Florida football’s offseason has already become a real Rorschach test: people see what they want to see. And it seems, for now, that what people want to see is a glass that’s half-empty.
The discussions on the Gator Country boards about the recent coaching moves inevitably turns into about two-thirds people dumping on Dan Mullen for one reason or another and one-third people pushing back in reaction to the negativity. There’s just not a lot of folks finding things to like in the middle.
For instance, I posted something about how the defensive numbers will improve next year. It was before I sent out last week’s newsletter on that very topic, and it was the thing that inspired me to write it.
I meant it almost impishly, because of course UF’s defensive numbers will look better. Instead of 12 games against Power 5 competition, including a bowl against one of the top offenses in the country, it’ll be nine games against P5 teams, two against overmatched Group of 5 teams, and one against an FCS team. Dropping Oklahoma for FSU alone will help a lot; getting to shut down offenses from FAU and Samford from sheer talent differential alone will do even more.
As in the newsletter, I mentioned that the improved numbers may not be that impressive and could be fool’s gold if they do look good in some respect. Just because the stats go in the right direction, it doesn’t mean the problems are all fixed. I gave away my mini-joke with these caveats in concession to the generally gloomy-at-best current atmosphere.
And yet, I had people telling me they hoped I was right and tagging the post as optimistic. The thing is, it wasn’t optimistic! There was a section about regression to the mean that I guess could’ve been seen as such, but the scheduling factor is very real. It would take a collapse not seen in I don’t even know how long, not my lifetime to be sure, for the defensive stats to get worse next year.
There is no sign there will be a collapse. Zachary Carter, Brenton Cox, and Jeremiah Moon coming back with a couple of good DT transfers from the portal means the guys up front will ultimately be fine so long as there’s not an injury plague.
There is a lot to like with how Mohamoud Diabate improved over the year. Ventrell Miller hasn’t declared for the draft yet, so there’s a good chance he’ll be back. I suspect he will, since he’s not played well enough to get real NFL attention yet. With them anchoring a linebacking crew that includes experience in Amari Burney and some exciting up-and-comers like Ty’Ron Hopper and Derek Wingo, there at least won’t be a step back at the middle level of the defense.
Experience in the backfield is a concern. Kaiir Elam and Jaydon Hill will start at corner, and Trey Dean and Rashad Torrence should at safety. Star will probably be a battle between Diwun Black and Tre’Vez Johnson. If the front line stays healthy, they’ll be okay. Some of the others like Jahari Rogers showed flashes in the bowl, and top-rated ’21 early enrollees CB Jason Marshall and S Corey Collier should push for playing time. It’s not guaranteed to be great, but there’s enough talent back there that it won’t get worse than it was in, say, 2007. And it would take a falloff worse than ’07 for the Gators’ defensive numbers to get worse.
So again: it’s not optimism to say that the defensive stats will improve. It’s a very realistic take that’s not going out on a limb at all. Even if you’re not impressed with the coaching hires, Todd Grantham has never had a worse defense than last year. I’ve said it a bunch of times, but 2019 was easily his best job ever. He didn’t forget how to coach in the nine months between the Orange Bowl and the 2020 opener, y’all. It will get better.
Another such example of people seeing what they want to is the promotion of Garrick McGee from analyst to quarterbacks coach. Brian Johnson is very, very good at his job. He was too good to stay as a mere college QBs coach, which is why he got the OC title last year.
It’s never been a better time to work with pro quarterbacks, and the NFL has real allure to college coaches as being the top level of the game. Just ask Steve Spurrier, Nick Saban, and Urban Meyer how easy it is to resist its siren’s song.
Whether it was going to be to the NFL, as things actually worked out, or to a play-calling or even head coaching job, Johnson wasn’t going to leave Gainesville before long. Mullen obviously knew it given the title bump offered to Johnson, and it wouldn’t surprise me if hiring McGee as an analyst in the first place was part of a succession plan.
McGee spent a lot of time with Bobby Petrino in his career. He’s coached up a lot of good quarterbacks and helped craft a lot of good offenses. Once he branched out on his own, he proved not really to be head coach or even solo OC material at the FBS level.
The latter point doesn’t matter. It’s Mullen’s offense at UF. He just needs a good hand to guide the QBs while he does other things that a head coach needs to do. McGee has more than proven sufficient aptitude to do that. I don’t know what McGee’s status is as a recruiter, so we’ll see about that. But for the actual on-field position of QBs coach, McGee is one of the better ones out there.
Yet, I saw quite a few people panning the hire as some variant of “lazy”. Rather than put in the effort to run a national search to find a new QBs coach, Mullen apparently just grabbed the guy who was already in the building and called it a day in this line of thinking.
I don’t know whether McGee’s hire last summer was part of a succession plan, and Mullen probably wouldn’t say publicly if it was. That no one seemed to think a plan like that was near as likely as sloth on the head coach’s part shows again how down the attitude is about Mullen.
I’m the type who’s never too high or too low. I’ve learned that lesson over the years. When the team is bad, I get accused of being a sunshine pumper. When it’s good, I get a lot of Debbie Downer GIFs.
Unlike Emmitt Smith, as noted in another thread on the GC board about the hall-of-famer’s comments, I don’t think Florida is that far away from winning the SEC. They’re going to be tantalizingly close in 2021 despite having a relative youth movement in a lot of places (secondary and wide receiver in particular).
I don’t think they’ll pull it off with Bama as the rotating West opponent. Think about last year. UGA getting the Tide instead of someone more beatable like Ole Miss is the only reason the Gators’ LSU loss didn’t cost them the division. The same effect will be in play next fall, though the Gators could still win the division with a win over a beatable-by-Florida Bulldog team.
UF isn’t in a place where it can compete with Saban’s Alabama every year, but no one is. Not even programs that have been in elite shape for a half-decade or more like Ohio State and Clemson can pull it off. A half decade ago from today, Jim McElwain was about to sign his second recruiting class. It takes a coach time to build up to being on that top level if he doesn’t inherit a program with almost no flaws as Kirby Smart or especially Ryan Day did.
Is UF on the fast track to Saban dynasty level? No. But the sky ain’t falling either. I won’t tell you what to feel because emotions aren’t rational, but things really aren’t terrible right now. Mullen is not Muschamp after 2012 or McElwain after 2016 where you really don’t know how they’re going to repeat their successes. It’s all going to be fine. I mean it.