Curt Cignetti
3. Jedd Fisch

Kiffin would have sign off from the Gator faithful. There are some hidden downsides – Kiffin doesn’t really like recruiting that much – are we doing the Dan Mullen thing again? – but he knows the league, he can acquire recruiters and NIL, and he’s been quite successful in Oxford.

Kiffin’s desire to coach every SEC team before he retires is laudable.

Indiana’s Curt Cignetti is 64. He doesn’t act like it. His ability to immediately raise a program isn’t in dispute and he’s been a winner at every possible level. Google him. He would bring an Urban Meyer style ruthless edge, but with less murder and fewer faked brain clouds if things go awry. He’s also 64. So this is a five year hire to right the ship.

Fisch is a promising coach with a somewhat limited track record. If you watch his teams, they’re cutting edge in a lot of what they do. Would Florida fans sign off on a career sub .500 coach? Tough sell. He needs to take some major Big 10 scalps this year.

Floor

1. Brent Key
2. Jon Sumrall

The fear is that Key is perfectly suited to a Georgia Tech level program where he plays up against the big boys running asymmetrical schemes, but has no experience feeding the insatiable maw of a premier SEC program.

I’d be shocked if Jon Sumrall happened. Remember oversteer? Another G5 guy. Florida fans might riot.

Traps

1. Eli Drinkwitz
2. Rhett Lashlee
3. Fran Brown

Drinkwitz is a fake it til you make it guy who made it. Great use of the portal. Aggressive staff. Let’s see how the new SEC schedules treat him, as Missouri has been living a parallel schedule lie. I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but some find him compelling.

Lashlee may be the creation of a narrow ecosystem whose powers wane the further that he gets from the DFW Metroplex playing the likes of East Texas A&M, Missouri State, Wake Forest, Stanford, and Boston College. He’s a good fit for SMU. It’s difficult for outsiders to understand that SMU has almost no fans and no heat on its coaches.

The guy who is a boon at Syracuse isn’t necessarily a boon for Florida. Fran Brown has a 1.25 year track record. This would be an insanely speculative hire.

What do you guys have?