The Florida Gators are looking for a new head football coach for the for the second time in three years but this time they will have a new Athletic Director making the call.
This will be Scott Stricklin’s first run at making a head football coaching hire as an acting AD, so he doesn’t have a track record to look back on. Stricklin was at Mississippi State when then AD Greg Byrne hired Dan Mullen. He was in the room for all the interviews with potential candidates but the final decision was not his own.
What is Stricklin looking for in a head football coach? Does he have a type?
“Beyond just somebody that you wanna work with, that’s a good guy, that you want representing your program, I don’t have anything beyond that,” he said when asked what kind of personality profile he would be looking for.”
He may not have tipped his hand there, but Stricklin knows that Florida has had a lot of success. There are three National Championship signs that are now illuminated on the walls of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. He watched from afar as those were won and the kind of football that brought them to Gainesville.
“When Florida has been really good, from a distance it has looked really fun and I want it to be really fun. Our fans, they deserve it to be really fun,” he said. “I want our players and student-athletes to have a lot of fun, like this is a rewarding experience to come here and get a degree from a top-10 public university and to play at one of the storied football programs in the country.”
Stricklin may be currently printing “Make Florida Football Fun Again” hats.
He’ll start his search in earnest tomorrow but admitted that he “knows the marketplace.” He’s knows the coaches that could potentially be interested and he’s going to go after the one that he thinks will bring an exciting brand of football back to Florida. He needs that because he’s currently asking boosters for $100 million dollars to pay for planned renovations to the athletic facilities. Bored and angry boosters aren’t as likely to scribble out those checks.
“This is a place you can have a lot of success. Certainly the facility enhancements will be a really important part of our future, but I like the opportunity for somebody wanting to come in here and start building something in the present.”