Florida AD Scott Stricklin details pursuit of Lane Kiffin early in coaching carousel
By Rolando Rosa
Published:
Tulane’s Jon Sumrall is the next head coach at Florida. However, the Gators made a strong push for Lane Kiffin before he ended up leaving Ole Miss for LSU last month.
During an interview with On3’s Andy Staples, Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin confirmed the program’s pursuit of Kiffin prior to landing on Sumrall. Stricklin was extremely impressed with the job Kiffin did in transforming Ole Miss into a College Football Playoff squad.
“To see the success that he had at Ole Miss, that’s appealing,” Stricklin said. “Somebody who’s learned and they’ve grown. It wasn’t just we were being pushed to him. We were interested in him as a possibility. I’d say strongly interested.”
Yet, Stricklin still made sure to keep an open mind to other suitors given the nature of the coaching carousel.
“At the same time, we knew we couldn’t just count on that. So we were doing our due diligence on a number of candidates,” Stricklin said. “We ended up talking to nearly a dozen when it was all said and done.”
Stricklin believes it was definitely for the best to not become too fixated on merely Kiffin.
“It was obvious where that was shaping up. There was a flurry of initial engagement, I would say. Really positive conversations. Then the communication became a little more erratic,” Stricklin said. “The timing of when that began to occur, just reading the tea leaves gave me the impression that it’s a good thing we talked to other people and we’re going to have to look at some other candidates.”
Florida fired Billy Napier during the season and finished with a 4-8 mark. Sumrall is finishing out the season with Tulane, who will take on Ole Miss in a CFP first-round matchup on Dec. 20 (3:30 p.m. ET/TNT/truTV)
