By Will Miles
Recruiting during the offseason
Full disclosure, I’m really good friends with David Waters, the reporter who asked Mullen about recruiting at his Monday press conference and brought on the firestorm that resulted from Mullen’s answer about dealing with recruiting during the offseason.
First, let’s address what Mullen said. I think he got taken out of context. He didn’t mean that he focuses on recruiting only during the offseason, but that he wasn’t going to talk about it with reporters until it was a more normal recruiting time, i.e. signing day. That’s perfectly within his rights as the coach.
But let’s also talk about the firestorm. The reason this was taken out of context is that Mullen projects to the Florida fan base that he doesn’t care about recruiting. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t really matter. It’s the perception that matters.
Mullen has clearly emphasized work-life balance for himself and his staff. You can’t spend an offseason looking at his social media without seeing him tweet while at a lake or wakeboarding with his family. That’s actually a good thing as anyone’s job consuming them is likely bad for their long-term health.
But fair or not, the expectation at Florida is that the job will consume you. We saw it with Urban Meyer, who delivered on championships but then burned out quickly. We saw it with Steve Spurrier, who built the program to heights it had never reached and then clearly had issues with 10-2 not being good enough towards the end of his tenure. And we certainly saw it with Jim McElwain, who wasn’t willing to substantiate death threats he said he received and then took a reduced buy-out just to get away.
All of this to say that I understand why someone would seek more balance. Being a college football head coach in a crucible like Florida requires finding a way to recharge.
The issue is that projecting that to the fan base – while getting your hat handed to you on the recruiting trail and now on the field by Georgia – creates the perception that you don’t care about winning as much as they do.
Dan Mullen and professionalism
I wrote in this space a couple of weeks ago that I thought Dan Mullen’s behavior during the Monday press conference after the Kentucky loss and during his halftime interview of the Vanderbilt game was unprofessional. I’m left with the same impression after his Monday press conference following the loss to Georgia.
The fans are demanding answers to a 4-4 season and getting embarrassed by Georgia. Much of the answer lies within recruiting. Not only is it fair for reporters to ask about recruiting, but it was an opportunity for Mullen to give a recruiting pitch.
Instead, he tried to avoid the question but did so in such an awkward way that it ended up with Mullen trending and his quotes being highlighted by the likes of Paul Finebaum.
Mullen would have people to defend him – and we tried on Gators Breakdown by pointing out what he really meant – but he’s been so snarky in his tenure that there is a large segment of people – even within his own fan base – who are enjoying him getting his comeuppance. That’s how you end up with the article in The Athletic this week with a bunch of SEC coaches calling the program “soft” in one of the most damning in-season articles I can ever remember reading.
Life is full of choices. You get to decide to be snarky or contrite. You get to decide what to sacrifice in the name of recruiting. You get to decide who you’re friends with or how you respond to challenges placed in front of you.
But you also get to live with those consequences.
A soft program
There’s really nothing worse for a football team or a football program than being called soft. But that was the accusation in an article published in The Athletic on Monday detailing issues within the Florida program.
The article is a brutal assessment of the culture that exists within the Gators program and what other SEC coaches think about the program, namely that the Gators are undisciplined, lack toughness, don’t play hard, don’t make adjustments and the defensive scheme is bad. So…..fun times.
I should point out that nobody interviewed for the article went on the record. Also, I should point out that everyone who was interviewed for the article has a vested interest in Florida being perceived as a weak program.
But the problem is that we’ve been observing a lack of defensive adjustments for four years now. We all saw the 14 counters from a weakened LSU team that just obliterated the Gators defense. We all saw the team show up unprepared and unmotivated against Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl last year.
The article is worrisome not because everything contained within it is absolutely true. The article is worrisome because much of what is contained within it rings true to those of us who follow the program closely.
The good news is that calling a football player or a football program soft is the ultimate insult. If it’s not true, then we should be able to see the response this week against South Carolina.
34-7 and it didn’t feel that close
The minute Anthony Richardson threw his first interception and Georgia immediately converted it into a 17-0 lead, this game was over.
We knew it would be that way. If Florida was able to get up on the Bulldogs and make Stetson Bennett try to lead them back, the Gators had a shot. But if Florida fell behind, it was going to be tough sledding against an elite Georgia defense. That’s exactly what happened as Florida squandered early chances to put the Bulldogs on their heels.
The game was still 0-0 when Anthony Richardson hit Kemore Gamble for an 18-yard gain to get the ball near mid-field. But that drive stalled as the Gators were unable to convert a third-and-3. On the next drive, Richardson had Justin Shorter open on a third-and-7, only for Shorter to slip as the pass whizzed by his head. Jace Christmann then missed a 51-yard field goal and the first quarter ended in a 0-0 tie.
Georgia was able to drive down for a short field goal, and I thought Florida might get lucky as Smart had the option of taking the points or going for it on fourth-and-goal and he decided to take the points. But on Florida’s next drive, Richardson did a nice job of leading the Gators to the Georgia 31 before taking a sack, running a trick play (weird timing) and then going for it on fourth-and-13 because they didn’t trust their kicker.
The Florida offense had equaled the Georgia offense to that point and yet the Gators were still behind.
The turnovers came next, first with Stetson Bennett throwing an interception and then with Richardson fumbling and throwing two picks. Those turnovers certainly sealed the game, but it was really over after that fourth-and-13 play. Florida had its shot to put the Bulldogs on their heels early and failed to do it.
Turnover machines
Oh, those turnovers did come. The fumble was a killer, reminding me of Feleipe Franks’ turnover in 2018 on basically the same play.
Backed up in their own end zone, Florida decided to have Franks run the QB power with Georgia up 20-14. He fumbled the ball and the Florida defense had the goal line stand that we all remember fondly that forced Georgia to settle for a field goal.
That’s what the Gators needed after Richardson was stripped trying to extend his second run out of the end zone. Instead, the linebackers parted like the Red Sea and James Cook ran for an easy touchdown.
Richardson then threw an interception on a zone blitz that fooled him, and again, one play later the Bulldogs scored on a 36-yard pass to Kearis Jackson.
This isn’t new. In each of Florida’s losses this year, touchdowns coming after a sudden change have been a consistent theme.
Against Alabama, Emory Jones threw an interception with the Gators already down 14-3. Six plays and 38 yards later and Alabama was up 21-3. Against Kentucky, Emory Jones threw an interception with the Gators down 13-10. Five plays and 29 yards later, the Gators were down by 10. Against LSU, the Gators threw two straight interceptions while behind 7-6. When the dust cleared, LSU had a 1-play, 28 yard drive and 4-play, 21 yard drive and was up 21-6.
And against Georgia, Anthony Richardson fumbled and threw an interception while down 3-0 and Georgia had the two one-play drives to go up 17-0.
We can harp on Jones’ pick-6 against LSU or Richardson’s against UGA. We can certainly harp on the turnovers, as the Gators have now thrown an interception in 7 of 8 games this year. But we should also harp on the defense’s complete inability to help out its struggling QBs.
By the time Richardson threw the pick-6, the game was long gone. Were the game 9-0 or 13-0, there would have still been hope.
I’m not saying that it is the defense’s fault that Florida was in those situation. It wasn’t. But they sure haven’t helped out in those situations at all this year.
Where did the running game go?
At the end of that first quarter, one thing stuck out to me like a sore thumb. Florida had 8 pass attempts and just 6 rush attempts, yet the Gators were averaging five yards per rush.
You have a redshirt freshman getting his first start against that defense, and you have him chuck the ball around the yard? That seems……suboptimal.
When Feleipe Franks was the Gators QB in 2018, Florida ran the ball 40.3 times per game compared to 28.0 passes (59% run). This year, with QB play far below that of Franks, Florida has run the ball an average of 40.0 times per game along with 31.3 passes (56% run). Florida was the best rushing team in the country at 6.3 yards per play coming in.
Yet, when Dameon Pierce ripped off a 19-yard run to give Florida a first-and-10 at the Georgia 36, Florida went pass (complete to Gamble for 3-yards), pass (incomplete to Copeland) and pass (incomplete on Shorter slip).
You aren’t going to win against the best team in the country if you don’t know who you are. Florida is the best team running the ball in the country in large part because of Anthony Richardson. Yet in a critical situation with the game tied, Florida decided to try to win with finesse and wound up missing a 51-yard field goal.
AR15 growth
There’s no doubt that Richardson played poorly, but I’m left wondering where any of the offensive creativity was that we’ve seen previously.
Where were the rocker steps? Where were the reverses? Where were the screen passes as Georgia came on the blitz? There just wasn’t anything.
I get that maybe Richardson has a limited grasp of the offense, but you can’t tell me that he can’t execute a screen pass. And if you have time to put in whatever that double-pass was on a second-and-20, you certainly have time to design something interesting in the QB run game that involves both Jones and Richardson.
Lots of people will point towards Richardson starting as the reason the Gators lost this game. I think that’s misguided. To be sure, he needs to learn to take care of the ball better, but Florida had chances to announce it was there to play a physical game before the game got out of hand and refused to do so.
The fact that AR wasn’t ready once things started to snowball downhill isn’t a surprise, but to believe that Jones would have been any better ignores the better part of the 7 games we’ve watched where his turnovers have come in bunches and the offense has stalled as he has gotten more conservative.
I’m glad Richardson started this game and I hope he starts the rest of the year. He’s not going to face a defense more swarming, more physical or more dominant than the one he just got done playing. He now knows the level that he needs to raise his game to in order to be successful. Whether he can do it or not is an open question, but he has the ability.
And for Florida’s sake, let’s hope this makes him buckle down even harder moving forward.
1-3 vs. Georgia
Florida fans have lived through owning Georgia for so long that it’s pretty difficult to feel the tables turned. Yes, Florida is going to catch Georgia from time-to-time when everything aligns, but the reality is that as long as Kirby Smart is with the Bulldogs, Florida is going to be the underdog.
We’re now the Auburn to Georgia’s Alabama and that’s a tough pill to swallow for proud Gators fans. It should be a tough pill to swallow too, because it’s not just on the head coach. Jim McElwain made a lot of enemies within the program complaining about a lack of resources, but some of the recruiting spending numbers came out this past week and Florida is behind.
At the end of the day, you are what your record says you are, and Florida is behind Georgia. Winning against them 25 percent of the time isn’t going to be an acceptable outcome for Gators fans or boosters for too much longer, I would imagine. That’s doubly true when it comes to a program that loses in the kind of embarrassing fashion that we saw on Saturday afternoon.
Florida isn’t going to win a championship every year. Not even Alabama does that. But to walk into a game against a big rival with essentially zero chance and then have zero schematic things that push the game in your favor just reeks of a complacency that is going to be difficult for this administration to shake.
2-8 vs. Alabama, Georgia and LSU
Speaking of poor records against rivals, Dan Mullen is now 2-8 against Alabama, Georgia and LSU.
We knew this was a possibility coming into the year, but with LSU struggling early on, this seemed like a long shot just three weeks ago. In fact, after putting up a performance to be proud of against the Tide in the third game of the season, sitting here at 4-4 just seems like the least likely outcome imaginable.
Yet here we are, with a coach who has gone from being someone we all thought would deliver on game day to a coach who can’t deliver against opponents who decide whether seasons are a success or not. Because make no mistake, beating USF and FAU is expected, as is beating South Carolina and Missouri. But if you’re not beating Georgia, Alabama or LSU at more than a 20% clip, you’re not doing anything that even remotely resembles the Gator Standard.
The Georgia game didn’t teach us anything new. All it did was teach us that we are exactly who the wins and losses have been telling us we are all along. You can’t lose to the LSU teams Florida has lost to the last two seasons and come to any other conclusion.
Right now this is an average program that should have average expectations. I don’t suspect that average is good enough for the people who write the checks.
Goals against South Carolina
So what do we look for next week against South Carolina? How about some toughness?
Come out and run the ball down the Gamecocks throat, and do so convincingly. Run the ball 60% of the time and show you are the better team.
Continue to allow Anthony Richardson to learn. He’s going to throw interceptions and make mistakes, but let him make those mistakes in an environment where the team has the opportunity to pick him up when he does make them.
And finally, show some fight. When the ball is turned over, get a stop. Get some penetration at the line of scrimmage and some tackles for loss. Hit the QB from the blind side and strip the ball. Actually make a difference-making play on special teams.
And please, for the love of all that is holy, just play hard for 60 straight minutes. Not just 10. Not just 20. Play hard for all 60 minutes and let the chips fall where they may. Because what I saw on Saturday was a team that played hard in spurts, rather than all the time.