re: What was the SEC worst football coaching hire ever?

Doug Dickey is the worst coach in UF history. He's so bad I have to write a lot to cover this.

UF started football around 1905 or 1906. It was never that big of a deal. During WWII, UF didn't a field a team for part of that time. After WWII and the GI Bill, hundreds of thousands of Veterans were going to college, the nation transformed as would be expected after a war like that. The economy changed, etc. UF grew a lot in that post war period and the athletic teams got a little better, gradually.

UF had some good teams in the 60s like when Spurrier was playing, but they always came up short. When you want to know why Spurrier put so much focus on Georgia and was so passionate about whipping UGA each year, just review the era when he played. That SEC championship was close but eluded UF during that time. Georgia often had a role in UF coming up a bit short.

In the 60s and 70s UF had some true greats come through the football program from Spurrier to Carlos Alvarez, John Reeves (the father of Lane's wife, Layla), that badass Jack Youngblood, Chris Collinsworth and others. A lot of the big names came to UF to play for Ray Graves, Spurrier's coach at UF. Graves did a lot to build the program. He's been underappreciated by many UF fans because of what I call the dark ages of UF football (Dickey era). UF had developed a good offense due to Graves, Spurrier, Reaves, Alvarez, etc. UF was 9-1-1 in Graves last year (best in school history to that point). Graves took UF up to play Bama and beat them, unexpectedly at Denny, now BDS. Bryant only lost like 2 or 3 games at home in 25 years, at BDS.

Enter Doug Dickey.

Doug Dickey - grew up mostly in Gainesville, only because his dad was a professor at UF, went to UF and played ball at UF. Then coached, made a stop at the Vols garbage truck campus, then head coach at UF, 1970-1978. Then spent about 20 years back at the Vols garbage truck campus as a paper weight or something. Don't like to disown one of your own, but I've always felt like he was a Vol, not a Gator.

Dickey was a bad coach. Couldn't deal with the strong offense UF had been building, and took UF on a negative trajectory for about 4 years. He went to a slow paced, option offense, different personnel, and had success in the mid 70s. His best year was 9-3, 3rd place in the SEC only conference loss was to UGA. He was 3-6 against UGA. It went downhill from there and UF got worse and worse.

Just my opinion but the SEC of today is very similar to the SEC of the 60s and 70s, except some of the newer offenses create lightning in a bottle at times and pose problems for defenses. UF excelled when it had a coach like Ray Graves, taking advantage of home grown talent like Youngblood, bringing in talent like Spurrier, being aggressive and dynamic on offense. It was good for the w/l column, recruiting, and culture of the program. UF never has and probably never will excel at a Nebraska or Bama type approach. UF's weakness, to me, was a lack of systematic approach to building the program. That left some holes at some positions and it hurt UF. On the other hand, Bama was a machine, and is once again under Saban. Bear Bryant had watched the development of UF and said UF was a 'sleeping giant' and the SEC would have to be careful if that giant was ever awakened. Bryant wasn't a legend because he was stupid. He knew exactly what he was talking about.

The problem was that Doug Dirty Vol Dickey put the giant in a coma. He halted the momentum Graves had going, then briefly generated some with a different approach that really didn't fit, and it all fizzled and collapsed though and UF literally started to circle the drain. This should sound a bit like Muschamp's approach.

Charley Pell came in 1979. He understood that systematic approach that was needed. Like a lot of people born in the 1940s, in the south, his parents didn't get to middle school. I know my grandmother never went past the 3rd grade. There were other things to do like survive and find food. But Pell got through high school, got recruited for football and went to Bama, played for Bryant, was part of Bryant's first title I think. He learned from Bryant but wasn't stupid either, and knew UF had to have its own identity. But he came to build a program. First thing he did was tell the AD, boosters, etc that UF needed a football program, that it couldn't just field a football team.

He took that comatose giant into the 1979 season, had some bad luck, played a tough schedule, had a ton of injuries and went 0-10-1. The worst season in school history. The next year UF won 8 games, one of the biggest turn arounds in NCAA history. But UF also had to endure a crushing defeat from UGA with the 'Run Lindsey Run' play. There used to be a bumper sticker around Gainesville, "Wait til next year". It didn't take Pell long. Next year arrived. UF was among the best in the nation by 1983 and in 1984 was probably the best team in the country.

Problem was that Pell also learned some things from Bryant like bending rules, breaking rules, things like that. It was at first speculated that the violations were massive. They were not. Pell had some bad things in there like players getting money, but that was pretty much standard for most schools. Still is. But Pell had also taken care of players and created a team, like bringing walk-ons into the athletic dorm, even though that was prohibited by NCAA rules. It was stupid rule so Pell ignored it. In the end, UF had to fire him and endure a couple years probation. It hurt the program but Bill Arnsbarger, UF AD, (former LSU coach) helped guide UF through the probation and rebuilding. He also hired Spurrier.

Charley Pell screwed up, but by all accounts he was a very good man and deeply cared about the sport and wanted to build something at UF. He did bring about NCAA trouble, but he also woke up the giant and Pell knew how to coach. In a very short time UF saw that it was all too possible to build a program and put a dominant football team in a Gator uniform and beat anyone at any time. And truthfully, deep down I think all Gators knew that Pell got it quicker with some rule breaking and bending, but that it was going to happen with his approach. Pell came from winning, he'd been a winner, and that was exactly what he was going to build - a winning program. There was confidence in the football program.

The struggles despite very good teams and great players, the 'Run Lindsey Run', Wait til next year - they all went away and Charley Pell was a big reason and he never gets enough credit due to the violations. UF weathered the storm of probation knowing the rebuild could happen. Thank God for Bill Arnsbarger. He brought in Spurrier and the evil genius took off in 1990.

Those violations ended Pell's career and deeply affected his life. He tried to commit suicide and later passed away from cancer. If there was ever a man that deserved a second chance in coaching, it was Charley Pell.

The true low point for UF was 1979, 0-10-1, an inevitable result of the dark ages known as the Doug Dickey era. If there's an inflection point in the history of UF football, it's at 1979.




Bill Arnsbarger's role in UF football has always endeared a liking of LSU for me. Doug Dickey just makes me hate the Vols even more. I bet he and Fulmer rub their butts together.