The year is 1986 and Haley’s comet had just passed the Earth. The comet only comes around every 75 years or so but the way the Florida-Kentucky series was going it seemed that Haley would come back to say hello without the Wildcats tasting victory on the football field against Florida.
Just 286 days into being the head coach of the Florida Gators Dan Mullen has a big bluegrass stain on his résumé that six coaches previous never did.
All streaks end, but Florida’s 31-game winning streak over Kentucky felt like it never would, until it did, in Mullen’s first conference game and a game that wasn’t all that close.
“Our fan base has waited a long time for this,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said after the game. “To say that it doesn’t bother them would be a lie because it’s the
unnecessary burden that these players carry when they come into a streak like that. They don’t deserve that because they weren’t a part of it. We don’t have to deal with anymore after today.”
The last time Florida lost to Kentucky neither the football nor the basketball teams had won a SEC title. Billy Donovan was playing point guard at Providence and Dan Mullen was a sophomore tight end at Trinity High School in New Hampshire.
Nobody saw this coming, except Benny Snell, that is.
“Beating Florida is going to change our season,” Snell said at SEC Media Days. “It’s going to be a season changer for us.”
At the time reporters barely acknowledged the comments. Every year someone says The Streak will end this year and it never happened. Reporters were more enamored with Snell’s comments that he was the SEC’s best running back. He backed that claim up with 175 yards at 6.5 yards-per-carry.
“There’s no feeling like this. During the week I was just thinking about the moment,” Snell said after the game. “The game ending and all the fans leaving. It was what I dreamed about. It’s the best feeling in the world. I can barely talk I’m so happy.”
Kentucky players jumped into the stands to celebrate with their fans and the band. Derrick Baity Jr., from Tampa, jogged around the field waving a Kentucky flag before planting it on the field.
Mullen walked off the field as Florida President Kent Fuchs stood there watching the scene.
“We’ll get it going,” he said.
Saturday night, as they have been in recent years, Kentucky was the better team. The Wildcats deserved to win at home last year if not for two blown coverages. There was the game four years ago when Jeff Driskel may have not gotten a snap off in overtime but the call was missed and Florida scored a touchdown.
All throughout the streak there were blunders that gave Florida wins out of nowhere. Saturday night Florida returned the favor. On Kentucky’s final offensive possession the Gators stopped Benny Snell for a gain of three and called timeout. Then came out of the timeout with 12 men on the field turning 2nd and 8 into a much more manageable 2nd and 3.
“That’s coaching. That’s on us. That’s on us and that’s something that we address during the practice of making sure when we get a timeout guys run on the field and we work on substitution and the discipline of exactly what needs to happen. That can’t happen in that situation,” Mullen said after the game. “I don’t know that any one thing was a direct result of the outcome of the game but a lot of them had a lot to do with it. We get off the field right there and go three-and-out, create a three-and-out and it’s a different deal. We just executed a two-minute drive down the field and had an opportunity for another one.”
There were no excuses from the Gators Saturday night. They simply said they need to work harder in practice, that they’ll learn from this but there’s no way to paint it in a positive light. The 80 men that put pads on tonight will forever be the team that lost the streak and Dan Mullen, no matter how this season ends will be the coach that lost to Kentucky.
I was disappointed that our Gators lost to Kentucky, but not surprised. The Kentucky players were carrying 31 years worth of losses on their back and they looked like it finally pissed them off enough that they played with a fire that took “The Swamp” like a storm. I’ve seen it happen before and actually played on a team that get a fire lit on our asses in high school. It is not fun to watch if you are on the other side. Now, they can either put it behind them and get in gear and still have a good year. We shall see.
Mullen is 8-1 as a head coach against KY. He did this with lesser players that bought into what he was coaching them to do. These Gators have to get beyond the crap they have learned from the last coaching staffs and be willing to get better. FYI – when a talked guarantees a win, we end up losing.