It's hard to put stock in Dan Mullen's claim about hiring his replacement at Florida

It's Friday, and Billy Napier is still the head coach of Florida Football. One of the things we highlighted earlier this week were some red flags Gator administration should have seen before they opted to hand over the keys to Gainesville.

But if Napier wasn't the guy, Florida would have needed to hire someone else to replace Dan Mullen, who claims he had just the guy.

Florida Football: You Talk Too Much

As a hypothetical scenario, if someone breaks up with their significant other, they don't typically make recommendations as to who their now former partner should date next on their way out the door.

But, lo and behold, Mullen claims that when he was fired, he recommended to Scott Stricklin who should replace him.

In an interview with Zach Gelb, Mullen made the following claim:

"When I was let go a couple years ago at Florida, they asked me and I said ‘Hey I’d go hire Lane Kiffin right now. If you’re going to get rid of me, I’d go hire Lane Kiffin from Ole Miss right now’,"

The only two people on planet Earth who know whether this story is true or not is Stricklin and Mullen. Given his tendency to keep pressing the buttons of the Florida fanbase since he has been fired, including retweeting various posts that compare his record to Napier's, this feels like really convenient timing to come out and say "Oh yeah, by the way, funny story..."

In fairness, if this story is actually true, it would raise further questions about Stricklin and his hiring process. We are paraphrasing here, but Mullen's version of the story essentially says Stricklin came up to him and said, "Hey, so we don't think you are a very good football coach anymore. So can you tell us who you think is a good coach?"

The whole thing is dumb but has legs because Lane Kiffin is so high on the wishlists of many Gator fans.

Florida's current coach, who is 12-16, will lead the Gators onto the field at 12 PM against Mississippi State on Saturday.