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It became official yesterday that Coach Chris Mack would not be leaving to take the head coaching job with the Florida Gators. Florida instead went with Mike White of Louisiana Tech, which is a bit like pondering the filet and then deciding that a hamburger will be fine. (Or maybe like looking at a Lexus but then hitting the Buick dealer). White isn't a bad coach, he went 104-40 with La. Tech, but he's not someone with Big East and Sweet 16 pedigree either.
The interesting thing happened after White accepted the Florida job. As ADs who have just hired someone who wasn't their first choice are wont to do, Jeremy Foley started insisting that Mike White was his first choice all along. After briefly mentioning Mack, Foley said this of White "Mike really started to rise to the top of the list last Saturday. Then we spent four full days researching him." That means that the sources reporting Mack was in deep for the Florida job on May 4th were either lying or wrong, or Foley is lying. Such is the seamy underside of college ball.
On May 4th 247Sports, a branch of CBS, reported that multiple sources were telling them that Mack was in "deeper than anyone knows" at Florida. You may remember the 4th as being Monday. That doesn't add up with Jeremy Foley's timeline in which Mike White has been the leading candidate since May 2nd. Add into that Jeff Goodman's most likely baseless claim that:
Jeremy Foley never reached out to Archie Miller or Chris Mack. Mike White was his guy all along.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) May 7, 2015
And you get the idea that someone is being a lot less than truthful here.
What it most likely boils down to is money. Multiple sources reported both that Chris Mack was going to cost upwards of $3 million per year, and that he wasn't all that interested in the job to begin with. Luring Coach Mack away from Xavier is going to take some serious money from a program with a lot of clout. Right now, Xavier has more of both of those than Florida does. Jeremy Foley's posturing aside, he's stuck with Mike White because he couldn't pull a guy away from the better job.