When Jeremy Foley announced his intention to step down as Florida Gators Athletics Director effective in October, he opened up the news conference by joking that he had flip-flopped and had a sudden change of heart _ much like former UF coaches Billy Donovan and Urban Meyer had in previous years.
"I'm changing my mind," Foley cracked back in June. "I'm coming back."
Nearly three months later, Foley's scenario doesn't seem like such a joke and there are some at UF who believe he should seriously consider reversing field and staying as AD at least for another several months.
From everything you hear, the Gators don't seem any closer to naming a new AD now than back in June when Foley announced he would soon be ending a 40-year career at UF, including the last 25 as AD.
The issue seems to be that Florida understandably wants to keep the structure and culture of the program Foley built into one of the elite athletic programs in the country. UF is essentially telling all potential AD candidates, why would you want to change Foley's structure and staff when that structure and staff has accounted for 130 SEC championships, 27 national titles and 24 of the last 25 Southeastern Conference All-Sports trophies?
Perhaps this is why some of the big-name candidates like Arizona AD Greg Byrne and North Carolina AD Bubba Cunningham showed some initial interest and then decided to stay put. Can't really blame them. New ADs like to come in and make changes, bring in their own people and hire new football and basketball coaches.
Byrne and Cunningham already have great jobs at good schools where they are putting their own stamp on a program. Why come to a place where your main task is not messing up the sports powerhouse Foley left behind.
When the legendary Steve Spurrier came back to UF a few weeks ago as an athletic department consultant and ambassador, he was asked if he'll have any role in the AD search.
"I'm not involved whatsoever," Spurrier said and chuckled. "If they asked me, I'd tell Jeremy he oughta hang around two or three more years."
Translation: The best candidate to replace Jeremy Foley is Jeremy Foley himself.
