Mike White reveals how Georgia lured him away, what he saw in roster

New Georgia Bulldogs head coach Mike White told the media on Tuesday that the athletics brass told him everything he wanted to hear, which played a big role in getting him to leave Florida. He discussed the decision and his new roster in his introductory press conference this week.

“Everything that I was looking for, everything that I wanted to hear, I have heard and I have seen, that continued today throughout all the meetings that I’ve had with these administrators,” White said. “Had a really productive day and I feel like, to a certain extent, that we’ve hit the ground running. We’ve got a lot of work to do obviously and as a family, we’ve got to get settled, we’ve got to get a staff in place and get a little bit of normalcy but once we do, I’m going to be about as happy a camper as there is.”

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White: ‘There’s a lot of good players here’

Having coached against Georgia several times in his time with the Gators, White was asked to discuss what he liked about the team from his experience. Instead of going into specifics about the 6-26 squad, he attempted to keep things broad and positive.

“It’s such a hard league now and even the non-conference schedule, it’s part of the increase in production and analytics and postseason opportunities of this league,” White said. “We’re all scheduling very difficult teams… We talked about the injuries these guys have had, everyone’s dealing with stuff and it’s tough. Night in and night out, you’re playing high, high-level teams.

“Just because Georgia didn’t win the SEC this year, doesn’t mean they weren’t a very good team,” White continued. “This is incredibly difficult. We had our deficiencies, just about every team in our league had some deficiencies. Obviously, we’ve got to tighten up a bit in some areas. I look forward to studying the film more and starting backward and breaking stuff down offensively, defensively. There’s a lot of good players here and from what I hear, a lot of really good young men.”

Basketball insiders reveal underlying issues

According to Mark Long of the Associated Press, Mike White’s extreme choice to flip to a conference rival shows how bad the relationship between coach and school had become over the past years. He reportedly feared the toxicity would impact his family.

“Mike White leaving Florida for Georgia shows just how badly he and his family wanted out,” Long posted on Twitter. “It had become really toxic with a vocal segment of the fanbase, and White didn’t want his young kids affected by it at school and via social media.”

ESPN’s Jeff Borzello added that despite some recent success, Mike White’s inability to reach the point his predecessor did knock his tenure off track.

“Mike White had won at least one game in four consecutive NCAA tournaments before this season — but Florida wasn’t going to make it this year,” said Borzello. “And he wasn’t Billy Donovan, so there was some tension there. There was speculation he could leave this offseason, so Georgia it is.”