Even with White gone, Knights can step up
UCF president has message for naysayers
UCF president Alexander Cartwright has a message for those naysayers and doomsayers who believe the school’s athletic program is going to sink into oblivion now that popular and successful athletics director Danny White is leaving to become the new AD at Tennessee:
It’s not going to happen.
In fact, Cartwright said in a wide-ranging interview with the Orlando Sentinel, “We’re on a trajectory where we can be even better.”
Cartwright said UCF will conduct a national search to replace White, hire a search firm to compile a “diverse” list of candidates and will “move quickly” to have a new AD in place within the next month or two. Depending on how White’s official last day at UCF coincides
with the new athletics director being hired, Cartwright said UCF deputy AD Scott Carr could serve as the interim AD.
“There’s going to be a lot of interest in this job,” Cartwright said. “This position is one of the premier positions in the country and I’m even including a number of the Power 5s. This is a position at a place where our athletic program is up-and-coming, we have tremendous resources and are in a great location. “
Even so, White’s departure is undoubtedly a major blow, especially because he is leaving in the middle of a pandemic that has created a massive financial crisis in college sports. White’s dynamic personality and the relationships he built with wellheeled donors enabled him to raise money for UCF athletics at a record rate, but it’s not like he is irreplaceable. Former Florida Gators athletics director Jeremy Foley was one of the great ADs in college history, but Scott Stricklin replaced Foley and has been a resounding success.
Likewise, Cartwright points to White’s last stop, the University of Buffalo, as another example. Cartwright himself spent nearly a decade at Buffalo as a professor and internationally recognized researcher and also was closely involved with the school as the provost of New York’s state university system. Cartwright says Buffalo actually got better when White left there five years ago to become the AD at UCF.
He is correct. The Buffalo football program has won 30 games during the past four seasons (including an undefeated regular season and a school-first national ranking in 2020), advanced to two conference championship games and landed in three bowl games. Coach Lance Leipold, whom White hired in 2014, is the reigning MAC Coach of the Year. Meanwhile, Buffalo’s basketball team has won four MAC titles during the past six years and has played in the last two NCAA Tournaments. Cartwright’s point is that programs can evolve and get better even when they lose talented leaders. Buffalo began to build its program under former athletics director Warde Manuel, who is now the AD at Michigan. Then White was hired and the program took the next step. And then came Allen Greene, who took it to the next level and is now the AD at Auburn.
“Each time an AD left Buffalo, they were thinking, ‘What are we going to do now?’ “Cartwright said. “But they were able to hire another great AD and keep the momentum going. As the cliché goes, ‘Next person up.’ We’ve lost Danny and now we bring in somebody else great and keep it moving forward. That’s our attitude; a winning attitude that looks toward the future.”
There’s no question the UCF job will attract some great candidates, but there is still frustration among Knight Nation about the underlying reasons for White’s departure. Cartwright said the process of White’s exit moved quickly starting Monday when White was first contacted by Tennessee representatives until Thursday when he accepted the Vols’ five-year contract that will pay him nearly $2 million annually and make him the Southeastern Conference’s highest-paid AD. Cartwright said he tried to convince White to stay, but to no avail. Asked if the huge contract Tennessee offered was an obstacle UCF could not overcome, Cartwright said, “It wasn’t really about money when Danny and I were talking.”
It’s no secret White has turned down numerous other chances to go to Power 5 institutions, but UCF fans want to know why Tennessee and why now? When I asked White that very question during his introductory news conference in Knoxville Friday, he essentially said because he likes to take on resurrection projects like he did when he accepted the UCF job after an 0-12 football season.
“You saw in the Orlando market where we were and what we were five years ago,” White said. “What makes this [Tennessee] job different is the opportunity to build. … I’m not a placeholder kind of leader. If there’s not an opportunity to build and fight for something, I’ll be bored to tears.”
Added White: “I was in a great situation [at UCF] and never thought I would leave. If you had asked me seven days ago, I would have said, ‘No, I’m never leaving [UCF]. ‘ I’m not walking away from something; I’m running toward something. This is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore one of the most iconic brands in college athletics.”
According to Tennessee chancellor Donde Plowman, when UT’s search firm first contacted White to see if he was interested, one of the first things White said was, “I can win a national championship there.”
A real one; not a self-proclaimed one. Let’s face it, the main reason White left UCF is because he knows that, unless the Knights get into a Power 5 league, they have hit their ceiling. When I asked Cartwright if White’s departure escalates the need to get invited into one of college football’s major conferences, he replied: “We want to be the best team in the American Athletic Conference in every sport and after that we’ll figure out what our next goal is.”
Translation: UCF is not getting into a Power 5 league anytime soon, so coaches, fans and boosters need to recalibrate, reengage and refocus on becoming the very best Group of 5 football program in the country.
We know for a fact that this is possible.
It happened before Danny White got to UCF, it happened while Danny White was at UCF and, yes, it will happen again even though Danny White has left UCF.