Narrative no longer in Dan Mullen’s control after embarrassing loss to South Carolina

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After another embarrassing loss, this time by 23-points to a bad South Carolina team, Florida head coach Dan Mullen got up on the podium and was asked a bunch of questions about the game. But it’s the one that wasn’t about the game that caught my attention.

Mullen was asked about not singing the alma mater after either of the last two games and said the following:

“We’re on the road right now. Yeah, that’s on me. To be honest with you I didn’t even know that we had our band here today. We’ll sing with the band next week in the Swamp.”

Of course, this being the year 2021, video of Mullen walking from the team bus to the stadium – with the band playing the Gators fight song at full blast – was immediately circulated around social media.

That may seem like a small thing, but the fact that Mullen is willing to fib about something minor – that he will so obviously be called on – says something about whether he should be trusted with any bigger decisions.

Mullen came to Gainesville talking about relentless effort and the Gator Standard. Neither of those were on display in this debacle against the Gamecocks. Nor was the competitiveness that he spoke of approximately 122 times (unofficial count) during his Monday press conference when he assured Gators fans that nobody wanted to win as badly as he did.

Mullen came into that press conference not wanting to answer questions about changing his approach to recruiting. He flubbed his response to that question so badly he had to apologize to the Gator Nation at the mid-week SEC teleconference after it went viral and probably had his players wondering why they couldn’t talk to the press if their coach was allowed to go out and put his foot in his mouth that badly.

All of this speaks to Mullen’s desire to control the narrative when it comes to his team.

He’s the QB whisperer. He’s the guy who evaluates talent so well that he doesn’t have to rely on recruiting services or their rankings. He’s the guy who will beat you at thumb wrestling and who you really don’t understand because he’s such a lethal competitor.

But now he’s also the guy who is 2-4 in the SEC this season and 2-6 in his last eight SEC games. He’s the guy who retained Todd Grantham to coach his defense and has watched as that defense gave up 321 rushing yards to an LSU team that came into the game averaging 2.9 yards per carry and now 284 rushing yards to a South Carolina team that came into this game averaging 3.0 yards per carry.

The Gators yet again lost the turnover battle 2-0, but by the time Emory Jones’ fumble was returned for a touchdown to put the Gamecocks up 30-10, the game was long over. In fact, it may have been over before the team left the hotel.

Because it certainly played like a squad that didn’t trust anything it was being told by its head coach.

Offense

A scathing article came out in the Athletic this past week calling the Gators soft, lacking physicality and unable to make adjustments.

You would think that sort of thing would make Florida want to come out and assert its physical dominance, running the ball against an overmatched Gamecocks defense that has been unable to stop the run all year long.

Instead, Florida came out with 10 straight passes.

It worked on the first two drives, as the Gators were able to drive the ball before punting in South Carolina territory on its first drive and then were able to drive for their first TD of the game on the second drive.

But hidden in that playcalling was the truth: Mullen believes his team is soft as well.

Why else would you decide to air the ball out against a team that doesn’t stop the run? Yes, South Carolina was playing a bunch of guys near the line of scrimmage. Yes, Florida was successful with the deep ball early. But that is relying on fool’s gold considering what has been the team’s bread and butter all year long.

Emory Jones’ stat line actually looks pretty good. He was again responsible for two turnovers – one the nail in the coffin returned for a TD – but he threw for 258 yards and averaged 8.6 yards per throw. Of course, if you remove the two big throws he made early, that average drops to 5.2 yards per attempt.

I think this was a pretty good performance by Jones through the air though. The problem is that this year’s offensive performance hasn’t been tied to QB performance through the air, but rather on the ground. And that’s where Jones struggled, running 11 times for 26 yards (2.4 yards per rush). That meant that in between the big plays, Florida’s offense stalled repeatedly.

Running back Dameon Pierce – who came into the game leading the Gators in rushing yards by a running back and yards per carry (6.0) again led the Gators in both categories in this one, with 6 carries for 39 yards (6.5 yards per carry average). Yet, Pierce only had one carry (for 6 yards) in the first half while the offense stalled.

In fact, the Gators only had 18 yards rushing in the first half, an embarrassing performance considering how much South Carolina has struggled to stop the run this season. But you have to actually try to run the ball to do so effectively, and Florida only had 10 rushing attempts in the first half compared to 18 pass attempts.

The same thing happened last week against Georgia, when the Gators had 8 pass attempts and 6 rushes against the Bulldogs at the end of the first quarter, despite it being Anthony Richardson’s first start.

When Feleipe Franks was the Gators QB in 2018, Florida ran the ball 40.3 times per game compared to 28.0 passes (59% run). This year, with QB play far below that of Franks, Florida came into the game having run the ball an average of 40.0 times per game along with 31.3 passes (56% run). The Gators threw the ball 30 times in this one against 26 runs.

Florida came into this game as the best running team in the country (6.1 yards per rush). Yet the Gators didn’t trust their running game, and couldn’t get it going when they tried.

You aren’t going to win many games if you don’t know who you are.

Defense

Perhaps the most amusing part of every Gators game I’ve watched this year (and last season, too) is inevitably when the announcers flash over to Todd Grantham – normally on the first drive of the game – and talk about the scrutiny that he’s under and how it’s really unfair given his track record.

It happened again against South Carolina, as announcers Taylor Zarzour and Matt Stinchcomb extolled Grantham’s praises, right before his defense proceeded to allow the Gamecocks to score on five straight drives to open the game.

Where do we start?

South Carolina came into this game having scored 78 total points in five SEC games and scored 40. This is a team that only scored 21 points against Vanderbilt, but absolutely torched the Gators.

The Gamecocks averaged 6.8 yards per rush for the entire game, and started off the first quarter with 11 rushes for 111 yards (10.1 yard per carry average). The Gators got a little bit better in the second quarter, “only” allowing South Carolina to average 5.1 yards per rush on 7 carries. Of course, they also gave up 140 yards on 11 pass attempts in the second quarter as well, so perhaps we shouldn’t throw a parade.

Last year, it was LSU freshman Max Johnson who the Gators defense made look like NFL material in his first start. This year, it was South Carolina senior Jason Brown – who transferred in from Saint Francis College in Pennsylvania – who averaged 7.3 yards per throw and had two TDs and no INTs in his debut.

Of course, it’s pretty easy to put up an impressive stat line when the opposing defense chooses not to guard your receivers.

But this isn’t new.

In 2018, Florida’s defense made Terry Wilson, Drew Lock and Jake Fromm look like world beaters. In 2019, it was Joe Burrow (justified) and Fromm again. In 2020, it was everybody. The end result was losing games that were winnable, and a defense that always felt on the edge of falling apart.

Falling apart is now what’s happened twice this season, once against LSU and now against South Carolina. Recruiting isn’t an excuse for those two, as LSU was missing half of its team and South Carolina recruits at an inferior level compared to Florida.

This is a team that can’t stop a simple counter. This is a team that gave up 9 yards per play in the first half as the Gamecocks raced to an insurmountable lead.

Florida’s offense again didn’t do the defense any favors. But at some point, you have to get a stop. At some point, you have to get some penetration. At some point, you have to pressure the QB.

None of those things happened and so what we’re left with is a defense that looks very much like 2020, just with games against FAU and USF to improve stats that would be just as bad as last year if SEC play only is taken into account.

Takeaway

The Florida job is tough. It comes with outsized rewards, both in terms of money and prestige should you be successful. But it also comes with expectations that you get from only a select few programs in the country.

Steve Spurrier is one of the best to ever do it, and even he was starting to wear under the criticism towards the end of his time as head coach in Gainesville. The same appears to be true for Dan Mullen.

Megan Mullen has talked about in the past how grocery shopping was difficult in Gainesville because of the expectations – and that’s with her husband piloting an offense that broke records and won two national championships.

We thought Mullen understood what he was getting into when he came to Florida. But perhaps we missed an important piece of that picture. It is true that he experienced the highs that you get with the Florida program under Urban Meyer. But I’m not sure he understood the lows since he left after the championship in 2008 and didn’t experience the loss to Alabama in the 2009 SEC Championship or the moment Urban Meyer called the program broken in 2010.

Well, he sure understands now.

During the first half when the defense was getting torched, Nick Knudsen texted me with the following joke about Grantham from his cousin in the stands.

“Grantham’s still just wearing a visor and it’s 45 degrees. It’s almost like he doesn’t make adjustments.”

But perhaps we should be pointing that accusation at the entire staff, starting with the guy in charge.

Mullen directly told sideline reporter Alyssa Lang coming out of halftime that he wasn’t going to make any adjustments. He didn’t make any adjustments at defensive coordinator after last season when the defense clearly cost him a shot at a real championship. And he hasn’t made any changes to his staff or his approach even though his recruiting has been lackluster.

We’ve known for a while that this was an experiment. Mullen was presenting a trade-off that involved limited ceilings because of his limited recruiting but presumably would have a higher floor because he’d get the most out of his players.

You know that presumption is wrong when players from the 2013 team are criticizing this loss.

I was a part of the terrible 2013 4-8 season at UF, even then we never gave up. We fought for each other! We lost to South Carolina that year…but we damn sure didn’t give up a 40pc! Mentality has to shift big time

— Bryan Cox Jr (@BEECoxx) November 7, 2021

A couple of weeks ago, I made the case that Mullen deserved another year because he could change defensive coordinators and Anthony Richardson might turn out to be a player who could help bust through that limited ceiling.

I was wrong.

This isn’t about Grantham anymore. It’s about a head coach who refuses to make changes that are necessary and obvious to everyone. It’s about a head coach who refuses to hold players accountable for poor play, even when it is ridiculous things like chucking a shoe down the field after a third-down stop. It’s about a head coach who taught his players it was okay to give up in last year’s Cotton Bowl and now seems surprised they’d give up against South Carolina.

But it’s also a coach who refuses to follow-through on the promise he made to honor the school after games by singing the alma mater, and then lies about it rather than take responsibility.

All that leads to this reality: Gators fans no longer trust him. If my messages are any indication, neither do the boosters. And by the looks of this game, his players don’t either.

When you’ve broken that trust, there’s no coming back. Todd Grantham’s defense may have been underwhelming at times, but I always knew what I was getting. So while I called for replacing him last year at the end of the season and after the LSU loss because I knew what I was getting and didn’t think it was good enough, I’m not hoping for him to be replaced anymore.

I’m hoping for him to be promoted to interim head coach.

Tailgates and Foster Care

I got in a bit of a Twitter tiff before the game when I came to the defense of my friends at the Harmonic Woods Tailgate. The point of contention was this tweet, where they admittedly had a crude message on their shot board.

When you’re tired of everyone’s shit and put it on the shotboard! pic.twitter.com/08WdeRubvj

— Harmonic Woods Tailgators (@HarmonicWoodsTG) November 6, 2021

It’s pretty equal opportunity, as it goes after traditional Florida rivals FSU, Georgia, Tennessee and LSU, Nascar drivers Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano, and also CNN, California, China and the Democrats. Of course, someone took umbrage with the inclusion of the donkey, though I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of Harvick fans probably fall under the elephant umbrella.

My point to the person that took offense was that the people at the Harmonic Woods Tailgate are awesome. They’ve never been anything but welcoming to me. And if we can’t talk about our differences of opinion when it comes to politics with people with whom we have things in common with, then what chances do we have of having those sorts of conversations anywhere else?

We’ve seen a ton of this lately as the right has taken up the “Let’s go Brandon” chant and the left has taken offense. When President Trump was in office, the opposite was true as the left had plenty of vulgar things to say about him as well. The result is we don’t seem to be able to talk about these things face-to-face any more.

Every time I’ve done that, I’ve ended up with fruitful conversations that may not have solved the world’s problems, but definitely convinced me that the person who believed differently from me was a good person.

The twitter exchange ended with me inviting my opponent to the FSU tailgate to discuss our differences further, and he responded he’d show up with a “F Will Miles” shirt on. So I’m giving him – and you – that very opportunity.

Click on this link or click on the image to the right and you can express what you really think of me.

I’m going to donate all proceeds to Fostering Hope, a great charity here in Pennsylvania that helps support the needs of foster kids and families. If we sell 500 shirts, I’ll match the donation.

If we can’t laugh at ourselves, what are we doing here? That’s especially true after this loss to South Carolina. So get yourself a shirt, and hopefully you can tell me what you really think of me at the FSU tailgate!

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