I remember all the discussion on various board at that time arguing that Meyer was a much better hire as he would be at UF long after Spurrier retired for good. Here we are 15 years later and Spurrier is still winning games while Meyer is on his second "health" related retirement.
The Meyer hire was a $100 million mistake. Now as someone pointed out above, it was Machen's mistake not Foley's, but it was at least a $100 million mistake. So you can love Meyer all you want, but hiring him over Spurrier greatly hurt UF's athletic department.
Just imagine had Spurrier coached UF from say 2005 to 2017. Let's say Spurrier was not as successful as his first time around. Still he might have averaged 6 SEC wins a year for 78 more SEC wins to become the coach with the most SEC wins in history. Imagine given UF's football history if UF had the coach to have won the most SEC games in history.
Additionally, UF's jersey sales, UF attendance etc would have not tailed off nearly as much and I think $8 million a year lost is a conservative figure. The cost of hiring Meyer could be well over that $100 million figure and it does not even calculate in the damage to the brand of the Meyer era of arrests and bad behavior that Machen allowed because he could not afford to have the guy he snubbed Spurrier for fail.
In 2001, UF had the most admirable football program in the country. Since then, the powers that be at UF have allowed the brand to be harmed because they could not stand to bring Spurrier back any of four chances they had.