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Some of you Foley haters are getting your wish.

GatorTheo

GatorTheo

Bull Gator
Apr 1, 2002
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"GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida athletics director Jeremy Foley has guided one of the most successful athletics programs in the country for the past 25 years, but his tenure has come to an end.

With all of his coaches in place -- Florida reportedly made moves to make sure baseball coach Kevin O'Sullivan will be in Gainesville for a long time and just hired new football and basketball coaches last year -- Foley announced his retirement on Monday in a press release. Foley will retain his post until Oct. 1, when his replacement will take over. The Associated Press first reported the news."

Personally, I'm scared. :eek:
 
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I thought he did a hell of a job. He struggled a bit with the HBC hires, which is the most important decision he makes, but the across the board success was phenomenal. Billy Donovan and Kevin O'Sullivan are two of the best hires any AD could make, and the success of track and field, women's softball, etc... has done the university very proud.
 
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How come it seems like every single piece of news that had come out about Florida over the past 5 or 6 years has been terrible? sadgator hates checking the ESPN crawl because he knows every time he sees something about Florida it will be bad.

Anybody who thinks this is a good thing is crazy. Dude won us titles and kept us out of trouble.

That said, Foley deserves to leave on his own terms having done a job that will never be matched. We will miss him dearly.
 
What Jeremy Foley did to bring UF athletics to where it is now is truly amazing. One of the Top 2-3 athletic programs in the nation with consistency across the board that is unmatched except by Stanford. I'm sure he will be heavily involved in selecting his replacement and that's as it should be. He should be honored as one of the all time Gator greats.
 
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He's getting lots of props from national sports writers on how good of an AD he was.
 
bradleygator said:
I thought he did a hell of a job. He struggled a bit with the HBC hires, which is the most important decision he makes, but the across the board success was phenomenal. Billy Donovan and Kevin O'Sullivan are two of the best hires any AD could make, and the success of track and field, women's softball, etc... has done the university very proud.
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Yep. He guided the sports program to unprecedented success.

I hope the Foley bashers do not come to rue their opinion about the man. And by that, I mean I hope his replacement does so well that they are able to say; "See? Anyone can do well in this job."
 
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Michi-Gator said:
Retaining Billy Donovan, imo the greatest Gators coach of all time, was amazing. His acroos the board success is unreal. Just glad his hands will be off the football program.
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yep, those 3 NCs and numerous SEC titles really suck
 
The process and resolution will be very interesting. I'm sure there will be some strong opinions as usual.
 
I do believe the Florida AD is a highly coveted job and has tons of advantages, etc. and probably one of the top 5 jobs in the entire country to be the AD of, but with that being said it isn't just a plug and play either. Nobody is perfect and Foley made some mistakes, but he's done some pretty incredible things while at UF. Winning 27 national championships during his tenure as AD is no joke.

Most ADs retire and nobody cares or makes mention of it. Foley retiring is getting national attention. There is a reason for that.
 
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TennesseeGator said:
You know that comment will turn into a five page argument.

However has there ever been an AD with this long of a tenure where the football program only missed one bowl game?
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This is where I come out on it. His HBC hires struggled, but the football program performed extraordinarily well during his tenure. As far as the rest of the sports, there's nothing to argue about. As a couple of other posters have mentioned, he also managed to keep the NCAA mostly out of our business.
 
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bradleygator said:
This is where I come out on it. His HBC hires struggled, but the football program performed extraordinarily well during his tenure. As far as the rest of the sports, there's nothing to argue about. As a couple of other posters have mentioned, he also managed to keep the NCAA mostly out of our business.
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He hired 4 football coaches. With the exception of Meyer, all have come with a very conservative, offense based on plugging along. Mac has this background but we will see. That style does not match the atlete available in Florida. Flaw #1.

I believe the biggest thing that put us in the hole we are in now was his insistance on retaining Chump after the 4-8 season. That turned the season the Gators should have walked into the #1 class in the coutry as many of the top players in Florida and the nation were Gators leans. This then turned into a transition class and we failed to take advantage on that, which I belive would have been different had we changed a year earlier. Flaw #2.

Outside of football, he has been amazing
 
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Michi-Gator said:
He hired 4 football coaches. With the exception of Meyer, all have come with a very conservative, offense based on plugging along. Mac has this background but we will see. That style does not match the atlete available in Florida. Flaw #1.

I believe the biggest thing that put us in the hole we are in now was his insistance on retaining Chump after the 4-8 season. That turned the season the Gators should have walked into the #1 class in the coutry as many of the top players in Florida and the nation were Gators leans. This then turned into a transition class and we failed to take advantage on that, which I belive would have been different had we changed a year earlier. Flaw #2.

Outside of football, he has been amazing
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I don't think Zook's offense was too conservative, he was just a lunatic. I think they were the No. 1 offense in the SEC when he got fired. He was a very good recruiter though, who provided most of the players for Meyer's first NC, so I give Foley some credit there, even if Meyer wasn't his guy. Muschamp was just a terrible fit for UF, and a bad hire. He put the team on a terrible trajectory, and we're obviously still trying to reverse that momentum. I'm not ready to say that MCE is too conservative. I want to see what he does with a quarterback he likes. His recruiting has been a bit of a letdown, but I'll give him time to see if he can get some good vibes flowing again and then see how he can recruit.
 
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Zook's offense was better than his defense statistically speaking. Zook's downfall at UF was actually lousy defensive play.
 
PacoGator19 said:
Zook's offense was better than his defense statistically speaking. Zook's downfall at UF was actually lousy defensive play.
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In Zooks final season we were 4th in the SEC in offense and 5th in defense. Pretty balances honestly

In 2002 the best I could find is that our team defense ranked significantly higher than our team offense
 
Here's what I want to see from the next UF AD

1) Build a standalone football facility....and don't cheap out on it. We need to catch up to the competition.

2) Upgrade the baseball stadium. The MAC is old and outdated. Bring in a wrecking ball, knock it down and build a nice new facility. We have the best baseball coach in Gator history. Its time to build a top notch facility and start winning the CWS.

3) O-Dome....needs to be replaced. It too is massively outdated.

4) play fsu occasionally instead of automatically giving them the lone home and home spot on our schedule most seasons. In the years we don't play them, play home and home contracts with exciting intersectional opponents instead. Our fans and alums would get more out of exciting trips to places like Texas or Nebraska or Washington and seeing those teams come into the Swamp instead of automatically playing fsu every time. They get far more out of it than we do.

This list was considerably longer a few years ago but Foley started fixing at least some of the things I had long been concerned about/disagreed with. We do still have a ways to go though.
 
3) They just spent 65 million on the building. It won't be replaced anytime soon.
4) Isn't it a state law they must play each other on a yearly basis?

I like the rest of the list
 
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TennesseeGator said:
3) They just spent 65 million on the building. It won't be replaced anytime soon.
4) Isn't it a state law they must play each other on a yearly basis?

I like the rest of the list
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3) OK I can live with an upgrade. Pure brain fart there. I knew they upgraded in basketball. duh.

4) there is no state law that they play. There has never been any state law that they play. That is just fsu propaganda.
 
HardeeWildcatFan said:
5) Its a RIVALRY and RIVALRY plays every year...
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meh. We don't play miami every year any more. We don't play Auburn every year any more. I wish we did still play Auburn.

There is nothing sacred about playing fsu every year and in fact I think they get way more out of it than we do. It sucks that we have been denied the chance to play exciting intersectional opponents because of automatically giving fsu that spot on our schedule every year. That is unnecessary and undesirable for us.

P.S. despite only playing 5 times in 20 years, we still despise scUM. I'm sure we could still hate fsu only playing them sometimes.
 
Deathroll said:
Here's what I want to see from the next UF AD

1) Build a standalone football facility....and don't cheap out on it. We need to catch up to the competition.

2) Upgrade the baseball stadium. The MAC is old and outdated. Bring in a wrecking ball, knock it down and build a nice new facility. We have the best baseball coach in Gator history. Its time to build a top notch facility and start winning the CWS.

3) O-Dome....needs to be replaced. It too is massively outdated.

4) play fsu occasionally instead of automatically giving them the lone home and home spot on our schedule most seasons. In the years we don't play them, play home and home contracts with exciting intersectional opponents instead. Our fans and alums would get more out of exciting trips to places like Texas or Nebraska or Washington and seeing those teams come into the Swamp instead of automatically playing fsu every time. They get far more out of it than we do.

This list was considerably longer a few years ago but Foley started fixing at least some of the things I had long been concerned about/disagreed with. We do still have a ways to go though.
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I love your #1. Other than that I would add:

1. Maintain success in non-revenue sports

2. Take lengths to keep our basketball programs competitive on a national level most years.

3. If/when the time comes, quit trying to turn our football program into Bama East.

4. I think playing F$U every year on a nationally televised games is too important to our recruiting efforts to drop that game. I think we could add some tier 2 schools as another OOC like a Boise or someone middle of the pack team from a Power 5 conference. Not a huge fan of games like the 2017 opener, afraid that will sour the whole season if we start with a loss.
 
hope this isn't a forced retirement that has anything to do with Texas wanting our baseball coach.
 
I don't get the hate about our schedule. It would be dope if we played some more nationally recognizable OOC games, but if you look at the trend across college football we'e doing what everybody else does and more. The trend is one top OOC opponent (FSU), a non-Power 5 opponent, and two cupcakes.

Then if you include our conference schedule we're playing UT, LSU, UGA, who are usually top 10-15 teams. Throw in our rotating West opponent of Bama, Auburn, Ole Miss, etc. and we're playing anywhere between 5-6 ranked teams a year with our OOC as is. Now if we go more national OOC and play some of the better teams we'll have about 7-8 games against top 10-15 teams...that's not remotely realistic. And you damn sure wouldn't be able to complain when we aren't winning any titles because we're putting ourselves at a major disadvantage. Especially when you have other major teams playing 3-4 ranked teams a year.
 
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