Will Mullen’s staff changes be enough?

Dan Mullen has made one thing abundantly clear so far this offseason: he will not be pressured into making staff changes that he doesn’t feel are necessary. Mullen’s conviction in his ways and his determination to carry out his vision for the program will, for better or worse, go a long way toward defining his tenure at UF.

Despite fielding a defense that gave up the most yards per game of any Florida team since at least 1945, Mullen ignored fans’ pleas to fire defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. Instead, he opted to only part ways with the two secondary coaches, Torrian Gray and Ron English, clearly believing the defensive issues to be a product of poor positional coaching and not a flawed scheme. He hired Wesley McGriff earlier this month, and, on Friday, he rounded out his staff by hiring Jules Montinar away from USF. Montinar is expected to coach the cornerbacks, while McGriff is expected to work with the safeties.

If you’re like the person writing this article, you’d never heard of Montinar when the sun rose on Friday morning. So, let’s briefly spend some time analyzing the pros and cons of what he brings to the table.

Montinar’s biggest strength figures to be recruiting. He’s 35 years old, hails from Naples, Florida, and played college football not too long ago, so he’ll be able to relate to the modern athlete in ways that an older coach simply cannot. He served as USF’s recruiting coordinator for the last year and helped the Bulls land the American Athletic Conference’s fifth-best recruiting class despite finishing with a 1-8 record. 247Sports named him the Sun Belt Recruiter of the Year in 2017 at Texas State.

Montinar and McGriff are both considered high-energy coaches, which should help them instill a sense of urgency in their players and shore up some of the recruiting deficiencies in the secondary.

However, there are also a ton of unknowns with Montinar. First, he has no prior experience with Mullen, Grantham, or McGriff. Gray and English also had no prior experience together, and one can’t help but wonder if some philosophical differences between them played a role in the secondary’s struggles the past couple of years. How quickly Montinar familiarizes himself with Grantham’s system and builds cohesion with McGriff will determine how successful he will be at Florida.

Furthermore, the optics of his hiring are bad. The Gators were rumored to be in the mix for big-named coaches such as Chris Ash, Charlie Strong, Travaris Robinson and Maurice Linguist at various points over the last month, only for all of them to land elsewhere. Hiring a coach that nobody’s ever heard of makes it look like Mullen struck out on all of his top choices and had to settle for a coach that he had no competition for.

Whether that perception matches reality or not is hard to say, but it figures to ratchet up the pressure on both Mullen and Montinar. If you’re going to hire an unknown coach after a month of fans getting excited about the possibility of hiring a proven veteran, he’d better pan out.

Perhaps most significantly, this will be his first full-time coaching job at the Power Five level. Sure, he did a fine job of developing players and recruiting at James Madison and Texas State, but this is the SEC. Recruiting against Alabama and Georgia is a little more difficult than recruiting against Louisiana-Monroe. Mullen’s banking on Montinar being a diamond in the rough. That seems like a risky proposition.

Will Mullen’s revamping of the secondary coaching staff be enough to pull the defense out of the doldrums? It depends on who you ask.

According to the sunshine pumpers, the secondary was the worst unit on the team in 2020, and Mullen brought in a pair of high-energy coaches to fix that problem. Grantham’s scheme is more complicated than most at the college level, and not having a normal offseason set them back last year. With (hopefully) a complete set of spring practices this year and better coaching in the secondary, Florida’s defense will take a giant step forward in 2021.

If you listen to the doom-and-gloomers, the defensive line and linebackers didn’t play well either, and there were plenty of examples of the players simply not being in the right positions to make plays due to poor play-calling. The shakeup in the secondary coaching staff is nothing more than putting a bandage over a gunshot wound. Until Grantham is gone, the defensive issues will persist.

It’ll take a season or two to determine which viewpoint is correct, but Mullen better hope his gamble pays off. Otherwise, Grantham won’t be the only one who bears the brunt of Gator Nation’s frustrations for much longer.

Ethan Hughes
Ethan was born in Gainesville and has lived in the Starke, Florida, area his entire life. He played basketball for five years and knew he wanted to be a sportswriter when he was in middle school. He’s attended countless Gators athletic events since his early childhood, with baseball being his favorite sport to attend. He’s a proud 2019 graduate of the University of Florida and a 2017 graduate of Santa Fe College. He interned with the University Athletic Association’s communications department for 1 ½ years as a student and also wrote for InsideTheGators.com for two years before joining Gator Country in 2021. He is a long-suffering fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You can follow him on Twitter @ethanhughes97.