The situation intensified in the days preceding the game when word leaked out that Vol head coach Doug Dickey, who had been Florida's starting quarterback in the early 1950s and had grown up in Gainesville, planned to leave UT and replace Graves at UF after their respective teams met in the Gator Bowl. Dickey admitted to reporters that he had been offered the position at Florida, but Graves and UF president Stephen C. O'Connell continued to deny that personnel changes were imminent, with Graves stating that "there is utterly no truth to the rumor."