Crete, to your credit, you have turned this into a pretty good discussion about Napier and what we’ve all seen from him so far. One thing I do want to point out is the quote from you that I tagged above. For all the crap we have said about Stricklin over the past few years… this hire was significantly different than his previous hire. For that one, we publicly went around, hat in hand, courting the big names with Kelly and Frost, only to be shot down and humiliated. We settled on Mullen. He was a fallback plan, and he lived up to that description as the program has fallen back worse than we could ever imagine.
If nothing else, I think you’ve gotta admit that Stricklin did his job by doing his homework on this hire well ahead of time. Napier was his top target. He understood it was time to rebuild the program (at least that’s what Napier told us he said), and had obviously been looking for the right man for the job. Could Stricklin have gotten a coach who could make a bigger splash? Probably, but I think he may have figured we need a lot more than a splashy name. Sure, Riley would’ve made a ton of headlines for us. And, I think he’s a good coach. But, does he know how to build a championship program? Maybe not, since he inherited one of the best from Stoops. Building a successful program and running a successful program don’t necessarily go hand in hand. We needed a builder.
Will Napier work out? No one knows. But if nothing else, we can at least feel better knowing that significant consideration and strategy went into this hire vs the sh!tshow that led to Mullen.
