- Aug 1, 2014
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In December 2004, Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley pulled off one of the great coups in modern college sports when he beat out Notre Dame to hire Utah coach Urban Meyer. The only greater indignity for Notre Dame than losing out on a rising star who had said that coaching the Irish was his “dream” job was that television cameras tracked Notre Dame AD Kevin White from the moment the private plane with a ND logo landed in Salt Lake City. Notre Dame’s failure played out like reality television, while Foley surreptitiously slipped in and out of Salt Lake City to secure Meyer’s services without notice.
In December 2014, reporters tracked Foley’s trip on a private plane to Fort Collins, Colo. Members of the media then followed a white SUV carrying him to the house of Colorado Statecoach Jim McElwain. There’s even a picture of Foley admiring the view. Reports have identified McElwain as the leading candidate to replace Will Muschamp at Florida, and it would be shocking if Foley went through that whole exercise without pulling the trigger. (UPDATE: Florida announced the hiring of McElwain on Thursday morning.)
Ten years to the day of White’s ill-fated trip to Salt Lake City, Foley’s voyage to Fort Collins unfolded like a bungled modern coaching search, with fans and journalists live tweeting along the way. Foley waited a year too long to fire Muschamp and then proceeded to run a search without the same discretion and aggressiveness that allowed him to outfox Notre Dame a decade ago. We’ll reserve judgment on McElwain for what he does on the field. But the lost 2014 season at Florida and squandered opportunities for Foley to hire a more established and bigger name coach shows just how far he and the Gators have fallen.
How has Foley messed up things in the last decade? Let us count the ways. Start with the candidates Foley likely could have lured to Gainesville. There are four coaches with better track records and decisively more potential that Foley missed or ignored. The timing of Foley’s firing of Muschamp cost him a shot at Charlie Strong and James Franklin last year. For reasons that are still unclear, Foley ruled out Rich Rodriguez and Dan Mullen before this search even began. The result is the rest of the SEC snickering at Foley, who has two football flops -- Ron Zook and Muschamp -- and a Hall of Famer (Meyer) on his track record. McElwain deserves a shot, but there aren’t a lot of signs that he’s the next Meyer.
Consider that in October 2004, Foley fired Zook after a loss at Mississippi State. By doing so, he became the model of an aggressive athletic official for dismissing his football coach early in the season. Foley then went out and hired the best available coach, and it paid dividends when Meyer led Florida to a pair of national championships.
But in 2013, with Florida’s offense stuck in the Proterozoic era and the program hitting a low by going 4-8 and losing to Georgia Southern, Foley didn’t take action. Foley blamed injuries, and his naïve belief in Muschamp belied the obvious -- Muschamp simply wasn’t a good head coach. (And Foley’s biggest blunder may have been choosing Muschamp over Strong, then the coach at Louisville, or Mullen in 2010. He chose an unknown commodity at the Florida pressure cooker over a proven one).
By keeping Muschamp for 2014, Foley’s belief in his own hire trumped the reality of a situation that everyone but him saw clearly. He stuck with Muschamp for a predictably flat 6-5 season, his faith proving dubious on first guess and embarrassing on the second. The inability to show the same vision he had in 2004 cost Florida mightily. Foley whiffing on Strong has to be especially galling to Florida fans, who saw him recruit and coach so well there at various times over 15 seasons. Instead of going with the obvious choice, Foley appeared to try to outsmart everyone.
Under Muschamp this season the results were predictable. Florida still looked pre-historic on offense, lost by a combined score of 84-34 to the SEC’s two division winners (Alabama and Missouri) and inevitably brought Foley to the decision he couldn’t muster the gusto to make the year before. (Foley’s biggest mistake with Muschamp may have been allowing him to hire Charlie Weis as offensive coordinator in his first year, a tone deaf $765,000-a-year mistake bailed out only by Kansas’ Mr. Magoo vision to make him the head coach. The move put Florida in a two-year hole on offense).
When this coaching search came around, Florida’s strangest maneuver came when it leaked to ESPN the day Muschamp got fired that it wouldn’t be pursuing Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen or Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez. This would have been fine if the Gators hired Bob Stoops or Chip Kelly, but in retrospect it appeared like Foley was setting a low bar. There’s been no good reason given for both those coaches not being considered, and few competent athletic directors would choose McElwain over Mullen or Rodriguez. (If the narrative of a blue blood school passing on Rodriguez for an obscure Mountain West coach sounds familiar, ask Michigan how that worked out.)
Comparing McElwain to Mullen or Rodriguez is unfair, as Rodriguez nearly made the national title game at West Virginia and has Arizona -- ARIZONA! -- in the Pac-12 title game. Mullen overcame a half-century of futility at Mississippi State and led the Bulldogs to a No. 1 ranking this season, has unquestioned offensive acumen and brings the invaluable experience of having coached in the Florida bubble. Either would be realistic threats to win the national title with the Gators. McElwain has had a solid season at Colorado State (10-2), and his experience under Nick Saban at Alabama will help him in the SEC.
McElwain’s best career head coaching win came at Boston College this fall, while Mullen and Rodriguez have a track record of building non-traditional powers to the highest levels. To be fair, few expected Foley to call Mullen. They have a decent relationship, but it became complicated after Foley essentially mocked Mullen’s decision to leave his job as Florida’s offensive coordinator for Mississippi State.
The decision to rule out Rodriguez may come back to haunt Foley the most. While Rodriguez had NCAA issues at Michigan and clashed with the administration, he’s been a model coach at Arizona and his offensive ingenuity would be embraced along with his down-home personality. When Foley ruled out Rodriguez and Mullen for the job, the SEC let out a collective sigh of relief. If Foley hires McElwain, there will be high fives of celebration, as the move looms as intimidating as a Powder Puff prevent defense. (Can't you imagine Steve Spurrier already getting his one-liners ready for media day?)
As Florida has sputtered through the past two seasons, the most glaring example of Foley’s negligence and arrogance has come through his refusal to acknowledge the Gator’s inferior football facilities. At the press conference in which he dismissed Muschamp, Foley shot down any notion of Florida falling behind in facilities.
Florida lacks a stand-alone indoor facility, and Foley’s refusal to acknowledge this as a problem prompted mocking texts and audible laughs around the SEC. (Both Mississippi schools have vastly superior football facilities.) While Foley has taken a victory lap for the millions that the athletic department has donated back to the University -- more than $77 million since 1992 -- the Gators are in the bottom tier of the SEC in terms of football facilities. Foley is the only one who has failed to realize this.
Foley’s position reminds me of Miami in the early 2000s, which denied having facility problems because of their success and then found themselves a decade behind the competition,” said a southern coach familiar with both schools.
Is Foley falling asleep at the wheel? Florida hasn’t won a major bowl game since the 2009 season, and it appears destined for a lost decade unless McElwain can rebuild in a hurry. And he’ll be doing so with Foley watching closely, as few athletic departments in America have ADs whose offices are joined by the football coach's office. (Get used to Foley popping in to watch film, too, a habit that makes you wonder if he would have been better off keeping his eye on the big picture instead of the game plan.)
In December 2014, reporters tracked Foley’s trip on a private plane to Fort Collins, Colo. Members of the media then followed a white SUV carrying him to the house of Colorado Statecoach Jim McElwain. There’s even a picture of Foley admiring the view. Reports have identified McElwain as the leading candidate to replace Will Muschamp at Florida, and it would be shocking if Foley went through that whole exercise without pulling the trigger. (UPDATE: Florida announced the hiring of McElwain on Thursday morning.)
Ten years to the day of White’s ill-fated trip to Salt Lake City, Foley’s voyage to Fort Collins unfolded like a bungled modern coaching search, with fans and journalists live tweeting along the way. Foley waited a year too long to fire Muschamp and then proceeded to run a search without the same discretion and aggressiveness that allowed him to outfox Notre Dame a decade ago. We’ll reserve judgment on McElwain for what he does on the field. But the lost 2014 season at Florida and squandered opportunities for Foley to hire a more established and bigger name coach shows just how far he and the Gators have fallen.
How has Foley messed up things in the last decade? Let us count the ways. Start with the candidates Foley likely could have lured to Gainesville. There are four coaches with better track records and decisively more potential that Foley missed or ignored. The timing of Foley’s firing of Muschamp cost him a shot at Charlie Strong and James Franklin last year. For reasons that are still unclear, Foley ruled out Rich Rodriguez and Dan Mullen before this search even began. The result is the rest of the SEC snickering at Foley, who has two football flops -- Ron Zook and Muschamp -- and a Hall of Famer (Meyer) on his track record. McElwain deserves a shot, but there aren’t a lot of signs that he’s the next Meyer.
Consider that in October 2004, Foley fired Zook after a loss at Mississippi State. By doing so, he became the model of an aggressive athletic official for dismissing his football coach early in the season. Foley then went out and hired the best available coach, and it paid dividends when Meyer led Florida to a pair of national championships.
But in 2013, with Florida’s offense stuck in the Proterozoic era and the program hitting a low by going 4-8 and losing to Georgia Southern, Foley didn’t take action. Foley blamed injuries, and his naïve belief in Muschamp belied the obvious -- Muschamp simply wasn’t a good head coach. (And Foley’s biggest blunder may have been choosing Muschamp over Strong, then the coach at Louisville, or Mullen in 2010. He chose an unknown commodity at the Florida pressure cooker over a proven one).
By keeping Muschamp for 2014, Foley’s belief in his own hire trumped the reality of a situation that everyone but him saw clearly. He stuck with Muschamp for a predictably flat 6-5 season, his faith proving dubious on first guess and embarrassing on the second. The inability to show the same vision he had in 2004 cost Florida mightily. Foley whiffing on Strong has to be especially galling to Florida fans, who saw him recruit and coach so well there at various times over 15 seasons. Instead of going with the obvious choice, Foley appeared to try to outsmart everyone.
Under Muschamp this season the results were predictable. Florida still looked pre-historic on offense, lost by a combined score of 84-34 to the SEC’s two division winners (Alabama and Missouri) and inevitably brought Foley to the decision he couldn’t muster the gusto to make the year before. (Foley’s biggest mistake with Muschamp may have been allowing him to hire Charlie Weis as offensive coordinator in his first year, a tone deaf $765,000-a-year mistake bailed out only by Kansas’ Mr. Magoo vision to make him the head coach. The move put Florida in a two-year hole on offense).
When this coaching search came around, Florida’s strangest maneuver came when it leaked to ESPN the day Muschamp got fired that it wouldn’t be pursuing Mississippi State’s Dan Mullen or Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez. This would have been fine if the Gators hired Bob Stoops or Chip Kelly, but in retrospect it appeared like Foley was setting a low bar. There’s been no good reason given for both those coaches not being considered, and few competent athletic directors would choose McElwain over Mullen or Rodriguez. (If the narrative of a blue blood school passing on Rodriguez for an obscure Mountain West coach sounds familiar, ask Michigan how that worked out.)
Comparing McElwain to Mullen or Rodriguez is unfair, as Rodriguez nearly made the national title game at West Virginia and has Arizona -- ARIZONA! -- in the Pac-12 title game. Mullen overcame a half-century of futility at Mississippi State and led the Bulldogs to a No. 1 ranking this season, has unquestioned offensive acumen and brings the invaluable experience of having coached in the Florida bubble. Either would be realistic threats to win the national title with the Gators. McElwain has had a solid season at Colorado State (10-2), and his experience under Nick Saban at Alabama will help him in the SEC.
McElwain’s best career head coaching win came at Boston College this fall, while Mullen and Rodriguez have a track record of building non-traditional powers to the highest levels. To be fair, few expected Foley to call Mullen. They have a decent relationship, but it became complicated after Foley essentially mocked Mullen’s decision to leave his job as Florida’s offensive coordinator for Mississippi State.
The decision to rule out Rodriguez may come back to haunt Foley the most. While Rodriguez had NCAA issues at Michigan and clashed with the administration, he’s been a model coach at Arizona and his offensive ingenuity would be embraced along with his down-home personality. When Foley ruled out Rodriguez and Mullen for the job, the SEC let out a collective sigh of relief. If Foley hires McElwain, there will be high fives of celebration, as the move looms as intimidating as a Powder Puff prevent defense. (Can't you imagine Steve Spurrier already getting his one-liners ready for media day?)
As Florida has sputtered through the past two seasons, the most glaring example of Foley’s negligence and arrogance has come through his refusal to acknowledge the Gator’s inferior football facilities. At the press conference in which he dismissed Muschamp, Foley shot down any notion of Florida falling behind in facilities.
Florida lacks a stand-alone indoor facility, and Foley’s refusal to acknowledge this as a problem prompted mocking texts and audible laughs around the SEC. (Both Mississippi schools have vastly superior football facilities.) While Foley has taken a victory lap for the millions that the athletic department has donated back to the University -- more than $77 million since 1992 -- the Gators are in the bottom tier of the SEC in terms of football facilities. Foley is the only one who has failed to realize this.
Foley’s position reminds me of Miami in the early 2000s, which denied having facility problems because of their success and then found themselves a decade behind the competition,” said a southern coach familiar with both schools.
Is Foley falling asleep at the wheel? Florida hasn’t won a major bowl game since the 2009 season, and it appears destined for a lost decade unless McElwain can rebuild in a hurry. And he’ll be doing so with Foley watching closely, as few athletic departments in America have ADs whose offices are joined by the football coach's office. (Get used to Foley popping in to watch film, too, a habit that makes you wonder if he would have been better off keeping his eye on the big picture instead of the game plan.)
