by Will Miles
Grantham Retained
News came this past week that it appears that Todd Grantham is going to be retained on the Florida staff for 2021.
Dan Mullen has proven over and over to be very loyal to his assistants, and this appears to be the case once again. I looked at what Grantham has accomplished at Florida earlier this week and just wasn’t all that impressed. David Wunderlich wrote a ‘defense of Grantham’ article this week for Gator Country and sounded apologetic for making the case.
The reality is that Mullen is comfortable with Grantham and believes in him. Whether that is misguided or not, time will tell. But it does explain why he would retain Grantham after a year that was so disrupted by COVID-19. I can completely understand how a coach would believe that his coordinator would have done better with more time to prepare and spend with his players.
The issue that I – and I think most Gators fans – have with that line of thinking is that Urban Meyer wouldn’t accept kind of excuse. Nick Saban wouldn’t accept that kind of excuse. And Dabo Swinney wouldn’t accept that kind of excuse (he fired Kevin Steele after a 70-33 embarrassment against West Virginia in the 2012 Orange Bowl).
Those guys have won 10 of the last 14 national championships. You know, the “Gator Standard”.
Gray and English Gone
If Grantham wasn’t going to take the fall, someone was going to have to. Those coaches were Torrian Gray and Ron English.
Torrian Gray’s dismissal makes sense given Mullen’s sense of loyalty. Gray isn’t a “Mullen guy”, as he was a long-time DB coach at Virginia Tech who was hired to Florida by Jim McElwain and returned to the program after a two-year stint with the Redskins. The players love him, but at some point, production has to win out and the Gators giving up 7.8 yards per attempt is a problem.
Given the recent recruiting violations that have been reported against Florida and Mullen’s staff, the English dismissal makes sense too. He was the primary recruiter for 5-star linebacker Sav’ell Smalls (according to 247Sports), who is likely the commit whose interaction with the staff generated the show-cause penalty against Mullen. Beyond that, English had only been with Mullen since 2017 at Mississippi State, so this is not a John Hevesy or Billy Gonzalez-type relationship.
Granted, that is the length of Mullen’s relationship with Grantham too. But clearly when it came down to it, the defensive backs were seen as the weak link and so both coaches were sent packing.
That means that if there isn’t significant improvement (and I mean like 6.0 yards per attempt or better) at those spots in 2021, there’s nobody else to pin it on.
Replacements?
One of the replacements who appears to be high on the wish list for Mullen is Travaris Robinson.
There are certainly Florida ties with Robinson, as he was the defensive backs coach at Florida from 2011-2014 under Will Muschamp. Look at the defensive backs who came through the program in those years (Vernon Hargreaves, Teez Tabor, Quincy Wilson, Keanu Neal, Marcus Maye) and Robinson was likely involved in their recruitment, and significantly so.
But the guy was just the defensive coordinator for South Carolina, so you do need to be really careful that Grantham doesn’t see him as a direct threat. While I’m all for having coaches who have experience, one who recruits better than Grantham and has experience as a DC elsewhere will get the fans clamoring for him as a mid-season replacement at the first defensive hiccup.
But that’s what Mullen’s brought on by keeping Grantham. The fan base is fed up with him. A lot of that comes from the fact that the fans of Florida’s main rival right now is absolutely thrilled that he is no longer their defensive coordinator.
Third-and-Grantham exists for a reason and he hasn’t done anything to change that moniker in his time with the Gators.
Defense of the fan base
I’ve seen and heard lots of complaints recently about the criticism of fans of Mullen, Grantham and the Florida program.
While I agree that often the fan criticism can go overboard, particularly when it goes into the realm of personally attacking players or their parents, the passion that generates that criticism also generates significant benefits as well.
There’s a reason high-level recruits choose Florida, Alabama, Auburn or anywhere else in the SEC. They want to test themselves against the best. They want to make it to the NFL. But they also want the adulation of 90,000 screaming fans and to be a big man on campus.
That doesn’t happen at Central Michigan.
I think it’s also worthwhile looking at that passion with the benefit of the passing of time. At the time he was fired, a vocal portion of the fan base was extraordinarily negative towards Ron Zook. Two years later, that same fan base was ecstatic that Zook’s recruiting had allowed Urban Meyer to cash in a championship.
I certainly hope everyone remembers that these players and coaches are human and have families. I’ve written about this before after the loss to Missouri in 2018, specifically about the players. But part of what Dan Mullen and Todd Grantham agreed to when they signed up to receive huge sums of money from the University of Florida to coach football was to receive the criticism that comes with it.
Besides, once a place like UF thinks you’re worth $6 million yearly, you should probably have enough self-confidence that the opinion of @swamp91743 and his/her 16 followers is largely irrelevant.
Administration/Mullen tension?
Matt Hayes at Saturday Down South released an article on Monday detailing tension between the Florida administration and Mullen. Hayes’ assertion is that the Cotton Bowl loss and press conference was the latest in a chain of events that have strained Mullen’s relationship with the university administration.
A divorce is never caused by just one thing.
Usually, you can work through one event or one slight, forgive and move on. It’s repeated slights that eventually aggregate into irreconcilable differences.
That’s the thing that I think has Mullen and the administration at odds.
From his “pack the Swamp” comments to his behavior against Missouri to his dismissal of the Oklahoma game as important, those things have put administrators in a difficult position. Add to that the recruiting violations – which Florida is still sensitive to 30 years after its last real NCAA issues – and you can see how the aggregation of these events has people rolling their eyes about what might be coming next.
Mullen hasn’t gotten an extension, despite winning at a high level. The administration is likely hesitant to commit to someone who has a proclivity to put them in tight spots from a PR perspective and has recent recruiting violations.
But I suspect both will come to the table and find a middle-ground. Because at the end of the day, Dan Mullen has significant value to Florida as its head coach and UF has significant value to Dan Mullen as his employer.
Mullen eyeing the NFL?
The thing that caught most peoples’ attention in the Hayes article was confirmation that Mullen has been making it clear that he would be interested in the NFL. It was reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter as well, so that’s pretty convincing now that both sides (college and pro reporters) and reporting interest.
This makes sense for Mullen, as he doesn’t excel at recruiting, doesn’t seem to enjoy it all that much and there are changes coming to the college landscape regarding compensation and transfers that are going to make roster management likely more important than preparing for the game (if they weren’t already).
The NFL would provide a place that is football-only. You have a general manager to take on the role of building your roster, negotiating with players and ensuring they are happy. Your middle linebacker wants an extension? Mullen can just say, “Talk to the GM, I’m just the coach.”
The other thing is that this is the same guy who two years ago went on a rant about winning at thumb wrestling. He’s ultra-competitive. You don’t get to the kind of job he has without being a competitive lunatic.
Those types of people want to test themselves against the best and the NFL is the best. I don’t fault Mullen for that at all. In fact, I want the NFL to be coming after my head coach.
It means he’s winning.
NFL eyeing Mullen?
What I can’t wrap my head around is, why would the NFL want Mullen?
I could understand them wanting him as an offensive coordinator. He clearly has shown the chops to be able to develop schemes to make an offense hum.
But an NFL head coach is a CEO of an organization, not just an offensive coordinator who hires someone to oversee the defense. He’s the face of the organization, the guy who sets the tone and goes out there after a tough loss and faces the music.
Mullen has struggled after losses this year. His “pack the Swamp” comments came after the loss to A&M. He claimed not to have seen Marco’s shoe toss and defended it as not being a taunt after the loss to LSU. His assertion that his scout team players played well after Oklahoma was over the top.
So let’s say he goes to the Jets. If he has a good season, Justin Fields is his QB, he looks pretty good and they win 4-5 games. That means he’s going to be out on the podium getting dissected 11 times a year. Good luck.
Urban Meyer to the Jags?
Mullen’s downsides to the NFL are actually reasons why I think it is a good idea for the Jacksonville Jaguars to hire Urban Meyer.
Meyer has been the CEO of programs at Florida and Ohio State and has won championships at both stops. He has proven that he knows what it takes to win at that level and can execute a plan to fulfill the requirements necessary to win.
The criticism will be that he always had better players, and in many ways that is true. Meyer consistently brought in fantastic recruiting classes at Florida and Ohio State, giving him a competitive advantage most Saturdays.
But that’s what is necessary to win big in the college game. And Meyer – knowing that was what he needed to do – immersed himself into recruiting, reportedly checking recruiting ranking services on a regular basis to see how he was doing.
That’s a competitiveness that translates. Because if you’re willing to sell-out to make sure you get the best recruits, then you’ll be willing to sell-out to make sure you deliver on whatever you decide is part of your game plan to execute at the NFL level.
This is Meyer’s chance to differentiate. He’s chasing Nick Saban when it comes to coaching greatness. Sure, Pete Carroll has won both a Super Bowl and two national championships, but was never seen as the absolute best when he was at USC.
If Meyer can win big in the NFL, he’d be able to put the one thing on his resume that Saban can’t: a Super Bowl ring. He’s too competitive to turn that opportunity down.
Recruiting miss (again)
I wrote last week that Tristan Leigh was an important commit to watch out for. He had supposedly really warmed up to Florida recently and there was some enthusiasm he might pick the Gators. Well, it turns out that he announced his commitment and had actually signed with Clemson back during the early signing day period.
So where does that leave the Gators? Ranked 11th nationally (5th in the SEC) with no real way to move up. Miami, Michigan and North Carolina are right on Florida’s heels in the rankings and have anywhere from four to seven less commits. They’re going to jump the Gators on signing day.
The Gators might leap over Notre Dame if they sign one more player, but that means best-case, we’re looking at a 13th place finish for the 2021 cycle. That’s just not good enough.
Alabama has 14 top-100 players committed. Ohio State has 12. Clemson has 7. Florida has 3.
Of the playoff teams, the only team that is close to the Gators is Notre Dame (4) and we saw what just happened to them when they came up against the Alabama buzzsaw.
I don’t have a good solution. But what I do know is that out of the top-10 players in the state of Florida, more are going to Alabama (3) than coming to Gainesville (1). That has to change.
Hope deferred
“Wait ‘til next year” is perhaps the most popular phrase in all of College Football.
That’s because all programs – Alabama excluded – hope that things are going to coalesce next year in a way that they didn’t the previous year. I think that’s why Florida fans were so upset at the defense and Todd Grantham – the coalescence of the offense was met with a falling apart of the defense, meaning we’re left saying “wait for next year” again rather than preparing for the playoff.
It’s also why the retention of Grantham is such a hot button issue.
When Mullen came to Florida, I wrote very early on that I was concerned about his recruiting. Fans got upset, telling me he just needed to win first and then the recruits would come. But that hasn’t happened, as Mullen is recruiting at the exact same level that he did when he first showed up.
That means Florida will need schematic advantages to consistently beat Georgia, Alabama and even LSU. Mullen provides that on the offensive side of the ball and has shown that repeatedly. Grantham does not.
That’s what ticks fans off about Grantham. It’s not that he’s abysmal at his job. He’s actually a pretty adequate defensive coordinator.
It’s that an adequate defensive coordinator, an elite offensive mind and borderline top-10 recruiting classes doesn’t give fans hope that Florida is going to overtake the Death Star in Tuscaloosa. You need Mullen to get the elite offense and the sub-standard (for Florida) recruiting comes with him. The only place to make the change is at defensive coordinator.
Otherwise, “wait til next year” just feels like an empty promise.