Gators Football Still Haunts Scott Stricklin’s Record at Florida
Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin has a lot of work to do to find a new football head coach after the firing of Billy Napier. The hire is not only one that could be the most important in the history of Florida athletics, but it could have major implications for Stricklin’s future at the institution.
Stricklin has been the athletic director at the University of Florida since November 2016. In nine years since his hiring, he has seen 13 national championships across all UF athletics, including one in baseball in 2017 and men’s basketball in April.
Still, the most important sport at Florida — football — continues to disappoint under Stricklin. Florida football is 61-46 in his tenure. While the record sits above .500, it is a low standard for Florida’s historic success.
Loading ...The Gators’ previous athletic director, Jeremy Foley, who was at UF from 1992-2016, held a record of 239-82-1 in Florida football during his time. All three championships came during that time period (1996, 2006, 2008). Football is the bottom line in SEC athletics, and questions will continue to swirl around Stricklin if football continues to underperform.
“We want to compete for championships and not just compete but we want to win championships,” Stricklin said in Monday’s news conference to address Napier’s firing. “Just at the end of the day, we didn’t win to the level we needed to.”
Stricklin will be only the second athletic director at Florida to get a third football head coaching hire. The other was Foley. It’s uncommon for any athletic director to get three head football coach hires, especially when the record in their tenure is just above .500.
But football isn’t the only sport carrying a question mark during Stricklin’s time as AD.
A number of his coaching hires have had issues, whether on or off the field. He has brought on nine head coaches in his time at Florida and five of them have winning percentages below 40%. Under any benchmark, if you lose more than you win, the outcome is unacceptable.
Two of those nine hired head coaches had to be fired for disciplinary issues with the players. Cam Newbauer for women’s basketball and Tony Amato for soccer were both let go after they allegedly abused players on their respective teams. They were said to have created toxic environments that led to unhealthy mental states for the players.
Stricklin signed a contract extension through 2030 in September coming off April’s men’s basketball national championship, but the new deal doesn’t mean his job is completely safe. The hire of Todd Golden has bought him time, but not an unlimited amount. A misfire on a third football head coach would create a major hole for the athletic program and put his job in jeopardy.
Napier didn’t help his case. Florida NIL boosters reportedly raised buyout money to fire Napier in 2024, but Stricklin convinced them to give Napier another shot and to use the money to bolster the roster. The boosters gave one condition: Napier must hire an offensive coordinator by the end of the season.
Napier wasn’t fired until seven games into the 2025 season and still had no offensive coordinator. It reportedly took the boosters threatening to pull funding if there wasn’t a change in the direction of the football team for Stricklin to pull the plug on Napier.
The hesitation to fire Napier without intervention from boosters now leaves questions as to whether Stricklin will be trusted to make decisions on his own in the future, limiting his power to determine the direction of the program. Stricklin confirmed he is still solely in charge in Monday’s press conference.
“I don’t have anybody reaching over trying to grab the steering wheel,” he said.
Stricklin made it clear the university is as committed to football as ever and is willing to put more resources into getting the hire right. In his statement announcing the firing of Napier, Stricklin said he is looking for an elite coaching candidate who can win a championship at the University of Florida.
Whether that means another coach currently competing in college football or looking elsewhere, one can only assume it eliminates the option of coordinators and Group of Five candidates. Nevertheless, Stricklin looks to make a splash on the next head coach to bring back the brand of success in Gators football that was so prevalent in the past.
“There’s never been a time, as many financial resources and as much commitment has gone into making Gator football as good as it can be,” Stricklin said.
Category: Feature Sports News, Football, Gators Football, SEC
