Anyone is Replaceable

Florida Gators have had a few coaching issues the past few weeks.  The most infamous of all is the Meyer flip flop but we’ve had Strong leave for Louisville bringing the DB Coach and the RB coach with him.  We had Billy Gonzalez, WR Coach, leave for LSU and Dan Mullen leave last year.  But no one is irreplaceable!  Even if Urban Meyer left, we would have found a great coach to take his place.  This is proving true as Florida’s coaching staff is starting to fill out quite nicely.

Drayton is returning to Gainesville as running backs coach, the same position he held between 2005 and 2007. He spent the last two years atTennessee (2008) and Syracuse (2009). Drayton replaces Kenny Carter, who is joining Charlie Strong at Louisville.

Durkin comes to Florida as linebackers coach, taking on a role Strong held the last five years. Durkin spent the last three years at Stanford, where he worked with defensive ends and coordinated special teams.

A defensive graduate assistant under Urban Meyer at Bowling Green (2001-02), Durkin also worked at Notre Dame (2003-04) and Bowling Green (2005-06).

The defensive coordinator position is still up in the air and who’s in charge of that hiring wasn’t clear a couple weeks ago but with Meyer’s statement of returning 2010, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s his role to hire him.  It doesn’t look like Addazio will have too much time to run the team as I’m sure Meyer will still be running the show this off season.

Charlie Strong to Louisville

Yes we talked about it a week ago, but now it’s practically done… all we’re waiting on now is an inked deal.

The school has called a meeting of the personnel committee of the Louisville Athletic Association board of directors for Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. ET, where it is expected that the board will be asked to approve the hiring of Strong, a source close to the search said Tuesday.

Charlie Strong interviewed with Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich on Sunday in Gainesville.  There are no reasons on why Strong isn’t expected to be named the head coach after today’s meeting at 3:30 PM.  We will update this post with the “official” announcement from Tom Jurich and Louisville.

Strong looks to bring his defense expertise to Louisville after the previous two coaches at Louisville being offensive coaches.  He aims to bring up the 67th defense in the NCAA and the 7th defense in the Big East up to contender level.

His recruiting for the area and the south will be welcomed though:

Strong’s deep recruiting ties to the South would be welcomed at Louisville. Kragthorpe and his staff largely abandoned recruiting in the area in favor of looking for players from the West and Southwest.

It will be interesting to see what kind of impact he can have in recruiting at Louisville and if more bigger defensive names start heading towards Louisville… only time will tell.

I for one am sad to see Strong go but he greatly deserves this opportunity as a head coach and hope he does well with it.  I wish the roles were different and it was Addazio leaving instead of Strong

Charlie Strong to Louisville: Redman Was Joking

Yesterday, we wrote about the potential of Charlie Strong leaving the Florida Gators.  Then, ESPN reports that Charlie is at the top of Louisville’s list for coaches.  Then Chris Redman says that he already has the job and his kids are already enrolled at the Louisville High School.

Now, Redman is backing out of what was said and saying it was just a joke:

I said it in a totally joking manner,” he said. “We were talking about golf and the Falcons and then they asked me about the coaching situation. I believe I said ‘I think it’s going to be Curtis Strong.’ I didn’t even know that his first name was Charlie.

“I just said that was what I was hearing. My wife (Ashley) read it on the message boards and told me about it.

“Why would I be the one making any announcement about the U of L football program? I’m not the athletic director. Anybody who would believe that strictly because it’s something that I said would be an idiot.

“But I apologize if I have stirred anything up.”

Whether it be a joke or not, the fact is a lot of people felt that he had some good inside information and I for one didn’t think twice to second guess it.  He went on to talk about his kids being enrolled in high school there already!  If you were joking, you sir took the joke too far when you said that.  That was almost like instant validation to your claim.  Be the judge for yourself… watch the video and you decide if he was joking (51 minute mark).

Even if what he said was a complete farse, it doesn’t take away that the Louisville Athletic Director still has stated that Charlie Strong is the top Candidate for Louisville.

There are current reports that Phillip Fulmer, former Tennessee head coach, is meeting with the Louisville Athletic Department.  Tom Jurich mentioned that he would not interfere with Florida’s preparation for Alabama and would wait until after the SEC Championship Game to get Charlie to come to Louisville for an interview.  This somewhat goes in the favor that Chris Redman was in fact joking.

Charlie Strong to Leave Florida?

UPDATE

Nothing better than me writing an article at 10:30 this morning regarding Charlie Strong possibly leaving Florida then to have ESPN state an hour ago that he is at the top of Louisville’s list for head coaches:

Cardinals athletic director Tom Jurich has had no contact yet with Strong, sources said. Jurich told his counterpart at Florida, Jeremy Foley, that he will not interfere with the Gators’ preparations for the SEC championship game Saturday against Alabama. However, shortly after that game is over, Jurich is expected to contact Strong, and an interview could take place as early as Sunday.

2nd UPDATE

There are now sources stating Charlie Strong at Louisville is a done deal.  Former Louisville star QB Chris Redman (Just threw the game winning TD for the Falcons on Sunday spilled the beans on Falcons Radio:

Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong will be the next head coach at the University of Louisville…. He mentioned that Strong’s kids are in the process of being enrolled in Louisville schools.

While this conflicts with Tom Jurich’s statement above the fact that Chris seems to be this knowledgeable can’t be just tossed out.  You can view the video here courtesy of AtlantaFalcons.com. You are looking to scroll to 51 minutes or so into the video.

It’s supposedly going to be announced officially after the SEC Championship game either Sunday or Monday.

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Sooner or later it will happen.  Charlie Strong is an amazing defensive coordinator and will have a head coaching job probably sooner rather than later.  He’s had an amazing career with the Florida Gators and like Bob Stoops will likely find himself as head coach within the next couple years.

Questions come up time to time such as “Why hasn’t he gone yet?” That’s a great question and no one but Charlie knows for 100% fact the reasoning behind this.  Everyone assumed he would be a good candidate to take over Florida when Ron Zook left… I mean he was in charge of the team for the rest of the season that Zook was fired in.  So why wasn’t he considered for the head coach at Florida?  He was.

It’s not known by many but insiders state that Charlie Strong just interviews HORRIBLY. I’m not trying to be dramatic… the things I’ve heard are just terrible.  This is why he doesn’t have that prestigious head coaching job like former coach Bob Stoops.  Why he doesn’t have the Florida head coaching job now and why he isn’t likely to get the top coaching spot at another major college without proving himself at a lower level school first.

Word is when asked how he would handle specific situations he looks in a binder he brings with him for the answer.  There’s one thing about having preparation but you can’t look through a binder for answers in an interview.  Bringing a plan of action that you would take and showing your general course of action on paper is one thing, but digging through your papers to answer an interview question is not only embarrassing it shows the exact opposite of what a head coach needs to be able to do.

He has also gone public with his feeling that racism is involved either because he is black or because he is a black man married to a white woman.  This doesn’t really sell your case on future interviews… would you want a coach that throws the race card out that quickly? There could be some merit to his racism claims — maybe programs are making assumptions about how his image would play to recruits and their families. Whether it’s the real reason or not, it does give food for thought on if that’s why he didn’t get the jobs in the past.

So will this be Charlie Strong’s final year at Florida?  Yes, no, maybe so.  I can’t say for sure but I can tell you he’s not going to be the head coach at Notre Dame with his interview war stories (unless he’s corrected these flaws since the last time).  There’s even more rumors about Mark Richt leaving this year or next and that Charlie would be a good candidate for Georgia.   Only time will tell.