Some highlights from yesterday as conveyed by a friend. As always, take it with a grain of salt. I’m sure certain things were lost in translation. Some of this is even third or fourth hand, but all in the family. Everyone was told White likes keeping schedules and confidentiality. Yesterday they had a schedule, and kept none of it. They did a little better with confidentiality. Flight was late getting him. Sat on the ground for an hour waiting for fog. Bogged down with meeting the boosters at TYS airport. Bogged down meeting boosters before press conference. Bogged down by boondoggle at AD office. Barnes was a hit there, introducing himself as a “guy who works here”. Barnes got sodas for his kids and toured them around, and wouldn’t give them back. The older son is in high school, and it sounds like Barnes tried to rescue him from a miserable day. I’ve gotta say that Barnes has been more important in all this than you’d imagine. He’s been all class in talking about Fulmer. He’s highly supportive of the hire, and has been a PR machine for the school. White was reeling from all the chaos. Expected to have a quick quiet meeting with Steele and players, and there were people everywhere. He barely got out of the office to make the players meeting. Barnes was still hitting him with one-liners all the way out apparently, the best being the observation that Danny is “better looking than his brother”. Met players. This meeting was private. Prior to the meeting they were given an app, and then asked to vote on team leaders. There was supposed to be a second meeting with leaders, but that will now be tomorrow. Only highlights I heard were that White told them he worked for them now. He was going to work hard for them so they can focus on being a team. By the time White left, his (alleged) conversation with Elliott already leaked after having instructed everyone on confidentiality. I don’t know if he did talk to Elliott. White knows and trusts Elliott. Elliott knows Steele. Elliott was also an inch from being the UCF head coach. If he did talk to him, I’m not sure I read this as Elliott being an option, but I assume it’s possible. It would not follow anything I’ve heard in the past about the search. Subsequently they’ve brought on a firm to handle logistics, and try to protect confidentiality. The search firm was not hired for searching. While the day was chaotic, don’t read this as a messy political process. It’s not. Boyd and Plowman are handling this like professionals. They’re going to give White the space he needs to succeed. White did not take this job to boot lick boosters. It’s his plan, and it’ll be his hire. Boyd is herding cats on the booster front. He has a lot more sway than is being portrayed. He has money ready, and he’s set up a playing field for White to succeed. There is a contingent of boosters that is strongly connected to PF and the Pruitt hire who were not included in any of the conversations of the last three weeks. A new contingent of boosters has provided the support for hiring White and giving him cover to make the hire without having to talk to boosters. .
