bgator85

Should have been eligible after the 5 for 5 ruling. NCAA was stupid to just not include this group into the decision. Everyone before this senior class got the extra Covid year. Everyone after them got to benefit from the new rule. Was a common sense resolution to this eligibility question.

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Also agree he was busy giving millions back to the university rather than keeping up with the facilities race.

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Don't want to get to into the weeds on this, but these decisions aren't really made by him.

The AD is the face of the department and has hiring responsibility, but the school president controls the purse strings. They ultimately decide what goes back to the school. How much can be spent on facilities.

Machen hated the optics of athletic spending while we were trying to improve our academic rankings. A lot of ideas died at his desk.

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Florida being ranked pretty low among SEC teams jumped off the page.

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Curious what ranking you saw. Florida won the SEC All Sports trophy and finished 2nd among SEC schools in the national directors cup at 6th nationally. 42 consecutive top 10 finishes in the Directors Cup, only school to never fall outside the top 10 since the standings began.

I think there is a pretty strong argument UF is the most consistent, well rounded athletic program. Especially if talking last 30 years or so. 77% of our sponsored sports have won at least 1 national title. 270 SEC titles, far more than any other program.

For Florida:

1. Renovation of The Swamp is primary focus. And taking a huge chunk of any funds available with the $1.45B price tag.
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2. The football stadium currently houses admin offices and the non-revenue sports weight room. To compensate, there is a $30M renovation/expansion of the Lemerand Athletics Center.

3. Basketball practice facility renovation. Scope and price tag are still up in the air. After the national title, they went back to the drawing board to do something a little more significant than initial plans

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He has moved back to the Sarasota (I think) area to be near to family, and has been around the UF program a lot more since then.

Spurrier is definitely the favorite, but Meyer is well liked. Spurrier is an alumnus, and played at UF winning the 1st Heisman in school history, and is the all time winningest coach.

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Yeah, he is in Sarasota. See him quite a bit actually around town. It's great to see him so invested with the program again, his passion for Florida is stronger than a lot of people realize. The dude loves UF.

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They should be in Nashville, Atlanta, or Houston/Dallas. Tampa is not our footprint.

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How is Tampa not?

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Some of these names on this list aren't even that terrible. As a Florida fan, Napier has gotta be on the list.

All the other failed Florida head coaches don't really make the list. They were flawed, but not the worst.

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Napier is a no-brainer here. It should be almost impossible for a coach to perform that badly at a place like Florida. We've had our fair share of hires that didn't work out, but Napier took ineptitude to a whole different level.

They're already getting all kinds of legal action from the HS Class of 2022.

The HS classes before them all got 5 years because of COVID. 2023 and beyond get to use this new rule.

Why not just allow the 2022 group as well? It just makes too much sense, so they go and make it harder on themselves.

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Especially with the money they spend.

$379,284,528 Texas
$320,661,665 Ohio State
$288,186,290 Tennessee
$269,554,079 Michigan
$254,643,919 Penn State
$254,538,960 Oklahoma
$240,263,345 Georgia
$234,739,406 Alabama
$228,350,501 Texas A&M
$223,429,203 LSU
$212,743,888 Nebraska
$208,187,039 Florida State
$203,847,233 Auburn
$203,259,302 South Carolina
$200,999,975 Florida
$197,684,981 Clemson
$192,550,821 Kentucky
$191,001,201 Missouri
$188,988,863 Arkansas
$187,967,260 North Carolina
$183,768,038 Ole Miss
$182,702,378 Oregon
$178,288,091 Michigan State
$173,020,646 Indiana
$168,826,109 Mississippi State

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No doubt they spend a lot of money like most of the high profile athletic departments, but these figures always have to be taken with a grain of salt. For whatever reason some schools use these disclosures as dick measuring contests.

When you actually look at a lot of the schools at the top of this, they are including things like facility projects to jack up these figures.

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Originally they were gonna cut 12k. They are saying this is what it costs to bring the whole stadium to code and not lose capacity. I call hogwash.

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I don't. It has been understood for years, if not decades, about how much work was going to be needed one day. Study after study has shown that we'd need massive investment just on deferred maintenance, this pre-dates Stricklin. The UF engineering department has done all kinds of analysis on the structure. It was just a matter of time, and if not building new, have to do all the work to make sure this thing can last another hundred years.

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Maybe I'm out of touch with new stadium construction but $1.5B seems like it would buy you a whole new one

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It was thrown around. At some point the stadium either needed a massive renovation or build new. The appetite wasn't there to build, so they went this route.

Personally, I am just happy it looks like The Swamp still. In so many of these things they start ripping into the stands to build lounges and big club areas. There's no cutting capacity. Fans are still right next to the field. It is far better than I was anticipating, so that is at least a win for me.