GC VIP Stadium Road Audibles — 2/17/20 Edition

Ever since arriving back at the University of Florida, Dan Mullen has emphasized what he calls The Gator Standard. Every coach has his mantra: Nick Saban and The Process, P.J. Fleck and “row the boat”, Urban Meyer with the top 1% of the top 1% and four to six seconds of relentless effort.

The Gator Standard is about the play on the field, but to hear him tell of it, it’s about more than that. It’s about having high standards in all areas of life, which is admirable as far as it goes.

It is interesting, then, to track how Mullen has gone about molding, crafting, and himself trying to achieve The Gator Standard. It’s up to him as the head coach to set the standard, and if he’s not putting it in a place where he and his staff have to work to hit it, he’s setting the bar too low.

In some places, the advancements are easy to see. There are extensive plans for facilities upgrades, something that Florida needs to keep up with the elite programs that it sees as its peers. The strength and conditioning program is worlds better than it was under the prior regime, as are game plans and in-game coaching. The days of the offense falling off a cliff after the pregame script has run out are long over. In their place is an era in which the second and fourth quarters are usually when the best performances happen. Plus, the recruiting support staff has never been bigger.

Mullen intentionally signed a small transitional class in 2018 in acknowledgement of the time crunch brought about by the advent of the December signing period. He was able to do so with confidence, knowing that Scott Stricklin understood the situation and would have his back in the future if push ever came to shove. It’s not for nothing that the athletic director in Gainesville is a fairly savvy fellow who was never going to hassle his head coach about taking a long-term view.

But when it came to his second class, Mullen pulled out all the stops to try to get as good a class as possible. He oversigned for what I believe was the first time in program history (another sign of new management being in town), went all the way to California for a prized cornerback, and took some chances with players who were right on the line with meeting the academic parts of The Gator Standard. It looked good in February, but it began to erode almost immediately.

The west coach kid got homesick and used the second consecutive year of a signee running afoul of the law to engineer a return to where he was from. Diwun Black, Arjei Henderson, and Deyavie Hammond — all 4-star recruits — didn’t make into school, with only 3-star Dionte Marks making it in among the academic risks.

You can see how Mullen attempted to correct things with his 2020 class. He did sign three Texans and one Canadian by way of Connecticut, but 16 of the 23 signees are from in the state of Florida. With FSU and Miami struggling at present, it was a smart move to focus on in-state guys. That’s not to say UF should never go after Californians; Ronald Powell signed with one coach, stayed through a transition to a different one, and didn’t appear to have second thoughts about a thing. It’s just that there’s lower risk of guys bailing for home if home can be accessed by car over a weekend.

Furthermore, Mullen didn’t allow the academic risks to officially enter the class this time around without clearer information about their prospects of making it in. Safety commit Marc Britt will plans to sign on Thursday, and he may go with Ole Miss instead if UF can’t guarantee him entry into school by then. The other outstanding commit Leonard Manuel will choose his destination on April 1, and he may end up elsewhere (Oxford is again on the table) for the same reason.

It ultimately didn’t matter a ton with the team winning 11 games in 2019, but it was something of a black eye for Mullen to end up with three non-qualifiers. Florida usually doesn’t have any, and if it does, it’s basically never more than one. There were things like in 2012 when Will Muschamp signees Dante Fowler and Jon Bullard were initially denied admittance, but they made it into school by fall of that year.

Mullen’s hire of Tim Brewster also shows his recognition that his staff’s recruiting, while adequate, could’ve used some improvement. There are plenty of fans out there who can’t stand Brewster, but those are mostly fans of rivals of Brewster’s past schools. His over-the-top energy and enthusiasm is the sort of thing that fans who are with him love and fans who are against him can’t stand.

One thing that you won’t find, or at least I can’t find, are concrete allegations of impropriety on his part in regards to NCAA regulations. To the extent it’s possible in the modern game to be a recruiter who can land the big fish without running afoul of the rules, Brewster is such a guy. He’s not bad as an actual on-field coach either.

What does this all add up to? A show of effort by the head coach to improve. It’s not a straight line up free of issues; the 2019 recruiting class is major proof of that. However, Mullen is visibly doing things each year to try to raise the program’s ceiling. It’s hard to get every decision right, but you can rest easy knowing that even the head coach is setting The Gator Standard in such a place that he must work to reach it.

David Wunderlich
David Wunderlich is a born-and-raised Gator and a proud Florida alum. He has been writing about Florida and SEC football since 2006. He currently lives in Naples Italy, at least until the Navy stations his wife elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter @Year2