{"id":206635,"date":"2026-03-26T08:58:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206635\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T08:58:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:58:21","slug":"floridas-todd-golden-urged-to-wait-for-kentucky-job-to-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/206635\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s Todd Golden Urged to Wait for Kentucky Job to Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida<\/a> head coach Todd Golden was immediately connected to North Carolina as a potential candidate for head coach when the Tar Heels parted ways with Hubert Davis on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

More News:\u00a0Major College Basketball Coach Expected to Replace UNC\u2019s Hubert Davis<\/a><\/p>\n

Golden led Florida to the national championship in 2025 and coached the Gators to a No. 1 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament<\/a>. The Gators lost to No. 9 seed Iowa in the second round on Sunday, but that doesn’t seem to be an obstacle for UNC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Adams of USA Today argued<\/a> why Golden should consider taking the job with the Tar Heels this year. At North Carolina, he’d have plenty of resources and would be the “king” on campus.<\/p>\n

\"Florida<\/p>\n

More News:\u00a0North Carolina Closing in on Decision to Fire Hubert Davis<\/a><\/p>\n

However, Adams thinks it might be in Golden’s best interest to wait one season before bolting for another program. He suggested Kentucky<\/a> could part ways with Mark Pope<\/a> at the conclusion of the 2026-27 campaign.<\/p>\n

“My only hesitation with leaving a good situation at Florida or Alabama in favor of UNC?” Adams wrote. “Well, there’s this: If you wait another year, perhaps you could have the Kentucky job. How’s that for a blue-blood?”<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin suggested he was prepared to offer Golden a contract extension<\/a> for the third offseason in a row. Golden’s buyout is set to decrease from $16 million to $11 million on April 16.<\/p>\n

Stricklin argued it’s a priority for Florida to keep Golden in Gainesville.<\/p>\n

“Todd wants to be at the University of Florida,” Stricklin said. “I wish all those (other) programs really good luck. I’m sure they’ll find a good coach out there, and I’m glad Todd’s going to be here for a long time.”<\/p>\n

It’ll be interesting to see if Golden goes for a smaller buyout number if he signs a contract extension this offseason. Florida wouldn’t want to lose its head coach to a rival SEC program in the next spring.<\/p>\n

For more on the NCAA, head to Newsweek Sports.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida head coach Todd Golden was immediately connected to North Carolina as a potential candidate for head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8294,28,2530,30,29,60,2529,33737,142,11474,3116],"class_list":["post-206635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-basketball","tag-florida","tag-florida-gators","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-kentucky","tag-kentucky-wildcats","tag-march-madness","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-todd-golden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}