Report: Butch Davis Not Heading To FIU
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – If Florida International University athletic director Pete Garcia fired Mario Cristobal with hopes of bringing in former UM coach Butch Davis, it looks like those dreams may have been dashed.
According to ESPN's Joe Schad, Davis will not take the FIU job.
If true, it's not really a shock given that Davis has won a national championship, headed up another major program, and been the head coach of an NFL team. Davis would have been a coup if FIU was able to pull it off.
Davis is currently serving as an adviser to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The last time Davis was at the college level, he coached at the University of North Carolina and was fired after a massive academic cheating scandal and player-agent scandal erupted at the university.
Davis was never implicated in any wrongdoing by the NCAA while at North Carolina.
Speculation immediately turned to Davis as soon as it was learned Cristobal had been fired by the school due to his past relationship with Garcia.
Cristobal, who many felt got a raw deal, built the FIU program from the ground up. When he arrived, the team had gone winless the season before and was on major NCAA probation including scholarship losses.
Still, Cristobal built up the program to where it reached two straight bowl games in 2010 and 2011 and even captured a share of the Sun Belt Conference championship in 2010. His team struggled to a 3-9 record in 2012 and Garcia said that was enough to fire him.
