Go back to Nov 2017.........

[AFCatholicGator]

We were ALL rejoicing the firing of Mac and daydreaming about the return to glory. Who did you want to hire? I mean honestly not with hindsight, who did YOU want in Nov 2017? I’ll tell you who I wanted (and I bet a lot of you are the same):

1) Urban
2) Chip
3) Frost

#1 was basically not an option.
#2 I think myself (and most of Gator nation) was pumped about Chip. Dazzling offense, Florida speed, big name, immediate home run (or so it seemed). In hindsight we are SUPER lucky this didn’t happen.
#3 I’m not sure this wouldn’t have worked. Nebraska is a tough place to win now. I think Frost could have done great here with that offense . Not sure how he would have recruited. Just too hard to say how this would have worked but we can all agree his performance has been disappointing.

Which leads us to Dan. I was not thrilled honestly with this hire and I’m sure most you weren’t either. I would also wager that most all of you would never imagine we could have gone from 2017 to back to back NY6 bowl wins with a realistic “shot” at the playoffs in year 3. Now I agree with you about recruiting needing to be better, Grantham being a question mark....but I don’t know how anyone can OBJECTIVELY say we didn’t make the best hire that we possibly could have made. Furthermore, I don’t see how any of you who thinks someone else should be coaching here have a rational argument.

Could Mullen be Richt 2.0? Yes. Could he be Dabo and slowly get better and eventually win a NC in year 5 or 6? Yes. All of us want to win NCs and yesterday. But given the gamble that coaching hires are (see TN, FSU, TX) any blue blood can be a NC winner or below average just based on coach. We have a legit top 10 coach in college football and “maybe” better. We don’t have a realistic choice but to ride the Mullen train for a while, hope he continues to learn and grow on recruiting, and show some patience.

It’s very easy to point out problems. What’s harder is to bring a solution. So for those of you who legit want Mullen gone or are certain he’s not the answer, I’m curious as to 2 questions:

1) Who would you have hired in Nov 2017?
2) Who would you realistically replace him with today?

 

[gatorplank]

SwampDonkey wanted Larry Fedora. Lol. /thread

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Could Mullen be Richt 2.0? Could he be Dabo

The old tired "we just hired Saban or Daban" tripe. Literally every message board has someone posting this about their corch. Tinerc, Marshall, Duke, Toledo all of them. Well, Saban went 7-5 and even lost at a geographic school in year #1!!!! It is also exactly what pumpers said with Chimp and Butters hires.

He isnt a Richt regardless. Richt had top 5 talent, won 2 SECs quickly. He just wasnt a great game day coach. Mullinz has a terribke staff and is a lazy recruiter (though not Butters lazy), but he does make game day adjustments, usually in the 4th.

Swinney didnt get better year to year anyway. Clemson was landing 5 star recruits, some "stolen" from all the way back CJ Spiller. He was a pretty good recruiter, just limited by Clemson. What happened was Clemson dumped 300 million (or is it more now, I cant keep up) into world class facilities, a #1 DC, elitr assistants and a GIANT recruiting support staff and suddenly got more talent.

Wake me up when UF does this.

Malzahn is the real comparison, although Malzahn beats Saban some.

I actually like Muklinz more than I ever thought I would. That never happened with Dwagchump or Sharkhumper.

I always PRAY these guys will figure it out. They are stubborn and usually dont. If Mullinz returns to being Mullinz, fails to fix defense and recruiting, then the problem fixes itself quickly. I think he gets that more than most he knows how quickly the seat gets hot at UF. and he probably appreciates the input he's getting after last week.

However, the smart hire today is the next Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, or Joe Brady. At least with those guys you know you get an elite offense and good recruiting, you just have to pair it with a competent or better defensive coordinator.

There are no up and coming SOS at Duke or Meyer at Utah on the horizon that I see. However, that doesnt mean we should be happy with third tier coaching. Hiring an averagish guy who is stable bc no one else will hire him away shouldnt be our goal ever.

 

[Towels 'N Sporks]

I was
1. Frost
2. Kelly
3. Norvell.
Mullen was like number 100 for me because I thought he was a guarantee that we would just be "pretty good," and no better. Wasn't doing enough drugs to think that Meyer was a possibility.

Mullen has done better at this point than I expected. I hope he continues to prove me more and more wrong. If he loses to UGA again I'm going to start questioning the decision again.

If I could do it all over today, I think Frost would still be ahead of Mullen on my list. I think the dude would have brought a lot of recruiting momentum for us and obviously he knew how to run an offense. Definitely wouldn't put chip or Norvell ahead of Dan at this point though.

 

[UFHealthGator]

.
Malzahn is the real comparison, although Malzahn beats Saban some.

... while we are still waiting for Mullenzes to beat Kirby Shart.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

... while we are still waiting for Mullenzes to beat Kirby Shart.

we aren't talking about climbing Mount Everest here. Ogre is 2-0 vs Shart.

 

[gatorplank]

The issue is people want an experienced coach, but they also want a bonafide recruiter. The bonafide recruiters are all assistants at LSU, UGA, Bama, OSU, Clemson. So it is hard to get both. You either have to take a chance on a guy who has done more with less at a lower school that doesn’t recruit well, or you have to take a chance on an assistant at one of the top recruiting schools.

People called me an idiot for wanting Leach. He’s the other offensive coach outside of Mullen who has a long track record of overachievement at lower tier P5 schools.

Mike Leach
Mark Stoops
Brent Venables
Matt Campbell
Mike Norvell
Scott Frost

The guy who is unquestionably the best P5 coaching candidate if a major job opens up is PJ Fleck, though. He’s the only guy out there who I am confident would be better than Mullen. Leach and Venables would round out #2 and #3 for me.

 

[AFCatholicGator]

Good posts. Leach is super intriguing and would be exciting but he would NOT when championships. But we would be fun.

Frost would have been a good hire I don’t know how important the assistants was. Supposedly he wanted all his assistants, if we really wanted him we should have given that to him.

I forgot about PJ Fleck an intriguing name I forgot. I agree I would have been happy w him too. I was intrigued by Norvell but as you can see with hindsight that was a dumpster fire.

That’s why it’s so hard to fire coaches, it many “sure things” out there. Heck even though we were all thrilled w Urban there were questions marks and about 3/4 through the first season if you didn’t have questions about our offense you are lying.

There are worse things than being a perennial top 10 team. Keep in mind we are 1 game into year 3

 

[chferg]

I was all on the Chip train...glad we missed that one. I never was big with Frost largely because I didn't think he had enough time to develop as a HC and figured he would struggle especially with his desire to bring his G5 level staff with him.

Norvell was a major **** NO and as you can see, there was a reason for it....

Mullen wasn't what I wanted but in hindsight the program is stabilized and appears to be trending in the right direction. Not sure any other names out there would have done any better.

 

[Gator By Marriage]

I think we already did a thread on this, but will play along anyway.
I did not want Urbs or Kelly; second acts rarely seem to work out and let’s face it he left UF a mess and after watching Kelly in NFL, there was something about him I just didn’t like.
I really liked the idea of Frost. I thought he did an amazing job at UCF and I thought he would really be able to recruit well. While I still believe he would have been successful @ UF, I don’t think he could have done better than CDM has.
I didn’t “hate” his hire, but was definitely “meh.” I have come around on him and now believe of the known candidates, he is turning out to be the best choice. In hindsight should UF have looked a coordinator as opposed to a guy with HC experience? Perhaps, but I understand the reluctance at the time of hiring a first time head coach though clearly Lincoln Riley and Ryan Day have been very successful making the jump - though it certainly helped that they were already in the programs they took over.
Time well obviously tell if CDM can ever win a title. And while the prevailing opinion on GCMB is a consistent “no”, I am starting to think he can. Who knows if he will. I will absolutely credit him with fixing the damage from Chimp and Butters. If he never wins here, at least he got their stink off the program.

 

[AFCatholicGator]

I think we already did a thread on this, but will play along anyway.
I did not want Urbs or Kelly; second acts rarely seem to work out and let’s face it he left UF a mess and after watching Kelly in NFL, there was something about him I just didn’t like.
I really liked the idea of Frost. I thought he did an amazing job at UCF and I thought he would really be able to recruit well. While I still believe he would have been successful @ UF, I don’t think he could have done better than CDM has.
I didn’t “hate” his hire, but was definitely “meh.” I have come around on him and now believe of the known candidates, he is turning out to be the best choice. In hindsight should UF have looked a coordinator as opposed to a guy with HC experience? Perhaps, but I understand the reluctance at the time of hiring a first time head coach though clearly Lincoln Riley and Ryan Day have been very successful making the jump - though it certainly helped that they were already in the programs they took over.
Time well obviously tell if CDM can ever win a title. And while the prevailing opinion on GCMB is a consistent “no”, I am starting to think he can. Who knows if he will. I will absolutely credit him with fixing the damage from Chimp and Butters. If he never wins here, at least he got their stink off the program.

Sums up how I feel

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Chump won 11 games. Stain won 10 twice.

He hasnt done anything, yet.

 

[neteng]

The old tired "we just hired Saban or Daban" tripe. Literally every message board has someone posting this about their corch. Tinerc, Marshall, Duke, Toledo all of them. Well, Saban went 7-5 and even lost at a geographic school in year #1!!!! It is also exactly what pumpers said with Chimp and Butters hires.

He isnt a Richt regardless. Richt had top 5 talent, won 2 SECs quickly. He just wasnt a great game day coach. Mullinz has a terribke staff and is a lazy recruiter (though not Butters lazy), but he does make game day adjustments, usually in the 4th.

Swinney didnt get better year to year anyway. Clemson was landing 5 star recruits, some "stolen" from all the way back CJ Spiller. He was a pretty good recruiter, just limited by Clemson. What happened was Clemson dumped 300 million (or is it more now, I cant keep up) into world class facilities, a #1 DC, elitr assistants and a GIANT recruiting support staff and suddenly got more talent.

Wake me up when UF does this.

Malzahn is the real comparison, although Malzahn beats Saban some.

I actually like Muklinz more than I ever thought I would. That never happened with Dwagchump or Sharkhumper.

I always PRAY these guys will figure it out. They are stubborn and usually dont. If Mullinz returns to being Mullinz, fails to fix defense and recruiting, then the problem fixes itself quickly. I think he gets that more than most he knows how quickly the seat gets hot at UF. and he probably appreciates the input he's getting after last week.

However, the smart hire today is the next Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, or Joe Brady. At least with those guys you know you get an elite offense and good recruiting, you just have to pair it with a competent or better defensive coordinator.

There are no up and coming SOS at Duke or Meyer at Utah on the horizon that I see. However, that doesnt mean we should be happy with third tier coaching. Hiring an averagish guy who is stable bc no one else will hire him away shouldnt be our goal ever.

1) Who would you have hired in Nov 2017?
2) Who would you realistically replace him with today?

@Swamp Donkey ... the whole reason A$$Fugger started this thread is to get you to answer those 2 questions that you are avoiding. Whole lot of TLDR BS inside your quote brackets above except the answer to those 2 questions. Whats wrong ... you can't answer them?

 

[Double Gator Dad]

1. Frost
2. Mystery candidate
3. Mullen

I was definitely hoping for Frost but I was NOT on the Chip train. Something about Chip seemed McElwainish and I didn’t see the fit.

I viewed Mullen as the fall back if we didn’t get Frost or the mystery candidate . The mystery candidate was a successful coach at a big time program that wanted a better quality of life for his family and a chance to be the home team in recruiting versus an interloper.

We will never know if this candidate ever existed or if he did and Scottie and Fooley misplayed their hand.

 

[TheDouglas78]

@Swamp Donkey ... the whole reason A$$Fugger started this thread is to get you to answer those 2 questions that you are avoiding. Whole lot of TLDR BS inside your quote brackets above except the answer to those 2 questions. Whats wrong ... you can't answer them?

In Donkey's defense he has answered this question multiple times over 3 years.... Now they are all just as irrational as most his post, but does he really need to answer the same question every 3-6 months?

 

[Marine1]

I was all Frost. Didn’t want Mullen and hated Chip.

 

[TheDouglas78]

We will never know if this candidate ever existed or if he did and Scottie and Fooley misplayed their hand.

There wasn't just one, and depends on the candidate but some was misplayed some was more comfortable where they were in their situation.

 

[ThreatMatrix]

In Donkey's defense he has answered this question multiple times over 3 years.... Now they are all just as irrational as most his post, but does he really need to answer the same question every 3-6 months?

He repeats himself 3-6 times an hour so why not.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

@Swamp Donkey ... the whole reason A$$Fugger started this thread is to get you to answer those 2 questions that you are avoiding. Whole lot of TLDR BS inside your quote brackets above except the answer to those 2 questions. Whats wrong ... you can't answer them?

You dont read well?

 

[neteng]

You dont read well?

Old faithful argument!!!!! The only coaches availabke onnthe whole damn planet were Chimp, Shark, and Mullinz!!!!!

yeah we can do it again. I can list the current coaches at Oklahoma and Ohio State and 104 offensive coordinators that finished higher than Mullins the year we hired him and a list of coaches that didnt lose to directional schools.

U South Alabama! USA! USA!! USA!!!!

also a huge list of defensive coordinators.

you can search the archives for that post if you desperately need it.

Grantham was not on the list.

Just answer the 2 questions with names of human beings you think we could of hired in 2017. Maybe you are the one that can't read well.