He wasn’t my ideal guy either. But I thought he could change and be good with a change of scenery.
I never thought anything, other than he probably wouldn't leave us, and would retire from us. That was it. Here were my actual words, 2021 Feb 21, in Brandonland (Dungeon).
'I'm just glad we have a coach that is likely going to retire from us ... at least if we're not stupid and don't start screaming for his head. I really hope our fans don't start that. He's 55 and wants to remain thru retirement.
I think the only reason he leaves us by 2025 or so is because the CFP doesn't expand, and we're still not getting in to the final 4. That would suck, and at some point, Gus might 'get the itch' again.
Otherwise, if the CFP expands to 8 and/or UCF moves up by either play or to a P5 ... I never see him leaving. I just don't. Or if he leaves, it'll be NFL or something, but he doesn't seem to be that type that wants to go Pro.'
The only coach I could be blamed for wanting quite heavily, was Frost. If Frost did crappy, then that would be on me. Although the one coach I didn't want quite heavily, was Babers. Had Babers done great at 'Cuse, that would also be on me. Luckily, the opposite happened.
I'm a ball control, defense guy, so I liked GOL, and we should have let him retire after 2013, like he wanted. Then the whole HCIW demand happened, and the rest is history. I thought Richt might be best for existing GOL players, but if we went offense-oriented, I was big on Frost.
I prefer P5 coordinators, not MAC, C-USA or other G5 HC ... not even the AAC now, since they are no better than the SunBelt or MWC, and not far from the MAC or C-USA. Auburn went and got themselves one of those, and then fired him. Florida has had a number too.
Now Auburn has an anti-Gus in Freeze who throws kids under-the-bus, and Auburn wishes they had our recruiting praise ... recruits and their parents hate Freeze, and his own, former players are lambasting him on social media. Gus never has that problem, and even Prime praised him.
But people will probably push Gus out, and maybe we'll stick with Tim, but then they'll kick Tim out in a year or two, and we'll destroy any loyalty we were known for. It's the new way. No more GOL like days. And coaches will use us as well as a stepping stone again. UCF will no longer be a place where potential coaches will feel safe.
With the Hittman gone, and whinny fans that cannot be objective about Heupel v. Gus, and how Heupel brought us down, and how Heupel started with everything while Gus started with 70% of Huepel's recruits lost, but Gus still got us to a CCG by year 2.
We're just running into the same problems with TCU and Utah had when they elevated.
But even last year we lost 5 of our 6 games by a single score. A very healthy JRP would have made won many of those. But people don't want to even accept that JRP was a great RPO QB at the college level. They will never admit such things. Just like they don't praise when a great result happens.
They only want to blame when things go wrong.