Scott Stricklin remaining Florida Gators AD is untenable amid fallout from Lane Kiffin fiasco

Image Credit: UAA

Scott Stricklin should have been fired from his post as Florida Gators athletic director years ago. Through a combination of political interference at the University of Florida, a lack of in-place leadership, failed oversight and pure luck, Stricklin not only remained in position to hire a third head football coach — an allowance basically no one in his profession is granted — but received a mind-numbing contract extension tying him to the program through 2030.

By the time UF comes to the realization that has permeated Gator Nation for years, it will be too late.

In fact, that time has already passed: Stricklin has led a full-fledged implosion of Florida athletics. This once-great institution has continued to decompose further by the season under his leadership, and Stricklin’s remaining in his role at the helm of the program has officially become untenable.

This was the case well before Stricklin hired Tulane’s Jon Sumrall as the Gators’ new head football coach, but as anyone who follows Florida athletics or major college sports knows, football is the tide that floats all boats. If Stricklin were able to complete the layup of hiring Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin, who clearly made it known through back channels that he was ready to move on with his career this offseason, fans likely would have forgiven his past misdeeds — even if some should never be overlooked.

After Stricklin ignored him in 2021 and chose to retain Billy Napier rather than pivot to Kiffin following the 2024 season, the timing was finally right for the Gators. All Stricklin needed to do was close the deal by giving Kiffin what he wanted and playing by an admittedly difficult timeline to land a coach seen as the heir apparent to the legendary Steve Spurrier, a man in Kiffin who seemed destined to coach the program given his ties to the state and familial appreciation for the university.

There was only one problem.

As Only Gators reported on Nov. 19, among Kiffin’s chief concerns with joining the Gators was a potential working relationship with Stricklin, his would-be boss. It was believed issues to that end were being resolved, and while that may have been the case, it’s possible Kiffin was never able to get over that hump. Either way, Florida had six weeks to recruit Kiffin, including a massive head start on LSU, yet it ultimately lost or conceded the battle — neither result preferable to the other.

Editor’s note — Dec. 1: Kiffin was indeed concerned about Stricklin’s potential meddling and caught a “weird vibe” about the job after their first conversation, per a corroborating but more in-depth report.

This despite LSU, in a financially strapped state with a meddling governor, being in the process of paying out the second-largest buyout to a coach during a firing and hiring process that has appropriately been clowned on nationally for its chaotic nature.

If Stricklin actually chose to move on 24 hours before Kiffin was set to decide on his future — over concern that he would otherwise lose his backup, Sumrall (Sumrall!) — that’s mind-numbing. If Kiffin told UF it did not make the final two for his services before the Egg Bowl, that goes to show how poorly Stricklin handled the process. The Gators had complete buy-in from the fans and even spent significant money hiring the TurnkeyZRG search firm for assistance with the Kiffin hire.

(There are a variety of rumors in the ether involving Stricklin and UF’s largest booster — some claiming sabotage, others suggesting impatience and an arbitrary deadline — that Only Gators cannot confirm at the time of publication. Given the way this situation unfolded, both or neither may be true. What Only Gators has been told is that multiple boosters are angry and feeling severely misled by the process in totality and Stricklin specifically. Many have questioned the purpose of hiring Turnkey only to land on a hire that should not have required assistance to sign.)

Even if Florida and Stricklin ultimately made no mistakes in their pursuit — let’s say Kiffin chose a different path for unrelated personal reasons — moving to Sumrall as the secondary option is widely and understandably being rejected by fans and boosters given Sumrall’s similarities to jettisoned coach Billy Napier, and perhaps more pointedly, their overall lack of faith in Stricklin.

“Any time you conduct a head coaching search, especially for a high-profile sport like football or men’s basketball, you learn something. The lessons from past experiences will guide us through the work ahead,” Stricklin said upon firing Napier, six weeks before hiring a coach with a similar resume.

Other top programs (Alabama, LSU) have shown they are capable of going out and swiping big-name coaches from other Power Four teams when their jobs open. The Tigers just stole Kiffin from Ole Miss after previously taking Brian Kelly from Notre Dame. What Stricklin did in this coaching search is malpractice or incompetence — probably both. Outside of Kiffin, UF appeared to thumb its nose at the idea of going after a notable name who could level up a program that badly needs elevation.

Gator Nation has sold out Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for 18 straight home games despite the football team being in the midst of its worst run in 75 years. Stricklin, somehow, believed the digestible answer was another Group of Five coach whose career is nowhere near as successful as his record suggests — a defensive-minded version of the same guy he just fired and paid a $20 million buyout … with less of a pedigree.

Sumrall may well exceed expectations and ultimately work out for the Gators. He is widely respected by his peers and praised for his program management having taken two separate teams to four straight conference championship games. But Stricklin has put Sumrall in a situation where he now faces an unnecessarily steep uphill battle from the day he sets foot on UF campus.

A fan base that has rejected his hiring and Stricklin’s leadership is largely out for blood, and Sumrall is now up against it. While dealing with the remainder of Tulane’s season, assembling his Florida coaching staff, recruiting and attacking the transfer portal, he must win back the Gators’ faithful. It is Stricklin who put him in such a prone position, unfair as it may be.

It is also Stricklin who is in the process of hiring one of the worst NFL general managers this century, David Caldwell, to hold the same role in the Florida football organization. Like with Sumrall, it could work out with Caldwell (particularly if he focuses on NIL management rather than scouting), but Gators fans have no reason to trust that Stricklin got either of these hires right considering the resumes of all three individuals in question.

It is Stricklin’s charge as lead executive at Florida only to hire coaches who lead winning teams but to find a level of integrity in the Wild West of college sports and manage booster alignment beyond taking money out of the pockets of wealthy individuals. While Stricklin has raised money well, he has failed in nearly every other charge.

Stricklin’s hires lose. Men’s basketball coach Todd Golden is the only acquisition that has shown any level of achievement. Golden’s incredible run to the national championship last year is the only true success on which Stricklin can hang his hat, and that hiring appears to be more pure luck than anything else.

This offseason, Stricklin will also be hiring his third soccer coach following the retirement of Becky Burleigh. (His last hire, Samantha Bohon, came from Embry-Riddle of Division II.) Despite hope and faith around Kelly Rae Finley, women’s basketball remains one of the SEC’s most underachieving programs. Even if Finely does ultimately succeed, she would be another lucky hire as a well-liked assistant who served as interim coach after Stricklin was forced to fire her problematic boss.

To that end, Stricklin has been slow to act when jettisoning coaches who have proven to be ill-fitting, whether for on-field performance, off-field issues or both. Napier was granted a fourth season despite starting his career 19-19 and refusing to make obvious, necessary changes to coaching style and the football program overall.

Florida used to regularly win the SEC All-Sports Trophy due to its success across men’s and women’s athletics; in fact, it was once the only program to sweep the crowns. The Gators have not sniffed it in five years. UF would typically place second to Stanford (unbeatable given the number of sports it sponsors) in the Director’s Cup, which is awarded to the most successful college athletic programs. It has placed no better than fourth over the last five seasons with its seventh-place finish in 2024-25 standing as Florida’s worst in 22 years.

Stricklin’s hires are problematic. There have been allegations of player mistreatment, verbal abuse and sexual misconduct among coaches Stricklin has brought to UF, turning it into a program that appears to no longer prioritize the treatment and safety of its athletes and staff. He fired the first three external hires he made since joining Florida, and it appeared as recently as the middle part of last season that UF may need to terminate his fourth. While those issues were ongoing, Stricklin largely hid from the public, hoping the fervor would subside in each situation.

Former soccer coach Tony Amato was fired in 2022 amid allegations of widespread player mistreatment during his lone season. On the field, Amato’s team went 4-12-4, by far the worst regular-season record in program history, with 17 players leaving the team in 11 months. In announcing Amato’s firing, Stricklin did not address the allegations, citing an “extremely difficult” decision made because there was a “disconnect between Tony and his athletes.” This after players and staff reportedly expressed their concerns to the UAA in an official letter, the only result of which was a group counseling session and promise of a full investigation that led to a general group apology.

Amato was the second of Stricklin’s first three external head coaching hires at UF to depart amid complaints of player mistreatment. Former head women’s basketball coach Cameron Newbauer resigned in 2021 after allegedly creating a toxic environment and verbally abusing players. Six weeks before his departure, despite a mountain of internal allegations against the coach, who led the program to a pitiful 46-71 (.393) mark in four seasons, Stricklin announced that Newbauer had signed an extension.

Stricklin chose not to directly address details of the allegations against Newbauer in public, though he did later admit to making a misstep. In the aftermath, Stricklin went on a media blackout, including during the ensuing football season, one marked by performance issues behind head coach Dan Mullen, who had already incurred a one-year show-cause order and one year of probation from the NCAA amid recruiting violations. Mullen also gave the university a black eye with public comments about desiring to “pack The Swamp” during the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Following Mullen’s departure, football players expressed significant dissatisfaction with their living situations, team meals and even on-campus parking.

Tearing it down

While Stricklin has raised significant money for the program, overseen the construction of numerous facilities that have been crucial to the Gators competing in college sports’ arms race and hired one coach who happened to win a national title, those efforts have come against a backdrop of failure and neglect. Stricklin’s head coaching hires not only lose between the whistles, many are also problematic individuals, which proves a consistent inability to evaluate both talent and personality.

Simply put: Florida athletics as a whole is worse off than it was when Stricklin started. The Gators used to hire and platform the best of the best, enabling them to achieve more success than nearly any program in the nation, a claim they can no longer stake.

Football, specifically, is in the midst of its worst stretch in modern history, considering it had won three national championships in 13 years through the turn of the century but has four losing seasons in the last five, as many as it had in the prior 43 years — combined. UF has finished below .500 in four of the last five seasons for the first time since 1945-49.

After this hiring cycle, Florida football has fallen into the third tier of the Power Four alongside the likes of Auburn, Nebraska and Tennessee — a far cry from its perennial place amid the first and second tiers (depending on the season) when it stood as one of the most successful and notable teams in the sport.

Under Stricklin, the Gators have been less successful on the field and more embarrassing off it — all while the program has created an unsavory experience for at least some athletes and staff.

This is not the resume of an athletic director who should be retained, and it’s certainly not the resume of one who should have received a multi-million dollar, three-year extension.

While Florida may be stuck with Stricklin until a new president is hired — and that person will have plenty on their plate, including significant issues far beyond athletics — Stricklin’s continued presence atop this athletic department cannot be allowed to continue in the long term.