The booster issue is why C Kelly is not going to UF, for any amount of money. It's also why Richt was increasingly miserable at UGA.
UF was an even more irrelevant program than Vanderbilt until Meyer got there, and suddenly the big donors came out of the woodwork. They gave Meyer everything he wanted in terms of money, facilities, shielding players from prosecution, etc. But as the old saying goes, "There is no such thing as a free lunch." In exchange for giving Meyer what he asked for to build a winner, the donors expected to be schmoozed and have access to coaches and players. Every rich guy wants to be able to show off how important he is. Now that UF has had a taste of success, the donors are not going to take a step back. That's why any one who knows football knows that the next HC at UF has to be a coach /politician. No big name elite head coach will want to deal with that, and the elite coaches will always have options (honestly, if I was going to coach in the SEC, I'd coach at Arkansas where I'd have to kiss precisely one ***, that of Jerry Jones a la Phil Knight at Oregon instead of dozens of different entitled owners like at UF).
At UGA, when it looked like Richt's play calling was dropping off, the big time donors demanded he give up play calling or the donors would stop the funds. So the AD had to give him the ultimatum.
Miami's secret sauce is that we have never relied on big time donors (our head coach is putting up his own money for the IPF!) No matter how much success Richt has, he will never have donors breathing down his neck making demands. He and his assistants are being well compensated, play in one of the best stadiums in football, and have direct access to the greatest pool of talent in the country. Oh, and the ncaa is going to have to rescind that one mile radius rule for recruiting visits, as that is basically a cheat code for us.
The irony is that Richt's personality is actually well suited to a job like UF, where he could handle the donor pressure and have even better access to S FL talent. But we got him and he is going to build a juggernaut.
Gentlemen, this is year 2. We have played the entire year with what is essentially our backup qb, our backup rb, and without our best WR- and we have a very very very good chance of finishing the regular season as the
#1 team in the country.