Andy Staples explains confusing Florida power dynamics impacting football coaching change

On3’s Andy Staples attempted to explain the confusing power dynamic at Florida, which could certainly impact the football program.

Billy Napier is on the hot seat following a 1-2 start to Year 3 and there are many questions about his future in the immediacy. Could AD Scott Stricklin be the one to hire a third coach?

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Staples isn’t so sure and put the future of the program on the Board of Trustees.

“Well, I mean, the Board of Trustees, ultimately, probably calls the shots, and the board chair probably would be the most powerful person in the system,” Staples said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “But as far as how the mechanics of all this work, like if a decision were made about Scott Stricklin, the person who had had the authority to hire or fire an AD is the president. So that would be Kent Fuchs, the interim president …

“Then, as far as the Billy Napier decision goes, the person who that rests with is Scott Stricklin as long as he’s the AD. So that’s how the mechanics of all this work. As you can see, that kind of makes it even more confusing when you think about it.”

Fuchs has been the interim president of Florida since July. He was actually the president in charge when Stricklin was hired as the athletic director in 2016, just to make things more confusing in the present.

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But what’s next? Will Stricklin be allowed to save Florida football a third time? With maybe a splash hire? As Lee Corso would say: “Not so fast my friend.”

“So I realize my job is to have a take here, but I can tell you right now, I don’t know,” Staples said if it’s as easy as Stricklin bringing in a big name coach to fix the Billy Napier mess. “I do not know the answer to that question. I think there’s only a few people in the power structure at Florida, be they big donors or people in, you know, board members, the president, they’re the ones who know the answer to that. And I don’t know exactly what they’re thinking right now. I like Scott a lot. He’s a great guy. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to anybody. 

“I do think you don’t see SEC athletic directors get to hire three head football coaches very often. So there would have to be something that would allow him to say, ‘hey, you can trust me on this one,’ or them saying, ‘we like you, but we’re gonna have these other people decide who the next coach is gonna be.’ And I don’t know that that is a really tenable situation either. So we’ll find out what happens. But I hate to say I just don’t know the answer to that right now.”