To begin with, nobody was (or should have been) overly surprised when Kelly reneged on his agreement to be the next Gators coach. Since Kelly first became a head coach at Oregon, he has lied to and back-stabbed almost every team he’s entered into agreements with, so this is certainly no outlier. Rather than say he lied, I will say he “changed his mind”, but you can draw your own conclusions. He “changed his mind” after promising to be the Tampa Bay Bucs’ new coach. He “changed his mind” about being the Cleveland Browns’ new coach. He “changed his mind” about being the Buffalo Bills’ new coach. He “changed his mind” about being the Philadelphia Eagles’ new coach. He “changed his mind” about staying the Oregon Ducks’ new coach. One might surmise that he is pathological in this sense.
He “changed his mind” (ahem) to us a lot and reneged on an agreement last Sunday to be the next Gators head coach. We gave him a 1-week window to make it final, providing right of first refusal of any better offer. He used that time to play us and UCLA back and forth to jack up what we already promised him (basically the kitchen sink), and the last demand came Thursday morning and apparently SS smelled a rat or otherwise had had enough, and told him we were through being pushed for demands. He had to take it or leave it. That’s when ESPN ran the story that we had moved on. We likely would have still accepted Kelly’s signature if it was before the deadline, but he signed with UCLA, making that hypothetical decision moot.
