Podcast: Recapping the Florida Gators 40-17 loss to South Carolina

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David: What’s up folks of Gator Country? This is none other than your boy David Soderquist, along with Andrew Spivey. Unfortunately, Florida didn’t cover the spread today, did they not? Florida falls to South Carolina 40-17, a score that we did not predict. We predicted the score would probably be reversed, Florida with 40, South Carolina with 17, but it didn’t happen. Florida gets completely skull dragged the whole game.

Total yards for South Carolina, 459. 284 of those yards were rushing yards. Could not stop the run all night. Kevin Harris and ZaQuandre White both had over 100 yards rushing. Two running backs, over 100 yards rushing. Florida had only 82 rushing yards. Dameon Pierce only got six carries again, averaging 6.8 carries a year. Didn’t have Dameon Pierce on the field. Couldn’t stop the run. South Carolina completely, in all statistical categories, completely skull dragged Florida. 21 first downs, 36 minutes of clock. The lack of effort that I saw last night, and that’s what it is. It’s lack of effort.

The lack of effort comes from the leaders. You’ve got to set an example when you’re a leader. You’re in a leadership role, you set an example. That example rubs on the people below you.

Andrew: Here’s the thing, David. You can say all that, but I have one thing to tell you.

David: What’s that?

Andrew: I’m still a world champion today, my friend.

David: That’s right.

Andrew: There ain’t nothing this podcast can do to ruin it. I had to throw that in.

David: I was kind of wondering why you were smiling a little bit. I forgot you were wearing that World Series Champion hoodie right there for the Atlanta Braves.

Andrew: That’s right. I’m always a World Champion, as they say. You are as well. Braves Country.

You’re right. Here’s the thing. We didn’t do a podcast on Thursday. I was in Atlanta celebrating at the parade for the World Series. I told people doing radio shows this week, I didn’t think Florida would cover. I didn’t think Florida would cover in this game. I told people it was going to be a close football game. I was wrong. It wasn’t a close football game. South Carolina dominated.

You had a feeling this was going this way when you start Monday, and you hear Dan Mullen’s comments where he cuts off about recruiting and yada, yada, yada about he’ll talk about recruiting when it’s officially recruiting season, and he’ll not necessarily do recruiting, but he’ll officially talk about recruiting after football season. Then he cuts off all media availability for the players. Grantham doesn’t speak. He does it again on Saturday. We hear reports all week that there was kind of a come to Jesus temper tantrum thrown a little bit on Monday with the players about their attitude and such. Supposedly a podium was even broke by Dan Mullen. You kind of had a feeling that there wasn’t a buy in from everybody involved.

Before I go any further, I want to read this quote, because I think this quote from Danny Kanell, and I hate Danny Kanell. I think the dude’s a moron, 99.9%. This might be the first time I ever agree with something he says. I want to read this quote, David, and then we can discuss if this is the problem.

Danny Kanell says, “Dan Mullen last year admitted his team threw in the towel after the SEC Championship game. And he seemed cool with it. When you allow quitting to become acceptable behavior becomes a habit.”

David: Yeah. I mean, like I said, it rubs off on the players. You set the example. If you’re a quitter, your players are going to be quitters. Your coaching staff is going to be quitters. I’m not even going to get into the coaching staff. They’re not even doing a great job right now.

Andrew: Here’s the thing. It might not be so much that the players quit, okay, but when the coaches don’t put the players in position to make plays. For instance, when Dan Mullen does not call good plays offensively, he’s quitting on his team. I take, for instance, that first drive in the second half. South Carolina is up at the time 30-10. South Carolina goes a quick three and out. Florida gets the ball on the 11. Mullen goes, run to Malik for two, no, excuse me. Run Malik for two, run to Malik for four. It’s 3rd and 4. He goes empty where everybody in the world knows Emory is about to run, and he runs a quarterback draw, and Emory gets a yard, and they have to punt.

That series alone right there, to me, sums up the entire game, the entire season almost, in general. That is you don’t trust your quarterback. You do not trust your quarterback. This is my question. You’re 4-4 heading into this South Carolina game. What is the worst Emory could do? Go out and throw five interceptions? Guess what? It wouldn’t have mattered. You still lost the football game. Why did you come into this game and just absolutely lay an egg? Yes, there was a lot of guys that were sick. Emory was sick as well. Okay. Let him throw the ball instead of trying to run. He ran 11 times, was sacked three times.

Your gameplan offensively and defensively was terrible. You still haven’t stopped a counter play. South Carolina ran the ball 39 times, not counting Jason Brown. I would guarantee you, without going back and watching the game, that 20 of those were counters.

David: Did you hear him before the game saying that Anthony Richardson would be brought in in case of an emergency situation? I think when you’re down by three touchdowns, I think that’s an emergency situation. Don’t you, Andrew?

Andrew: Yes. But at the same time, Anthony Richardson is dealing with a concussion. He’s in concussion protocol.

David: Then he shouldn’t say that.

Andrew: He shouldn’t say that. You and I both know Dan’s got an issue of not being truthful a lot of times.

David: Obviously. Yeah.

Andrew: My question is this. I think we all knew going into the game Anthony Richardson wasn’t going to play. Would you agree with that?

David: Oh yeah. I expected Emory Jones to start.

Andrew: So, why did you not have a gameplan built around Emory? A gameplan built around Emory to win the football game. Don’t tell me there was a gameplan put together for Emory to win, and Emory didn’t execute. That’s bull crap. Emory threw an interception that was terrible. He had a fumble. That was terrible. But besides that, the gameplan still sucked. I don’t care if Emory would have turnover free. The gameplan sucked. Dameon Pierce still six carries. What are you doing?

You came out your first 10 plays of the game was all pass plays, when South Carolina was one of the worst rushing attacks in the country. Mullen’s excuse was Emory’s able to check whenever they have a lot of guys in the box. Who cares? At times they had seven guys in the box, and you were still throwing the ball. You’re telling me Florida’s up front isn’t as good at South Carolina’s? Vanderbilt ran the ball on this team. Troy ran the ball against this team. You couldn’t run the ball? At one point in the season you were #2 in the country.

Here’s another stat. It popped up during the game. I don’t know if you caught it or not, David. Florida has called quarterback runs the second most in the country. They’re joining Navy and Army, two triple option teams. That’s not a success to win football games.

David: No.

Andrew: That’s not a success to have a quarterback that’s winning. Tim Tebow didn’t run this much. Does your offense suck so bad that the only thing you can do is call quarterback runs, and they don’t go nowhere?

David: That’s the problem. They came out passing the ball pretty well. Let’s be honest. I figured you shouldn’t have went away from the passing game, because it was working early. Nobody on South Carolina’s backfield had an answer for it. You had Justin Shorter out there making plays, getting 51-yard catch. Shout out to Marcus Burke. It’s his first game out there, two receptions for 73 yards.

Andrew: Not to interrupt you, but take away the two big plays for 113 yards, Florida throws for 120. Listen, those were two plays, the two passes, one for 52 and one for 61, that was okay. Here’s the thing. You got lucky. You got lucky that the safety didn’t stay deep to do it. The Marcus Burke pass should have been picked off. You got lucky. It wasn’t even that it was a great play call. If you watch the safety, he was out of position.

David: Right. Yeah. You know what else really popped off to me? This game is missed tackles, once again. Still missing tackles. 11 total missed tackles this game. I thought it was more. I thought it was at least 20, from what I saw.

Andrew: You know why?

David: Why is that?

Andrew: You have no defensive tackles.

David: Right. You have no linebackers that can tackle anybody either.

Andrew: You’re playing guys out of position. You have no defensive tackle. You’re relying on three guys who are grad transfers or transfers. Newkirk goes out early. You’re relying on Valentino and Truesdale, two guys that came in late. You’re relying on those guys. They were transfers for a reason. You don’t have defensive tackles that can get up there and make plays. I watched Gervon Dexter get pushed back more in this game than I’ve seen him get pushed back in a long time. They were driving him backwards.

David: He didn’t even really have any help though. There was nobody.

Andrew: No, he didn’t. I’m just saying that was the first time I really seen him kind of get manhandled, where the center was just driving him backwards a lot of times. It’s not good when Trey Dean is making all the tackles, when your safety is making all the tackles. He was second on the team with 11. Diabate led the team with 12. It’s not good when your safety is your leading tackler. It’s not.

David: You don’t want anybody in your backfield being the leading tackler for the games. Especially when you’re missing tackles at a rate like that. Florida, you look at missed tackles. I ran a stat last week. Florida, 11.8 missed tackles per game. They’re still on par. They’re still on average. 11 missed tackles this game. Right now, when you look at it, you got skull dragged by South Carolina. You got Samford coming up. There’s a lot of fans thinking we’re not going to beat Samford next week. If you take the name of Florida right now and put State in front of it, that’s what we’re playing like. A lot of fans don’t think we’re going to beat Florida State.

To me, I thought the rest of this season you were going to be 8-4. Four easy wins. South Carolina, Samford, Missouri, Florida State. End the season 8-4, concentrate on recruiting. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. We may not even make a bowl game. Before the season, Andrew, and I’m going to ask you this. Would you have thought before the season that we wouldn’t be going to any kind of a bowl game or be on track to do that?

Andrew: No. Again, I felt like this was a three-loss team, with the possibility of a four-loss team. No, I didn’t. Here’s the thing. I get your point that you thought it was going to be 8-4. I told some people, and I’m not trying to brag on myself. This is nothing to brag about, because watching that game on Saturday was awful. I had a feeling things were going to go south. After the way the week went, you knew the guys weren’t focused. Now, I don’t think anybody’s planning to opt out, but I think a lot of guys opted out mentally in the game.

Listen, there’s a pride factor, and you got to play for pride for yourself, but at the same time, if everybody’s giving up around you, what does it matter? If I’m a defensive player, I’m like why should I trust the gameplan? I know the gameplan is going to suck, because it still hasn’t stopped counter. If I’m an offensive guy, if I’m a receiver, I’m sitting here to myself thinking, I’m not going to get the ball, because Dan doesn’t trust it. Dan doesn’t trust it.

I go back to this 4th down play. Some people were hot on me about it. It’s okay. I don’t care. You go for it on your own 32 midway through the third quarter. They’re down three scores. 4th and 1. Some people said, your offense had no pull, so you had to go for it there. For me, David, when you went for that, you threw in the white flag. You called ballgame there. You said, this is the ballgame. If I get it, I’m good. If I don’t get it, it’s the ballgame. You called ballgame middle of the third quarter. You’re the University of Florida, supposed to have superior talent over South Carolina, who’s in Year 1 of a rebuild under Shane Beamer, with a third-string quarterback who was playing FCS football last year. You threw in the white flag.

First of all, 4th and 1, how do you not get it? You ran a counter play there. It’s like, what are you doing? On 4th and 1, why are you not just lining up and simply running a lead play right up, where you’re telling your five offensive linemen and your tight end, block the guy in front of you. We need a yard.

David: That’s a Dameon Pierce play all the way.

Andrew: Instead, you ran a counter play, where you had Josh Braun pulling, so somebody on the backside came and made the play on 4th and 1. You should have got it, but also you can’t go for that there. You just can’t. You threw in the white flag. Coaching 101. Again, you don’t have to trust me or anything else. My nine years of coaching may just be a wash. I don’t know. Everything I’ve been taught tells you you do not go for that there. Do not go for that in the middle of the third quarter. You threw in the white flag there, and I think his team took it.

David: Right. If you’re a Pro Football Focus guy and love stats like I do, if you go on Pro Football Focus right now, none of the starting offensive linemen have a grade above 60. That’s pretty bad. That’s extremely bad. You go to South Carolina. They have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine guys in run blocking that are way above 60. You got skull dragged.

Mentally, I know this team is better than South Carolina. We all knew it coming into the game. Florida has talent. Florida’s sitting right now seventh in talent profile on 24/7 Sports. So for they’ve lost to a hobbled LSU team with a talent profile of five. They’ve lost to a Kentucky team with a talent profile of 33, and they got completely skull dragged by South Carolina, a talent profile of 21.

It goes to what I was saying last week. They say it’s all about the Xs and Os and the Jimmy and Joes. We all heard that speech by Kirby Smart that came after the Dan Mullen press conference. I said it last week. Is Dan Mullen even coaching that well? It doesn’t look like it to me. You have way more talent than a bunch of these teams. You’re not even getting these guys developed, prepared. Strength and conditioning looks nonexistent. You’re not getting guys prepared for the next level. You have the seventh talent profile in the nation. You should at least right now be 6-2, at least. You’re not even that. You’re not even going to make it to a bowl game this year probably. That’s pretty bad.

Florida State, if you want to look at, I haven’t even looked at their talent profiles, and I know it’s bad, because a lot of guys transferred out. That program is in shambles. Those people, from what I saw last night, might come into Florida and beat us at home.

Andrew: Here’s the thing for me. Jim McElwain, that’s who you won with.

David: Yup.

Andrew: You won with his guys. You can deny it all you want. Everybody in the country can deny it all you want. Everybody in the country can talk about how bad of a coach Jim McElwain was. You won with his players. You won with Kyle Trask. You won with Kyle Pitts. You won with Kadarius Toney. You won with Lamical Perine. You’ve still got Dameon Pierce, who’s probably your best offensive player right now. That’s another Jim McElwain guy. You’re winning with his guys. You can like it. You can love it. You can hate it. You can do whatever you want. You’re winning with his guys.

Now, does Dan Mullen deserve a little bit of credit for developing those guys? Sure, he does. Also, it doesn’t take much to develop Kyle Pitts. It doesn’t take much to develop Kadarius Toney. It didn’t take much to develop Kyle Trask. You’re a quarterback whisperer with no quarterbacks. Your offensive line coach is absolute hot trash. Hot trash.

David: Can’t recruit.

Andrew: I said it before. It’s highway robbery that he is still employed by the University of Florida. If you’re paying him any more than a nickel, you’re overpaying. The guy hasn’t been a good coach in years. The guy still isn’t a good coach. Offensive line play is about one thing and one thing only. Attitude. If you want to win up front, you win. Here’s the thing. Players don’t like Hevesy. Hevesy can’t relate to guys, and Hevesy doesn’t care. Three things right there. That’s why his guys do not get it. He cannot recruit. This coaching staff cannot recruit.

You just watched this team all throughout. I go back to the opening kickoff of the second half. Derek Wingo with a stupid personal foul. What are you doing? Why are you making those silly plays costing your team yards? You’re undisciplined. The team’s undisciplined. Everything is undisciplined. Here’s the thing. For the first time, it’s Dan Mullen’s fault. I’ve been on that 50/50 cliff of whether to blame Dan or whether it was just defense. It’s on Dan.

David: The thing is in his postgame pressers he masks so much stuff in a postgame presser. He gives the same answers and masks everything. Zach Goodall had posted something on Twitter, and it was Dan Mullen’s comments postgame saying, I didn’t even know the band was there. We didn’t do the alma mater. I didn’t even know the bad was there. Then before the game, he’s walking right in front of the band that’s playing loud instruments right in front of him. You’re going to tell me that you didn’t know the band was there?

If you want to go back to the LSU game, where Marco threw the shoe. He goes into the postgame presser, and he’s like, I didn’t see a shoe. Was there a shoe? Was that a penalty? Was that a 15-yard penalty? The referee on the mic said, 15-yard penalty, throwing a shoe 20 yards down the field, if you go back and look at the video clip. But you didn’t know that there was a shoe thrown?

This is a guy right now to me that’s making up excuses, is checked out, doesn’t want to be there anymore mentally. I want to know what your opinion is on Dan Mullen right now, because me personally, I don’t think he wants to be there anymore.

Andrew: He’s full of excuses. He’s always been full of excuses. People are finally seeing he’s full of excuses, and people for the first time are realizing he’s full of it.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: He’s trying to find ways to get fired.

David: And we see right through it. If fans and media and everybody else can see right through it, you know the players probably see it too. They’re not saying anything, of course, because they can’t.

Andrew: That’s the thing. Are they not saying anything because Dan knows that they may say something? You look at it. You can only control the narrative so much. He no longer controls the narrative. I say this, and I refer to this quote a lot, but I’m going to say it again. Jeremy Foley, before he left he said, “What should be done eventually, must be done immediately.”

David: Yeah.

Andrew: What should be done eventually must be done immediately. I’ll ask you that question, David, and say this. Does Dan Mullen have what it takes to get it fixed? The answer is no. The program right now is at a place that Dan Mullen cannot fix. His recruiting class this year is going to be hot trash, even if he stays. Everybody knows he’s on the hot seat. At the least, he’s going to replace half of his defensive staff and maybe, just maybe, we all get lucky and he replaces his offensive line coach, who’s absolute trash. So, then you’re going into next season with six new coaches. What makes you believe that that’s going to get better?

Here’s the thing. You still don’t have the players to do it, so you’re looking at at least three to four years before this gets fixed. Again, I say this all the time, history tells me Dan Mullen won’t get it fixed. People say, what does that mean? Boom. 13 years he’s been a head coach in the SEC, and he hasn’t changed. He’s the same person he was when he first came in.

David: That’s what I tell everybody too. 14 years. His mentality is not going to change. These results are what you’re going to get until he’s out of here. Personally, I think he needs to go. A lot of people, especially on Twitter, yesterday on Twitter I posted. I can’t remember what I posted, but it was about Dan Mullen, his mentality. I got about three or four comments on Twitter saying, you’re trying to set a narrative. You’re trying to generate clicks. You’re trying to generate retweets. You’re trying to get followers, whatever. I don’t get paid to get followers. I don’t get paid for retweets. I don’t get paid for likes. I don’t get paid for any of that. I give my true opinion out there on social media, and I like to see what other fans’ responses are.

Now, after that game you watched last night, do you think I’m trying to control a narrative? Do you think I’m trying to generate clicks? Do you think I’m trying to get likes and retweets? I don’t think so. I think Dan Mullen controlled his own narrative last night. You’re going to go into Samford next week, and you’re worried about that game, just because of what you saw against South Carolina. Samford, you should easily be able to handle. Easily. Florida easily wins this game next week. Mentally will they?

That’s the issue, and that’s the problem with this team. When your head coach checked out, the players are going to check out. I didn’t effort last night at all. If you would have saw the least bit of effort, like you saw last week against Georgia, Florida wins that game last night.

Andrew: The issue is like you just said. It was the performance of how they lost. If you play a good game, and South Carolina just gets some lucky breaks, or whatever it may be, you’re okay with that. When you came out and at no point last night, on Saturday night, did Florida look like they had a chance to win that game. At no point. The opening drive Carolina drives it down the field, and then the second drive they drive it down the field. The third drive, drive it down the field. Fourth drive, fifth drive. The first five drives of the game, they scored.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: That’s South Carolina. That’s a team who is awful. That’s a team who Shane Beamer didn’t even hardly believe in his team. If you watch his halftime press conference, he didn’t even believe he was going to win that game.

Dan Mullen after the game said he thought his message was received well by his team. No, it was not. He asked players. Chief Borders, Scooby, Jeremiah Williams. They were on Instagram laughing at the game.

David: That’s a problem.

Andrew: It’s a culture problem. The culture is set by the head man. The thing is the second guy in responsibility to that is Nick Savage. That’s a guy we don’t talk about a lot, but he needs to be talked about, because he ain’t doing his job either. These guys aren’t strong enough. These guys are not just beating other teams physically, like they were supposed to, and they’re not mentally in it.

David: I posted this earlier this morning. I said, we praise this staff about coaching and development and getting kids ready. Right now, Hevesy isn’t doing it. Knox can’t play the right guy. Grantham is Grantham. Mullen is masking more lies and repeating himself in pressers, and Savage hasn’t done a great job either. I’m glad you brought that up. Where is the no quit attitude?

Andrew: The hold the rope.

David: The hold the rope, no quit, fourth quarter hold onto the rope. Whatever. If you look last night out at the game, there’s a lot of South Carolina players that are looking awfully well and way bigger than our players are. Personally, I have no clue. I’m not going to blame everything on Savage, because it’s a collaboration of everybody. But strength and conditioning looked pretty good when McElwain’s guys were out there. Not looking good right now.

Andrew: You’ll win Samford. Samford’s awful. You’ll win that game. Missouri always plays you tough. You know that. You know that Florida State, that’s their Super Bowl. There is nothing Mike Norvell wants to do more than to win that football game and to get the momentum of his program going, continuing to go in the right direction. Listen, you can say what you want, and they haven’t had a great year. They’ve had a terrible year. They’re still recruiting really well. He did inherit a mess from Willie Taggart, worse than anything.

People say, Dan Mullen inherited a mess from Jim McElwain. That’s wrong. Yes, his strength staff needed to go. Mike Kent needed to go. They weren’t in good shape. No. Not at all. But they were not untalented. They had talent. They had a lot of talent, and he was set up to have even more talent. He told Matt Corral, get lost. He told Jamar Chase, get lost.

David: How did that work out for him? I just want to know. How did that work for him with Jamar Chase doing what he’s doing in the NFL, and Matt Corral being a Heisman candidate this year?

Andrew: I talked to a buddy of mine, who’ll remain nameless right now. He works for a newspaper out of state. Not in state. Doesn’t cover Florida. We were talking. He’s a Florida grad. We were talking last week, and he said, how is Florida so bad in recruiting, and he said vice versa. He said, people said Kyle Trask is hurting what Dan Mullen could do on his offense. Wait till he gets his own quarterback. Maybe his own quarterback would have been better with Kyle Trask. Maybe Kyle Trask was the reason the offense looked so good. Maybe Kyle Trask saved Dan Mullen from himself.

David: Yeah. That’s the thing. If you look back at last year, say Dan Mullen didn’t have Kyle Trask. Say he had to play with Emory. Do you think Emory is digging us out of those 30 and 40 point game holes that we put up last year?

Andrew: No, but again, that’s not Emory’s game.

David: It’s not, but I’m saying. I’m not blaming it on Emory, and I’m not saying Emory sucks or anything like that. That’s not what I’m trying to say. I’m trying to say that Kyle Trask in a way, along with Pitts and Toney, guys that McElwain recruited, saved your season last year, because your defense wasn’t blocking anything. They were giving up 38, 39 points per game. You were putting up over 40 points per game, and that’s how you won every game. Let’s say that Kyle Trask wasn’t quarterback last year, do they even go 8-4? Do they even go to a bowl game?

Andrew: Probably not.

Andrew: Three. Well, four really, because Tennessee was close until the fourth quarter. The worst record over the last 10 games against Power Five opponents. Florida’s third. Kansas is 0-10. Vanderbilt’s 0-10. Arizona is 1-9. Florida’s 2-8.

David: Joel Klatt, I don’t know if you like Joel Klatt or not. He said the last 25 games have been wild for Gators football and Dan Mullen. 12-1. Since the shoe throw, 4-8.

Andrew: He hasn’t recovered. He hasn’t recovered from that, and he hasn’t recovered from the SEC Championship game. When he tried his best to get a job for the NFL, he threw in the towel, and he hasn’t picked that towel up yet. He hasn’t fully bought back in yet. It’s showed in recruiting. It’s showed in a lot of things. It’s time for a change. I’m okay to say that now. I don’t care if I hurt anybody’s feelings. It’s time for a change. The spotlight’s on you, Scott.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: What Stricklin does here will decide a lot.

David: I don’t want to go into details with this, because it’s a bad situation anyway, and we still don’t know all the details. I told people. I said, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. By a lot worse, I did mean a lot worse. Scott Stricklin hasn’t posted in a while. Scott Stricklin gave an extension to a coach that- we already know about that whole situation, and I’m not going to get into that, because it’s pretty bad. Is Scott Stricklin even going to be here much longer? Is President Fox going to be here much longer?

Andrew: He’s put in time out. I don’t care what nobody says. Stricklin’s in time out right now. He’s been told not to. I don’t know. I don’t know where the Stricklin thing goes. I honestly don’t. It’s going to be interesting. I will ask this. Do you trust Scott Stricklin to make this next coaching hire?

David: That’s the thing. I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’s going to try to make a coaching hire. I think he’s going to try to keep Dan another year, no matter what happens. That’s the problem.

Andrew: If I was betting, I think Dan returns.

David: The thing is this. You’re just prolonging mediocrity if you keep Dan Mullen. The way that his attitude is, you’re prolonging mediocrity. It’s best if you cut ties now. He’s only got a $12 million per buyout. You can pay him $6 million up front, and then pay him payments over time. $12 million is not a lot anyway. I’ve seen buyout for way worse.

Andrew: Boosters will take care of that. Here’s the thing too. You do not have a huge buyout of other coaches, because six coaches have their contracts expire at the end of the year. Grantham is one of them, who has the highest paid contract. You have several guys. If you allow Dan to come back, you get a new DC. You’ve got to sign him to a two-year deal. You got to sign most of your other assistants to two-year deals. You have a bigger buyout.

Again, if you have to force Dan to do something, did he really make a change? Will he fully buy into it? What’s he going to do? Where’s he going to go hire a DC? I said this in my mailbag on Gator Country. He’s not well thought of. There’s a lot of coaches who think Dan’s hard to work for. That’s why he didn’t hire a great DB coach last year. Will he be able to hire a great DC? In my opinion, no.

David: I remember you telling me, I think last week, that Dan Mullen, I think he’s interviewed at Tennessee twice, and I think Tennessee didn’t take him. I remember you telling me that Foley didn’t want Dan Mullen because of that. A lot of teams didn’t want Dan Mullen, because of his attitude and the way that he does things and how arrogant and pompous he could be about himself and not be more of a team player.

Andrew: There was. A lot of people said that. Foley had said multiple times, because people wondered why he didn’t succeed Urban when Urban left the first time. That was because Jeremy Foley had told a lot of people that he would never hire Dan Mullen. He didn’t like Dan Mullen’s arrogance, and he would never hire Dan Mullen. You can say what you want to say. Jeremy Foley had a lot of things not go his way, especially late with facilities. He had some questionable hires late. But for the most part, Jeremy Foley was really good at his job.

David: Yeah. I love Shane Matthews to death too. I talk to him a lot about this. He thinks if the facilities get built it will improve recruiting.

David: Right.

Andrew: Here’s the thing. Dan can’t close. Get it through people’s head. Dan can’t close. He can’t recruit. His guys can’t recruit. When guys won’t visit campus, because they don’t want to meet with their position coaches, they’re not coming.

David: Yeah. That’s what it was. That’s what I got a lot of flack for on Twitter yesterday. I made a comment about recruiting, and then Walter Nolan commits to Texas A&M, and then Texas A&M gets another top 100 wide receiver in the same day. I said, another guy that you were in the running for, and you didn’t get. A lot of people were saying, we were never in the running to begin with and all this. No, we were. We were. Obviously, his parents had a lot to deal with that. Everybody knows it. But you were still in the running. Jimbo got the job done. No matter what, Jimbo got the job done to get the elite talent on his roster. When that happened, it was a spiral effect. You see another top 100 wide receiver commit to Texas A&M yesterday too. Two guys in one day.

My thing is this. You don’t have people on our staff that care that much about recruiting to go through that kind of trouble to get an elite prospect to come to the University of Florida. You just don’t. I don’t care what people say. They say I’m trying to set a narrative, whatever. I took a poll. I said, look, fan vote. How satisfied are you with Dan Mullen’s high school recruiting so far his career? This isn’t counting the transfer portal. 0.5% said I’m real satisfied. 2% said kind of satisfied. 27.5% said could be better. 70% said it’s downright horrible. General consensus between fans, they don’t think the recruiting’s that well.

Andrew: I’ll ask you this. Who in this class is an impact player?

David: I would say Isaiah Bond, and that’s about it. Isaiah Bond. #1 athlete. He’s a track runner. He’s fast. You always want speed on your offense. I would give Isaiah Bond that thumbs up. Not sure about Chandler Smith. He’s a fast guy too, but probably has to put on some size. Nick Evers is putting up pretty good stats right now in high school. They’re not crazy. They’re not considered “elite” stats, but I would say Nick Evers. That’s the guy right now that you got saving this class. If Nick Evers leaves, you ain’t got nobody. The rest of those guys are going to leave.

Andrew: He’ll be in Year 4 before he plays.

David: Yeah. I know. That’s the thing. Like I said, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. This recruiting class, especially if something happens. Say if Dan Mullen was to be let go this year, you think the recruiting class is bad now, wait till that happens.

Andrew: Here’s where I’ll disagree with you. You get the right person in, they can save it.

David: You’ve got to get him in now.

Andrew: You would have to get him in soon. Yeah. For sure. When I say save it, I don’t mean that it’ll be great. I’m saying it would be better than it is. You would get some guys to at least think this way and at least look your way. Because there’s going to be other coaches around the country who get let go, and there’s going to be other guys looking around. Yeah. You could save it a little bit. It’s not going to be great.

David: You’re definitely going to have to dip into the portal this year. There’s no other option. You got to go to the transfer portal. Tennessee had to do it. Look, I looked at it last night. Tennessee put up 45 points on Kentucky. All transfer portal guys. They went through a complete overhaul in that program. Heupel had no problem putting up 45 points on Kentucky. That’s the thing. Dan Mullen gets praise for being an offensive guru, Xs and Os coaching, and he’s not even doing that right now. It’s gotten to a point to where he’s mentally checked out. The thing is if you want to “save” this class, you’d have to do something dramatic right now. I don’t see it happening, and that’s the problem. This class is probably not going to be the best class that we’ve seen in a while. It’s probably going to be worse than when Will Muschamp got fired, and Jim McElwain had to kind of come in and save the class with CeCe Jefferson and Martez Ivey. You’re not even going to get that. It’s going to be bad.

Andrew: Yeah. You got to figure out your direction and figure that direction out pretty quick, David. You got to figure out a way to stop the skid. You just do. You’ve got to figure it out.

David: I personally think we win against Samford. If we don’t win against Samford, we’re in deep trouble. I think we win against Samford. Not sure about Missouri, but I do think the players’ energy will be different for Florida State, because the players don’t want to lose to Florida State. They don’t like it.

Andrew: Again, okay, yes, the players’ energy may be different, but if you’re not put in position to do it.

David: That’s the problem.

Andrew: And the plays are not called, then what does it do?

David: I say just line the players up, and if they call a play, just run something different anyway.

Andrew: Pull a Varsity Blues.

David: A Kilmer.

Andrew: John Motson out there burning the five wide hooking liners whenever he was told not to. It’ll be interesting. Good news is basketball starts in two days, Tuesday. That’ll be good. The Atlanta Braves are still World Series Champions, despite Dan Mullen’s ability to make everybody sad.

David: The parade was crazy too, man. Closed off a lot of roads. I didn’t get anywhere near that, because I knew it was going to be crazy. You got to tell that guy to slow that bus down too, man. Driving it 30 miles an hour through there.

Andrew: I was right in the middle of it, and I can honestly say it was one of the best days of my life.

David: Did you see where Matiscik almost got arrested by a cop, because the cop didn’t know he was a player on the team?

Andrew: I did. Somebody posted a meme saying, it was because he was drinking a Natty Light. He wasn’t drinking the expensive stuff. He’s good.

David: A lot of Florida Gator fans have been drinking a lot here lately watching this team. Like I said, right now you just got to roll with the punches. There’s a lot of punches that are going to be delivered to Florida Gators fans’ faces right now. You just got to roll with the punches and hope for great results in the end. Right now, it’s the waiting game. You have to wait. You have to see what happens.

Andrew: Root for the players, not the coaches.

David: Yeah.

Andrew: You don’t have to root for the coaches.

David: Right.

Andrew: You don’t have to like the coaches.

David: Please do not tweet players and tell them that they suck. First of all, it’s not even on them. It’s up to the coach to put the players in the best position to win football games, whether they were a three-star, four-star, five-star. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.

Andrew: Right.

David: You recruited players. You got to put them in the best position to win. So, don’t go after players. I’ve seen it a couple times on social media. Don’t go after the players. It’s completely stupid. Blame the coaching staff.

Andrew: You got to keep it in perspective. Again, it’s not their fault. It just is what it is. It’s not their fault, by any means. You have to be put in the best position. Show up, root for the players. You don’t have to root for Dan Mullen. You don’t have to root for Todd Grantham. You don’t have to root for any of the coaches. Root for the players.

David: That’s it. Root for the players. Hopefully, root for something. Pray. Pray something gets fixed. I don’t care if it’s getting rid of all the coaching staff and Dan Mullen or doing something. I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. I don’t get paid enough money for that. Roll with the punches is all I’m going to say, because it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. By a lot worse, I mean a lot worse. I hate to say that. We would love to open up a podcast every week saying, Florida Gators win in dominant fashion over so-and-so every week. Just here lately, I don’t even think we’ve been able to do that in, what, five weeks, Spivey?

Andrew: Been a long time, my man.

David: Long time.

Andrew: Not a fun time. Not a fun time. We’ll be back though. We’ll break down Samford and basketball. You name it, we’ll break it down. I’m sure Dan will have something to fumble at the mouth this week during his press conferences, if he shows up. Yeah. We’ll be ready. That’s for sure.

David: Be ready. Josh Pate’s on a tear on Dan Mullen right now too, from 24/7 Sports. There’s going to be a lot of media talking about it, of course. Very unexpected loss. Like I said, just roll with the punches. Andrew, you got anything else, besides your smile that you have on for your Atlanta Braves World Series, and actually my Atlanta Braves too. My dad would be very proud right now. Last time I got to see a World Series win from the Braves was in ’95 with my dad.

Andrew: Listen, you’re not taking that away from me.

David: Nope. You can’t take away a Championship World Series.

Andrew: World Series Champions. My pocketbook hurts, hurts daily, because I’m soaking this one in. I’m enjoying this one. My four-year-old loves it. He keeps saying, they won the series trophy. We did. I’m good. Dan, you can’t take that away from me, buddy, no matter how bad you suck at your job. Still a World Champion.

David: That is all.

Andrew: Still a World Champion.

David: That is all that I have, Andrew. I don’t know if you have anymore.

Andrew: That’s all I have. Again, you can’t take that away, Dan. You can take a lot of things away. You can’t take away my World Series Championship.

David: That’s right.

Andrew: Maybe you learned a thing or two about some coaching from my man, Brian Snitker.

David: He probably did.

Andrew: Keep the same. What you preach is what your players will do. I’ll end it on that.

David: Only thing we can do is look forward to the next game, and that is against Samford.

Andrew: All we can do is our job, David. That’s it. Our job.

David: All we can do is our job.

Andrew: Our job says Dan Mullen is not a very good football coach. It’s his fault.

David: Right now, it just rides on the coaches. Rides on the staff. Rides on Mullen. Curious to see what he says in his presser Monday, if he decides he wants to go to it.

Andrew: He’s going to ask for the Swamp to be packed, and he’s crazy. It ain’t happening.

David: Nobody’s packing the Swamp next week, unfortunately. There’s a lot of people already trying to sell their tickets. I went on a couple of Twitter spaces last night and listened to the fans, and all of them are upset. Anyway. That will wrap it up for this episode of the GatorCountry.com podcast. You can follow me @SoderquistGC on Twitter. I’ll be posting a lot this week. You can guarantee it. You can follow Andrew Spivey @AndrewSpiveyGC on Twitter as well. That’ll wrap it up, folks, for this episode of the GatorCountry.com podcast.