"Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of State in that order, and should the President decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Vice President, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course." Secretary of State Alexander Haig, following the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, April 2, 1984. Haig did not realize that the Speaker of the House and President pro tempore of the Senate go before the Secretary of State in the line of succession.
In his career at Florida, Urban Meyer is at the top, with Charlie Strong and Dan Mullen after him. If you had to place Steve Addazio somewhere in the team hierarchy, it would not be top-3. But Mullen is in Starkville now and Strong is on his way to Louisville. That means the title of Man In Charge goes to Addazio. Meyer might think he deserves it, but I keep thinking he is in over his head.
Addazio said all the right things in his press conference this morning.That is not saying anything and sticking to the talking points. Tim Tebow relayed that the team endorsed Addazio as interim, which is as good as we're going to get in terms of a important response since Urban is under media blackout.
I said Sunday that we should trust Addazio, but it will be hard to shake the opinion that I and many Gator fans have of him after this season. He seems like a nice enough guy, but he's not my guy. Addazio can be a solution now, but Meyer will need to be pulling the puppet strings and make orders from his solarium. This isn't permanent, and while Meyer gets the benefit of the doubt, Addazio won't. If Meyer ends up not returning for the fall or retires, it will take a lot of convincing that Addazio can handle the gig. He can do that, Meyer can do that too. Otherwise, he is just a guy with power who was never qualified for it.