Florida is in the third year of Dan Mullen’s tenure. That means the holdover players from Jim McElwain’s time are all fourth or fifth-year guys.
If they’re still around in their fourth or fifth years, it means they weren’t good enough to go pro early. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are bad, of course; Kyle Trask may have played his way into the first round of the NFL Draft with his play since taking over as starter. However, it does mean they weren’t good enough, early enough to take a spot from an older player and then suitably prove themselves to the scouts through three years.
Mullen’s classes have generally been ranked higher than McElwain’s were. Stars aren’t everything, and Mac’s 2016 class in particular had a lot of 3-stars who turned into pro prospects. Regardless, those McElwain classes were recruited by different coaches to different schemes. Mullen’s guys were hand-picked for the current schemes.
It then follows that while there may be a handful of quality Mac guys still around, you’d expect the areas heavy with holdovers to be weaker areas. The makeup of their depth charts means they’re staffed by players who weren’t good enough to go pro early and younger players not good enough (yet, in some cases) to beat out those veterans.
On UF’s 2020 team, you see what you’d expect. The weakest areas on the the team this year are offensive line, defensive line, linebacker, and secondary. And yeah, it’s not lost on me that those last three “areas” compose the entire defense.
The offensive line has three Mac holdovers. It might be two if not for Ethan White being out, but injuries happen, and I can’t say that for sure it’d be down to two with White in the lineup. I could easily see him slotting in at center or left guard with Brett Heggie taking the other spot and Richard Gouraige going to the bench.
Florida signed four offensive linemen in 2018. One, JUCO transfer Noah Banks, didn’t have the eligibility to be around now anyway. For the future, it was three: Chris Bleich, Gouraige, and Griffin McDowell. The first of those wasn’t great last year and left. The last has yet to challenge for a starting spot according to all practice reports.
Gouraige was a prized tackle recruit, but for the second straight season, he’s playing guard while UF is getting spotty-at-best tackle play. This is his third year; he’s been around long enough to be able to turn pro after this year. Either he hasn’t panned out to his potential, John Hevesy has brought him along too slowly, or Mullen and Hevesy are prioritizing seniority above skill on the line’s edges.
Defensive line is unacceptably thin. Now, I realize they’re down a couple of fourth-year defensive tackles from where they thought they’d be while recruiting in 2018 and 2019. Kyree Campbell has been out for whatever reason — Mullen said he hopes to get him back next week — and Elijah Conliffe took a medical retirement in the offseason after missing last year to injury.
However in 2018, they only signed two in Andrew Chatfield and Malik Langham. Chatfield has been a backup so far and doesn’t yet stand out. Langham left after one season and is third string on a dreadful Vandy team right now.
In 2019, they then signed just one true defensive linemen to go with a whole bunch of Buck ends. That’s a recipe for issues. Transfers bailed out the team for a while, with Adam Shuler turning into a fairly good option at the non-nose defensive tackle and Jonathan Greenard starring last year.
But this year they’ve got Mac holdover Zach Carter playing out of position inside because of the thinness there. Him going inside forces this year’s transfer patch Brenton Cox to play end instead of Buck, and he’s not (yet?) the star player that Greenard was. Carter is making some plays here and there, but he’s not in his best usage spot. Fellow Mac holdover Tedarrell Slaton is playing well at the nose but can only play so many snaps per game. The last veteran DT, career backup Marlon Dunlap, plays like a career backup.
Aside from those holdovers, UF basically just plays Chatfield and true freshman Gervon Dexter. The one DT signee from 2019, Jaelin Humphries, did get some snaps against A&M but didn’t really do anything to distinguish himself. One on Aggie touchdown late in a goal line situation, Dante Lang was in. He converted to defense from tight end in fall camp. That’s how thin they are with the coaches not at the point of trusting any true freshmen aside from Dexter.
Then there’s linebacker. Mac holdover Ventrell Miller is doing what all the best McElwain-era linebackers did, which is play well in every respect except pass coverage. Fellow holdover James Houston has yet to make the leap in quality of play that Miller has. The last of the holdovers, Lacedrick Brunson, was a project of a signee and is not an SEC-caliber player.
After them, the non-Buck linebacker spot has a pair of converted guys. Amari Burney is a former defensive back who still looks like a defensive back attempting to play linebacker after doing that last year too. Mohamoud Diabate is a converted Buck who could’ve used spring to learn the position but appears to be kind of winging it at times because he’s barely played at that level of the defense.
Where are the true linebacker signees? In 2018 there were no non-Buck linebacker pickups. In 2019 there was Ty’Ron Hopper, Diwun Black, and maybe Jesiah Pierre. Hopper drew rave reviews in fall camp this year but has only played special teams. Black didn’t qualify and is in JUCO. Pierre is so far down the depth chart that I can’t say for sure which linebacker spot he plays.
And now we’re at secondary, which plays four holdovers.
Shawn Davis has blossomed into a mostly terrific player. I have few complaints there. Brad Stewart was the other best safety the last two years, but A) he has trouble staying out of trouble, and B) has moved to star this year. Donovan Stiner used to have the “he’s limited but consistent” tag to fall back on, but he played poorly in the first two games of the year. I think he played better against A&M, but that could just be because I he didn’t have many obvious missed tackles or blown assignments.
Marco Wilson filled in decently well at star last year but isn’t big enough to play it in all scenarios. He should’ve been able to move back outside this year, but he’s played a ton of star with Stewart in the doghouse again. And even with him outside, he gave up a deep touchdown. You can easily find him before the snap because he’s the one shrugging and looking at his teammates because either he doesn’t know what the call is or he sees something that doesn’t match the defensive call as he sees it.
And the Mullen recruits?
There were four 2018 signees. Trey Dean is on his third position in three years. He looked good in the first two games but barely played against A&M. Burney moved to linebacker, John Huggins earned a dismissal, and Randy Russell was medically DQ’d. Three of four 2019 signees (so long, Chris Steele) have done well considering, with Jaydon Hill and Cheser Kimbrough providing some quality depth.
Kaiir Elam got a starting role last year, but he actually looked better as a true freshman last year than he has this year. I actually take some comfort in that, believe it or not.
It tells me that there really are some issues related to missing spring practice and all the rest of the 2020 disruptions. He didn’t change positions like Stewart or Dean. He’s not being asked to play two different positions like Wilson. He’s always been an outside corner, played great last year, and apparently has regressed to a degree. Everyone else who appears to have regressed since last year officially has an excuse.
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Years ago, I came up with the term “scheduled down year” to describe a program’s dip in performance in a head coach’s third or fourth year. Every transitional class tends to be small, of lower quality, and bitten by attrition. That will catch up to a team at some point.
I thought maybe Florida wouldn’t have as bad a scheduled down year in 2020 because of Mullen’s success with the transfer portal. On offense, it really hasn’t. Having a fifth-year senior in Trask plus transfers in Trevon Grimes and Justin Shorter to bolster the wide receivers and Stewart Reese the offensive line have helped things on that side of the ball go.
But the defense is suffering. UF only signed seven defensive players in 2018, and only four remain. It signed 11 in 2019, of which nine remain. However they loaded up so much at Buck that a couple are and were always going to be buried on the depth chart right now. It’s more like seven usable guys, but Humphries (who missed 2019 to injury) and Hopper don’t get many snaps either at positions where there are snaps to be earned.
Florida’s defense is having a scheduled down year. Its offense is not, and that makes it even harder to take. I do think there can be improvement; Campbell and Khris Bogle, who missed the A&M game, coming back would help in key positions. The secondary looking organized for more than about four plays straight would too. I can’t imagine what communication problems they’re having in quarter-filled stadiums, but they’ve got to be able to get better in this department. I’ve never seen a group look so lost so often, and that includes last year’s unit with all these same players and coaches.
I look forward to seeing what happens after Mullen does his promised reevaluation. He may need to start trusting some of his 2019 and 2020 signees earlier than he normally would like to.
Quite unlike his old boss in Gainesville, Mullen is all about loyalty to his guys and highly values seniority among players. Urban Meyer used his willingness to play true freshmen as a recruiting pitch. Mullen rotates some young guys but in the end he usually falls back on older players.
You could see how he cares about seniority with the way he dealt with CJ McWilliams this fall. He gave a mini sermon in the preseason about people giving up on him and forgetting him after he didn’t play well and missed a lot of time to injury. McWilliams kept working to stay a part of the team, and that surely is commendable. Mullen even tried to continue making his point by putting McWilliams as the starter at star on the first two depth charts of the year.
McWilliams is not an SEC-caliber player, though. He gave up a big pass play in his limited snaps against Ole Miss and hasn’t seen the field much on defense since. Mullen will only take seniority so far.
That said, it might be time to do things like slide Gouraige out to tackle and give a Griffin McDowell a chance at guard until Ethan White returns. Tre’Vez Johnson from the 2020 class has looked promising in a couple series as star when not being illegally picked (no flag, of course). Maybe fellow 2020 signee Jalen Lee should be getting some snaps at his home position of defensive tackle instead of a converted tight end who has played the position for a month.
Finally, don’t discount the possibility that the defense took David Reese II for granted. He was the one who made sure everyone was lined up, on the same page, and ready to go for years. Now that he’s gone, it’s a mess. Someone has to step up and be the general on the field. Until and unless someone does, we might just keep seeing messes.