re: Was Grant considered a better or worse hire than Oats?

At the time, I thought Grant was an incredible hire (whereas I was pretty skeptical of the Avery Johnson hire).

Grant checked a lot of boxes but the main one was that Florida was the model for a "football school" becoming basketball elite and Grant had been Billy Donovan's right hand man during their entire rise.


That he'd not yet had a full recruiting cycle as a head coach was just considered a minor question mark at the time.

Whether due to poor player evaluation, bad luck, discomfort being the face of the program or unwillingness to "get his hands dirty" -- most likely a combination of all four --- recruiting did ended up being his fatal flaw.

I still think Grant is a pretty solid coach and a lot of Bama fans are gun shy of mid-major hires for that very reason. Just a thin line between mediocre and getting momentum for an extended Top 20 run of years.