Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham and offensive line coach John Hevesy are no longer with the Gators program, head coach Dan Mullen announced on Monday.
Linebackers coach Christian Robinson will serve as the defensive play-caller for the remainder of the season, while special assistant Paul Pasqualoni will assume an on-field coaching role with the defense.
Graduate assistant Michael Sollenne will serve as the interim offensive line coach.
Grantham’s firing came a day after his defense surrendered 459 total yards and 284 rushing yards to a South Carolina team that ranks near the bottom of the SEC and the country in multiple offensive statistical categories.
That turned out to be the final straw for him after a horrendous two-year stretch for the defense. In 2020, his unit gave up 30.8 points and 428 yards per game, making it the program’s worst defensive performance since at least 1945.
Six of their 12 opponents scored at least 35 points against them, and Alabama and Oklahoma scored a combined 107 points against them in their final two games. Alabama gained the most first downs in a game by a UF opponent in school history (33). The Sooners rushed for 435 yards against them in the Cotton Bowl, the third-most surrendered in school history, and scored 55 points, the second-most in school history.
Ole Miss gained 684 total yards against them, the most in program history. In that game, Elijah Moore hauled in 227 yards worth of passes, the most ever by a UF opponent.
Despite all of those record-setting performances by opposing offenses, head coach Dan Mullen opted to keep Grantham for the 2021 season and instead replace both of the secondary coaches.
Through six games, the defense looked much-improved and ranked near the top of the conference in several statistical categories. That turned out to be nothing more than a mirage, however.
An LSU team that was playing for a lame duck head coach and ranked 127th in the country in rushing at the time pounded them for 321 rushing yards and 49 points. Tyrion Davis-Price ran for 287 yards, the most ever by a Florida opponent.
And then there was the nightmare in Columbia that wound up being his final game on the UF sideline.
For Robinson, who played for Grantham at Georgia and got his coaching career started as a graduate assistant under him at Georgia, this will be his first time calling plays.
Pasqualoni, who has more than 30 years of major college football and NFL experience, joined the program prior to last season.
Meanwhile, Hevesy, like Grantham, came with Mullen from Mississippi State in late 2017. He’d worked with Mullen since they were both on Urban Meyer’s Bowling Green staff from 2001-02.
The offensive line got off to a strong start under Hevesy’s watch in 2018. They averaged 213.2 rushing yards per game that year, which ranked 27th in the country. They also gave up just 18 sacks in 13 games, which ranked 20th in the country. Left tackle Martez Ivey was named All-SEC.
However, the next two years didn’t go very well at all. They ranked 107th in rushing in 2019 and 96th in 2020 as Kyle Trask and the passing attack took center stage.
As was the case with Grantham, Hevesy’s unit played much better in the first four games of the season before faltering as the season went on. After four games, they ranked third in the FBS in rushing. That included a dominant performance against then-No. 1 Alabama.
Then the wheels started falling off at Kentucky when the group committed most of the team’s eight false start penalties. They couldn’t generate much push a week later against Vanderbilt.
Most recently, they only rushed for 82 yards at a 3.2 yards-per-carry clip against one of the worst rushing defenses in the conference in South Carolina.
Recruiting has been a major issue on the offensive line. They’ve only signed four players who were ranked in the top-300 in the 247Sports composite in the last three classes, and one of them transferred after just one semester (Issiah Walker).
They only have one commit who’s ranked inside the top-900 in the 2022 class.
Sollenne, his presumed replacement, joined the Gators prior to the 2020 season and has broke down film, helped coach the offensive line and worked with the defensive scout team. He played on the offensive line from 2012-15 at LIU Post, an FCS school.
Following the 40-17 loss at South Carolina on Saturday, Mullen emphasized the need to get better on both lines of scrimmage.
“We’ve just got to execute better up front,” he said. “I think we had some guys miss some time this week up front [on offense], but we’ve still got to execute much better at the line of scrimmage.
“[Defensively], something we’ve got to look at that. Maybe just schematically some things going on, some missed tackles. We’ve got to be stouter up front. We’ve got to be better and more physical right at the line of scrimmage and the point of attack with our defensive front.”
On Monday, Mullen took action as he tries to rebuild this program in the midst of a disastrous season.