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By Times staff writers
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 10, 2002
"I knew they would get a good one. I was impressed with Ron when he was an assistant coach at Ohio State and Virginia Tech. I was especially impressed with the job he did while at Florida. Not only as the defensive coordinator, but when he coached the special teams. He'll be the sixth head coach that I will have faced at Florida and I expect the rivalry to go on just as it has been. I know he'll do an excellent job, darn it!"
-- BOBBY BOWDEN, Florida State coach
"I have a question: Stanford just hired the guy (Buddy Teevens) who was the assistant at Florida. Why didn't they hire him?"
"Almost all of us were assistant coaches before we became head coaches. ... Can he teach? Can he get along? Is he straightforward? He sure knows the operation down there. They must have been impressed by him."
-- MARV LEVY, Former coach and analyst for Fox Sports Net's NFL This Morning
"I think he's a great choice. A lot of people that don't know him or haven't been around him are stunned, but I know he'll do a great job."
-- CHRIS DOERING, former Florida wide receiver
"Most of the Florida faithful were not ready to go from a top head coach to a good assistant. I'm having a hard time believing it myself. The only similarity between Zook and the other candidates is that he is a one-time assistant at Florida and he had a prior relationship with Foley."
-- TERRY BOWDEN, writing for ESPN.com
"If we couldn't get Bob Stoops, I think this is probably the next best thing for us. Coach Zook was responsible for recruiting a lot of the players who were on the national title team. A lot of young guys might not know about Zook now, but the older guys who played there know about Ron Zook."
-- JACQUEZ GREEN, former Florida wide receiver and current Buc
"I believe he ranks with people like Frank Beamer, Bob Stoops, Larry Coker and Ralph Friedgen as longtime assistants who deserved a chance to be a head coach, and I think Ron will be just as successful as those other four coaches have proven to be."
-- MIKE GOTTFRIED, ESPN college football analyst
"(Zook is) one of the most passionate, energetic coaches I have ever been around. He deserves an opportunity to run his own program and it was just a matter of time. This is a dream job for Ron, and I am certain he will make the best of this opportunity. I could not be happier for him."
-- RANDY MUELLER, New Orleans Saints general manager
"I think Ron Zook is a hell of a coach and is going to do a great job. Understand that Jeremy Foley has seen a tremendous number of assistants go through Spurrier's system the past 12 years. Obviously, there must be something special about Ron Zook that caught his eye."
-- CARTER MCCAIN, ex-Tampa Gator Club president and incoming Outback Bowl chairman
"His style was all out all the time. There were times you were wondering if you just wanted to kill him. You look back with a little age and wisdom, then you realize the message he was trying to get through."
-- CHARLES DAVIS, former Tennessee defensive back under Zook from 1984-86 and current analyst for the Sunshine Network
"Stoops and Shanahan both had Gator ties as former assistants. Zook's a Florida man, too, but is he the best man? And at what point should have UF athletic director Jeremy Foley stopped the ol' Alabama practice of sticking with a coach just because he branched out from the school's family tree? What was the rush?"
-- BRIAN SCHMITZ, Orlando Sentinel columnist
-- Compiled by Bruce Lowitt, Brian Landman and Keith Niebuhr with Times wires and other news organizations.