In this episode of Locked On Gators, host Brandon Olsen delves into the swirling rumors surrounding head coach Billy Napier and the future of the Florida Gators football program. Recent reports indicate that when the Gators ultimately decide to part ways with Napier, the focus will shift to hiring a proven coach with experience in a Power 4 conference. Brandon explores what this means for the direction of the program and the qualities that Florida should prioritize in its next head coach. He discusses potential candidates who fit the criteria, analyzing their coaching philosophies, past successes, and how they could reinvigorate a program that is currently facing challenges. With insights into the implications of such a coaching change on recruiting and player development, this episode provides Gators fans with a thorough examination of the team's leadership landscape. Brandon also reflects on the ongoing season and how these developments could impact the Gators’ performance moving forward, making this a must-listen for fans eager to understand the future trajectory of their beloved team.
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Florida Gators Coach Billy Napier's Replacement Will Be Proven Power Four Coach
[MUSIC PLAYING] It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Well, we got a minute, and I'm going to buy that truck I've been wanting. Wait, don't you need, like, weeks to shop for a car? I don't. Carvana makes it super convenient to find exactly what I want. Hold up. You're buying a car on your phone? Isn't that more of a laptop thing? You can shop wherever you want. I like to do my research. Read reviews, compare models. Plus, Carvana has thousands of options. How'd you decide on that truck? Because I like it. Oh, that is a great reason. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. Are you ready to have a conversation about who the Florida Gators might look to hire as their next head coach? [MUSIC PLAYING] You are Lockdown Gators, your daily podcast on the Florida Gators, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Lockdown Gators, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks for being locked on Gators, your first listen of the day, every day. We are available daily and free, represent podcast, and on YouTube. Happy Thursday. I'm Brandon Olson. Find me on Twitter at WNS_brand. And now, through September 22, off, and all customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV visit fandall.com to get started. Now, Billy Napier has not been fired to this point. Also, we will talk about Mississippi State tomorrow. I wanted to talk about this today, because yesterday, it was weird. So yesterday, a bunch of people just started talking about Florida Gators head coaching potential vacancy or expected vacancies, what we can call it at this point. Because Florida will likely fire Billy Napier at some point this season, or after the season, which-- we know where I stand on, right? Like, we know that I'm OK. Wipe your hands. You're done with it. The report of-- they're putting together the buyout money. I'll believe it when I see it, man, but until then, chilling. But everybody is expecting Florida to fire Billy Napier this season. And now, everybody is talking about who the Gators might hire next. I will say this. Our report came out yesterday that John Gruden was interested in getting into coaching, or getting back into coaching, and that John Gruden was looking to get into college coaching specifically. And I cannot stress this enough. John Gruden should never coach a down a football for as long as he lives, OK? He is a terrible person. And whether you are talking about someone that is on Florida's coaching staff or not, whether you were talking about someone that is interested in coaching anywhere, if you are a racist, you do not deserve to ever be in charge of anybody, be a leader of men in any way, shape, or form. And John Gruden is a racist. We've seen the emails. It's why he got fired. One of the reasons he got fired with a 10-year contract with the Raiders got fired after those emails surfaced, which emails came out for a lot of people. It was that the commander's owner at the time, Dance Cider. Pretty sure that was his name. That the emails came out, and that was part of the probe. And John Gruden, yes, was also part of that as well. And so John Gruden, please never make the suggestion of him. He does not deserve to coach anybody ever again, OK? Cool. Other reports came out of the Florida Gators. Boosters will be more involved in this coaching hire whenever it may begin, and that the boosters will be looking for a proven power for winner. Please. I will say that. You look at the recent coaching hires, and Dan Mullen was, as far as going, power for offensive minded, has the Florida ties. Dan Mullen, in theory, wasn't a bad hire. He gave up on the team, and that's when things went downhill. Billy Napier, group of five, winner, recruiter shore, group of group of five, Jim McLean, group of five. There, Womoschamp, wasn't had coach prior, things like that. And so now, the expectation is that the criteria will be proven power for winner, recruiting offensive minded. Those are the three key traits that we're looking for there. And the name that always comes up is Lane Kiffin, right? That's the guy that everybody is connecting, Florida Gators, new head coach, Lane Kiffin. Fair. We know that I've been skeptical of Lane Kiffin. We know that I've been critical of Lane Kiffin through our career. That's fine. We will talk more on Lane later. I agree with the thought process of a proven power for a winner. My issue there, which, again, we'll talk about all these for a while, something tells me. But my issue there is that I think that leaves you with a very small coaching pool of proven power for a winner, offensive minded, recruiting. And I'm going to add another caveat to it. Right here, affordable. Guys like-- well, we'll talk about them in a few minutes. How about that? We'll talk about that in a few minutes. The affordable part of it. Because that, for me, is a big hang up. But I do think that the Florida Gators upper administration has got Strickland, whoever it may be, that makes this call, needs to make this call sooner rather than later. For not just the short-term health of the program, but the long-term health of the program. Because this year, especially in an ever-changing college football landscape right now, this year is also important. Because now, early signing day, all the way up at December 4. So when we talk about-- Dan Mullen gets fired at the end of the Missouri game, I believe it was. I believe that was the last straw for him around then. But you have a mid-November firing. You have a month before early signing day happens. So you make a hire in a week or two, and then you get three weeks to really hammer home early signing day and make some progress there. You don't get to do that anymore. If you're planning on making a hire at the end of the season, it really seems, I think, at a disadvantage. I think it moves back expectations for success at that point, just a little bit when we talk about, well, now you don't really get that transition class too much. Bump class puts a lot more weight on it, but transition class, really probably going to fall apart quite a bit if you don't have an answer. And I don't need a public answer. But if you have, hey, you could tell this recruit, hey, we're going to hire this guy, then sure. But you can't really tell recruits that while you still have someone else as a head-kipped, right? At least I don't think you can. So you need to make your decision sooner rather than later, because now all you're doing is maybe embarrassing yourself a little bit more. I understand keeping Billy Napier there just to write the shift, keep it moving. He's the head coach experience. He's the only other people that have head coach experience or what? Ron Roberts from Delta State. And Danny Nuss is an analyst. Pretty sure that's it there. So not great, right? Florida needs to make a decision sooner rather than later. But again, everybody is already talking about it as if this job is vacant, as if it's open, as if this coaching search has began. Which, if you're like me, you've been looking at Canada. It's required some time now about who it can be. We've got some names. We're going to talk about three specific names in the next segment. And we'll talk about some others as well after that. But three specific names, three big names, the three elves. So you probably know who we're talking about there next, on Lockdown Gators. You've heard us talk a lot about Fandool, America's number one sports book. Well, it was something a little different for you today. Now, through September 22nd, this Sunday, all Fandool customers give that $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday, take it from YouTube and YouTube TV. Then, with a YouTube TV base plan, you'll be able to watch every regular season, the Sunday afternoon out of market game. All you need is a Google account and a current form of payment, and you can cancel at any time. Visit Fandool.com and download America's number one sports book. Hey Gators, fans, have you heard about Roy? If you're an every dayer, you've heard about Roy, because we've talked about Roy quite a bit. It stands for return on you. And it's a new platform that lets you, the fans get involved in NIL like never before by making contributions directly to your favorite athletes. By supporting players directly, you can help shape rosters, retain talent, and keep your favorite athletes out of the transfer portal. And as you all know, NIL has changed the game for athletes, NIL has changed the game for programs. NIL does matter, and Roy changes the game for NIL fans. When fans contribute to a successful campaign, they receive access to exclusive content from the athlete, such as their announcement decision, behind-scenes footage and other personal reflections, all of which are available only to the fans who supported the athlete. It's exclusive to you. Get the Roy app for iOS or Android and start making an impact on your favorite team. Use your referral code locked on for an opportunity to win $5,000 cash in a sweepstakes. Visit JoinRoy.com for more details. No purchase necessary, voidware prohibited. Support the players, change the game with Roy. Nice to make it loud, Don Gator, is your first listen of the day, every day. We are available daily and free revving the podcast and on YouTube. And we're talking about the three L's for this Florida Gator's coaching hire. We will talk about all of these names, more in-depth pros, cons, all those possibilities. We will get into it when an actual move is made regarding Billy Napier's future or when an actual announcement is made regarding Billy Napier's future. But again, with all the reports that came out yesterday, I felt like this was a good time to have that conversation. For the first time on this show, if you've been in Twitter spaces, you've heard me talk about a lot of things. We've talked about all these coaches and then some, we've gone through a lot of names. We've gone through lists and lists of tiers of coaches. We've gone through a lot. We will be doing a lot whenever this coaching move is made and is announced. But starting with the three L's, Lane Kiffin is the first name that we're going to talk about, right? Because he is the one that everybody talks about. Everybody mentions whenever there's the possibility of a Florida Gator's coaching hire or Florida Gator's coaching search, people go, Lane Kiffin. Because it's a fact that throughout his career, Florida's been his white whale. And honestly, that's my biggest selling point for why I think you can land him. I understand Lane's been fickle before, right? He was supposed to leave for Auburn and then contract details came out and then got a little trigger shy there and ended up staying at Ole Miss. Fair, or I think that's fair. But Lane is at a capped program right now. He is, it's a capped program. It's Ole Miss, I don't know if you can win a national championship at Ole Miss. And if Lane doesn't win a national championship this year, I think you get your answer. And Lane has his questions. Lane has the lowest buyout of the three L's that we're talking about. Lane's buyout, I believe, is 4.5 million this year, 3.1 million next year. So you can get him at a reasonable cost there. The salary's going to be really high. But buyout-wise, considering you have to pay billion eight-years buyout, a buyout of Lane Kiffin and the salary of, say, 12 to 15 million a year, which is a lot of money, right? But let's say it's 12 to 15, we'll say 13 and a half to just cut it down the middle. That's what you're paying Lane. You're paying 18 million for Lane. And then the 19 to 26 million for Billy Napier, depending on when you fire him, there's a lot of money, but it's more affordable. Lane Kiffin, obviously, he meets the Power 4, proven Power 4 coach. He meets the offensive-minded coach. As far as recruiting, it's tough because when Lane was at USC, recruiting wasn't an issue. When Lane is at Ole Miss, it is an issue. But it's also Ole Miss, which has historically been a bad recruiting program. Ole Miss, or the state of Mississippi, is very good in terms of blue chip players per capita. We've talked about that a lot. We talked about that when Germanta Waller was committed to Florida. We talked about that when K.D. Daniels committed to Florida. We've talked about it when Micah Jones, to see if the tight end for Mississippi, believe he's the tight end for Mississippi that's committed to Florida right now. Yeah, because Tae-Shaun Gels, he's from Jacksonville. So Micah Jones from Mississippi, Gator. When we've talked about all those guys we've brought up, Mississippi State doesn't have a lot of talent, but they've got really good players. And so it's hard to convince guys, hey, come spend the next three to four years of your career at Ole Miss. It's one of the reasons that I think Lane's been pretty impactful with the portal. And I mean, you look at this year, again, we'll talk about in-depth things a lot. We'll talk about the defensive coaching hires, we'll talk about all that stuff. But recruiting in the state of Florida is different from recruiting in the state of Mississippi. And I think that that's one of the things where that's your question work for Lane, in my opinion. I think that's your question mark. But as far as so many of the other concerns that have surrounded Lane for years about his maturity and how serious he takes this, I think the way that he's moved to the past 18 months has kind of shown that he's taking a more mature approach to things, the way they've completely attacked the portal, the way he's gone directly at boosters going, hey, we need more money for these things. And the Twitter stuff doesn't bother me. I know that a lot of people are going to want my coach on Twitter, I don't care, win football games. It's at win football games and I really don't care that much, as long as you're not hurting people, I don't mind. So Lane's up there, he's affordable, he's an option, right? Second L, Lincoln Riley. And you know what? I'll throw the other L right in right now, Dan Lining. Those are the guys we talk about a lot. Those are the three Ls, the main Ls that Florida Gators fans talk about. And here's my issue with both of them. I think that they are too expensive. And it's not even to say, oh, wow, broke program thing. It's not even about that. It's that again, you're spending, depending on when you fire Billy, you're 19 to $26 million to buy out Billy. Then you've got to spend a buyout on them, which each of them should be roughly $60 million. At a later date, we will explain why Dan Lining's buyout is so high compared to what his contractual buyout is. Lincoln Riley's at an estimate because he is at a private university, so they're not required to give that information at all. But they meet the power four. Dan Lining does not meet the offensive minded part. Lincoln Riley does. Which by the way, Lincoln Riley is who people want to make Cliff Kingsbury sound like. Wanna make that clear? 'Cause I think it's an important talking point from the next few weeks and months. Just saying, you're recruiting. Lincoln's done pretty well. Lining's done pretty well. Like, Lining's got kids from Florida going up to Oregon right now. Like, you can get kids from Florida to go commit to Oregon. And even if they don't sign there right now, fact remains that you're getting kids committed. Again, getting them sick is really hard, but you're getting them committed and they're sticking at least long-term. Whether or not that they're on signing day, we won't know. But right now, he has that here, Addison Dallas. Well, it's not like he's got blue chip players. That Florida was pursuing heavily to commit to Oregon. Lincoln Riley had some like Hilton subs committed, but that fell apart quickly. It's a tough situation, but those are guys that are, you look at them and you say, hey, everybody has questions, right? Dan Lining is, can he really do it sustainably? He hasn't been a head coach for long. He's a 30-year at Oregon. Can he do it sustainably? We'll find out. Lincoln, has he finally figured out defense? We'll find out, but everybody has their question marks with those three Ls. They should be at or near the top of your list. I will also say Urban Meyer's name that was thrown around quite a bit. Urban Meyer's a name that I would take for a year or two and then figure out things down the line, but at least get things back in place. You can hire them as the interim and say, hey, you're going to be our guy for a year or two so that recruiting class shouldn't fall apart at all. 'Cause there's no question there, but Urban has said that ship sailed. So get rid of that one. But the three Ls of Lane, Lincoln, and Lining, all really good coaches, all guys that would be immediate improvements, I think, for the University of Florida. I think Lane Kiffin gives you the best chance of retaining some of the talent on the roster because that's, of course, going to be a conversation up. Well, when you fire Billy, portal opens for 30 days for guys. And so that's obviously going to throw a wrench in that plan. But there are some also overlooked, lesser known, less prestigious names. They will talk about a few of them next on Lock-down Gators. Game Time has a new feature called Game Time Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. I'll tell you what, I've used Game Time frequently, I've talked about that a lot. I'm lucky that when I go to Florida Games, I like to sit in the same section, same area. I go usually section 16-ish. I'm looking front row. I always like being front row. Section 16-ish front row, go out there, have some fun with it, enjoy those. Conference, a lot of them are general admissions so I don't have to sift through tickets which is just beautiful, chef's kiss. It's fantastic, the time consuming. I love Game Time. I think I've been very open about that and I got a notification from an Auburn to the concert this December. Might do it from a birthday, why not? Take a guess, we've got a buying ticket for the Game Time, download the Game Time app, create an account you should have locked on college for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply, again, create an account where you can code a locked on college for $20 off download Game Time today. What time is it? It's Game Time. I don't know if you can see it right to my side here. There we go. But Team Ticker is a, I feel like Vennel White and she's like, here we go. There it is, Team Ticker is a one-of-a-kind sports sign for college sports fans. Team Ticker is a foot and a half by a two-foot wall sign featuring the Gator logo. If you look at locked on Spartans, you will see Sparty on top of it. But here we have Albert saying, "Cool, retro looking LED display." And it's updated daily, by the way, with fresh content, content that I sent right now. They've got men's basketball popping up on the screen there. They've got women's soccer. They've got a bunch, 47 days, 36 minutes and 15 seconds from the time of recording this. So you know when I'm recording it today, whether it's football, men's or women's basketball, baseball, soccer, softball, Team Ticker has you covered with everything. Everything that you want. And if you're looking for that one, just eye-catching item to showcase your team pride or a gift for that special Gator's fan, go to TeamTicker.com and pick up your Team Ticker today. Team Ticker is the one-of-a-kind sports sign. Go to TeamTicker.com and use promo code locked on to receive $50 off your Team Ticker purchase. Thanks very much, Don Gator. It was your first listen of the day, every day. We are available daily and free revs in the podcast and on YouTube. I've done with my Vanna White spiel, so at least there's that. But when we talk about the Florida Gators, it's, you're in a tough spot, right? Because I feel like when you're talking about proven powerful coaches that are offensive-minded and affordable, there's a really small list, right? There's a really small pool, especially when you go, "Oh, well, they've done it at the SEC level "or in the southeast." It's a really small pool and it's kind of just laying, right? Lincoln's never done it in the true southeast. Oklahoma is not the southeast, despite being in the SEC. Cal's in the ACC. Conference of Reliam is just crazy. Also, yeah, so Van Lanning, defensive-minded coach, so he doesn't hit that criteria. But that means that you open up the pool, right? You have to open up the pool of criteria. And I am telling you this now. This is not a list that I'm putting together. I've looked at the lists of candidates for the Florida Gators. I've looked at the list of who people want to be the head coach. I go on to, I'm on Twitter a lot, man. Like, you look at the screen time and I'm on Twitter a lot to look at. Just things like that. Just to look at that. Let me see the names of, of course, Lane. One name that's popped up a lot is Eli Drinkwitz at Missouri and I am begging you. Please don't make it Eli Drinkwitz. I have not met many head coaches in my lifetime. Eli Drinkwitz is one of them. I do not like him. I do not want to have to root for him. Really good program last year in Missouri. They look good again this year, for the most part at least. I understand that there were some people who were like, oh, but they had to, that they were really tight with Boston College for a while. I was like, yeah, well, Boston College was ranked in that game. Like, let's not act like Boston College this year is the Boston College you're used to. It's no longer Jeff Halfley calling it. It's Bill O'Brien, who is very successful at Penn State, who is an NFL head coach for a few years, I got NFL playoff head coach. It's not like he's a nobody. Jeff Fish is a name that comes up a lot offensive minded coach. I don't think of him as a proven guy. Well, he was in Arizona for a couple of years and that was good. He's at Washington now and they're looking decent, Lost Washington State is not great. But I don't look at Jed Fish as proven and I don't honestly, I understand he's a Florida Gator alum. I don't look at him as someone that I want to be the head coach right now, Florida, at all. I just don't, Alex Yolash is the guy where everybody talks about, oh, well, you remove the power for thing and he kind of fits everything you're looking for, right? Recruiting wise, he's been generally good throughout his career. Offensive minded coach that runs the Varian shoot, which could be killer with Florida athletes. Like you look at a lot of things and it's very, well, maybe there's a path. There's Jamie Chadwell comes up all the time, the Liberty head coach who it's very funny because Jamie Chadwell's offensive coordinator is Willie Corn and Willie Corn is someone that we've spoken about incessantly with the Florida Gators and Billy Napier, potentially hiring him as the offensive coordinator. Lance Leepold at Kansas is a name that keeps getting brought up. He was a program builder at Buffalo program builder apparently at Kansas figuring things out. He's made good hires at offensive coordinator throughout his career. Andy Cottle Nicky was with him at Buffalo through Buffalo. Actually, I believe were they together. Andy Cottle Nicky might have been with Lance Leepold at Wisconsin White Water, I think it was. And then Buffalo, they were together for, I think, five years and then Kansas for the first two years of Lance Leepold's tenure. And then now Andy Cottle Nicky is calling place for Penn State this year. Speaking of Penn State, James Franklin is a name that comes up a proven winner. He won at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt, fairly certain. He's constantly got good defenses. He's got multiple assisting coaches with Florida ties on his roster of trotling weight for Florida, John Siders from Florida, loves Florida. Andy Cottle Nicky's his OC, if you bring him over with you. There's a million options. The issue is that I don't think any of them without a doubt fit every single thing that you're talking about. Because even Lane is, well, will you recruit properly at Florida because we saw that with Dan Mullen. Dan Mullen had Mississippi State cooking. They were exceeding expectations. They were winning games. It was fun to watch. They were doing everything. And then he came to Florida and they did all that, except recruit. I understand the hesitancy there. I will also say this. One big difference, Dan Mullen did not make tough calls at defense coordinator. And Lane Kippen went and hired Pete Golding, who, by the way, that's one of the reasons Princely left Florida and specifically chose Ole Miss to go to. And that defense has allowed nine points in three games. I don't care who you're playing. Nine points in three games is really impressive. And if I'm not mistaken, all of them are field goals. Damn good team. This is going to be a wild coaching search. It is going to be a wild coaching search. It's going to be a lot of fun whenever it happens. Tomorrow, we will be talking about Mississippi State. So thanks for making "Lock Dungators" your first listen of the day, every day. We are available daily and free. We have this in the podcast. And on YouTube for "Lock Dungators" I'm Brandon Olson. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at WNS_Brennan. Find all my written work with New York Giants on SI. And I'll see you all next time. (upbeat music) - A Prime members, you can listen to this "Lock Dung" podcast ad free on Amazon Music. 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