Thoughts of the Week – Bye Week 1
by David Parker
Oh what a difference a week makes. Those Gator fans and media members who were shoveling dirt over the grave of the 2019 Florida season might want to check the coffin now, because we’re not in it.
Some of the most eye-catching comments to immediately follow Florida’s shaky win over Miami in Week 0 was that Tennessee suddenly looked like a dog fight, and some folks used the “S” word in referring to playing the Vols (“scared”). I wager, though, that they’re not feeling quite as scared of them after Week 1. Not after Tennessee was beaten soundly by Georgia…….State. Ladies and germs, to put this into perspective, it is roundly and accurately recognized that the worst loss, the most embarrassing defeat ever handed to the Gators was when they lost to the Georgia Southern Eagles of the Football Championship Subdivision. But this was worse, maybe far worse. GSU was an FCS/I-AA dynasty, with 6 national titles in the trophy case. They moved up to FBS the year after they beat Florida, and won the Sun Belt Conference title in their first season. On the other hand…Georgia State? Ten years ago, their football program didn’t even EXIST. And they barely existed last year, winning only 2 games. And it looked very much like Georgia State had better athletes that Tennessee, especially at the lines of scrimmage.
The rest of Florida’s schedule looks a lot less daunting, as well. Missouri got beat by Wyoming, giving up almost 40 points. South Carolina lost to North Carolina, another 2-win weakling in 2018, in typical Will Muschamp fashion. Nobody snatches defeat from the jaws of victory quite like the come-from-ahead-loss king. To make matters worse (and better for Florida), their starting quarterback got hurt and will likely miss the Florida game. It likely would not have mattered, since he has followed the same developmental track as every other Muschamp QB: flat-line, never getting a lick better after his freshman year. Missouri and South Carolina were teams that many fans and talking heads suggested had a great chance of upsetting the Gators this year. The other team that was supposed to put us on upset watch – Kentucky – struggled mightily to put beat Toledo by just a couple scores. Auburn looked for a half of football that their head coach wouldn’t make it out of the stadium without a pink slip from the University President. And despite the fact that they managed to turn it around and pull out a literal last-second victory, the groans from Florida fans that they are going to destroy us later in the year should be at least tempered a little by the fact that this was just a 7-5 team beating a 9-win team from the PAC-12, which adjusts that win total down by at least a couple.
Then of course there was FSU. While Boise State is not the BCS-busting force they once were, they are still a good program. But to roll into Tallahassee and rip off 621 yards of offense, 108 plays (!!), and nearly 40 points, and be clearly the more athletic, better conditioned and better coached team at every position? FSU coach Willie Taggart explained his plan to overcome this devastating setback: hydrate earlier in the week. I’ve got news for WT: FSU fans are the ones that will be hydrating earlier on every game week. But that clear liquid in your squirt bottle is not water.
And it was not just Florida’s 2019 future opponents that had terrible openers. Purdue – the team that demolished mighty Ohio State late last year – lost to Nevada. Nebraska needed 3 non-offensive scores to beat lowly South Alabama by 2 scores. Iowa State needed overtime to beat Northern Iowa. West Virginia almost lost to James Madison (still waiting to hear if it was the school or the person). And it was a slaughterhouse for a couple schools in the PAC-12 that were supposed to have big turnaround seasons, with Arizona losing to Hawai’i, and UCLA getting dominated by Cincinnati.
So, in the final analysis, Florida’s win over Miami is starting to look like the BIG win that the players and coaches acted like it was (and the recruits watching the game certainly acted like it was).
The biggest problem for the Gators in Week 0 was poor tackling, but we saw in Week 1 that bad tackling is a national epidemic. And it’s not as if everyone forgot how to tackle or how to coach tackling. It’s a product of the way teams practice in modern times. Gone are the preseason “Circle of Life” one-on-one drills where the object is to dismember your teammate in a way that resembles a tackle. Gone are the full-contact practices. Heck, gone are the full-contact scrimmages. There is such a premium on staying healthy and especially keeping the play makers free of injury, that tackling has naturally suffered from a lack of repetition before the season starts. For everyone. You know what teams tackled really well in Week 1? The ones who played cupcakes. Early season cupcakes are like spring training games for Power 5 programs, and Florida didn’t get one. As detailed above, many teams DID play cupcakes in Week 1, and still played terribly, tackled terribly and lost or nearly lost. Just look at the viral animated gif of the Tennessee-Georgia State game. A Panther ball carrier juked to the left, and a Tennessee defender hit his own man square in the numbers so hard that he should have been flagged for unnecessary roughness against his own team. And it was the best tackle of the game for the Vols.
Something to Watch
Here’s something to look for from opposing defenses this season, starting with Kentucky in Game 3, and to look for from our offense in anticipation and response. Miami laid out a blueprint of sorts on how to take a good portion of quarterback Feleipe Franks’s effectiveness away: make him roll to his left. You can bet every opposing defensive coordinator on our schedule saw that and will scheme to force Franks left. They will overload the left side of the pass rush to attack Franks’s right side, and maybe routinely blitz a defensive back around the left edge.
Mullen not only will have to adjust to this, he will be able to take advantage of this defensive attack. A hot route with a wide receiver, a releasing tight end or a running back that squats just beyond the line; a regular outlet receiver behind or near the line of scrimmage to Franks’s left to take a pitch or easy flip pass where Feleipe is throwing with normal mechanics instead of across his body with a downfield throw; a shovel pass to the unloaded side (or even to the loaded side to expose over-pursuit up field); releasing a running back to the overloaded side and let Franks toss a lollipop over the oncoming rushers trying to push him to his left…or more than likely something Dan will come up with that’s a lot better than anything I can come up with. Whatever it is, unless Feleipe Zoolander learns to turn left in the nest 2 weeks, this is a schematic wrinkle the Florida offensive coaches will have to prepare for and overcome.
Non-Transferrable Standards
If you have not been a regular on the Gator Country recruiting forum, it will be news to hear that Kelvin Joseph, a blue chip defensive back transfer from LSU, badly wanted to be a Gator and was all set to transfer change his address to Gainesville upon wrapping up some later summer courses in Red Stick. However, UF Admissions denied his application. This predictably triggered an avalanche of fan response in the form of, “UF Admissions strikes again.”
Through the last several decades, that mantra has taken root, and often for good reason. The high admission standards at UF put all the sports programs at a competitive disadvantage nationally, and especially in the academics-optional SEC, where most schools will admit a dog with a note if he can run a 4.4 40-yard dash in pads. Moreover, there has been a dynamic in the UF admissions office – some would say “rumored” and some would say “well known” – of having a belligerently anti-athletics program culture.
To what degree that is true in 2019, I think that Mr. Joseph’s academic efforts fell well short of any legitimate entrance standards at UF or any other major university. And I fully support UF’s maintenance of their high academic standards. We are a top-10 public university, and with that comes a great deal of responsibility and accountability. If a kid can’t get in through the flex window allowed for athletes, it’s their own fault. I do find some issues with admissions with respect to athletes, of course. Particularly concerning is how bloody long it takes them to disposition an athlete’s application. But honestly, regular students have to wait forever, as well. And therein lies the perceived bias against athletes: they seem to take even longer to “process” their paperwork and admissions of eligibility decisions for athletes than for regular students, an already absurdly protracted timeline.
I understand and support holding them to the quality standards. I understand and support not bumping them ahead of regular students in the priority order of processing paperwork. What I don’t understand or support is taking them out of order and stuffing their paperwork at the bottom of the stack…if in fact that happens, as often seems it does.
But with all this support and endorsement for sticking to high entry standards for athletes, I do believe their much be SOME flexibility. There should always be room for exceptions. I think admissions should always be open to working with a coach for a special circumstance kid once in awhile. As long as they don’t make it a habit, which we know they never would.
Legendary Head Ball Coach Steve Spurrier got UF to bend its standards in the early ‘90s to accept a kid that UF Admissions initially wouldn’t even clear for an official visit. It was a kid from the crime-ridden gangland of Overtown, the son of a teen mom, with all the obstacles to learning and developing academically that one could imagine, perpetually surrounding him and trying to pull him down every day.
But he was a kid that Spurrier believed could do the class work. And with the help of one male role model in his life, he had come through an impossible childhood without getting into trouble, which vouched for a very strong character. Spurrier got the-UF President John Lombardi to admit the student-athlete conditionally, and Spurrier was so sure of his success that he un-retired his own jersey number 11 to give it to him. In addition to piling up multiple All-SEC honors and helping lead UF to pile up multiple SEC titles, not only did this kid earn his undergraduate degree at Florida, he completed it in time to enter UF grad school before his eligibility was up. After a couple years in the NFL, he returned to Overtown to become a coach and youth mentor, and he founded KDA – the Keeping Dreams Alive Foundation – which is still going strong today, helping at-risk inner city kids and low-income families trying to send their kids to college.
But John Lombardi isn’t at UF anymore. And given the prevailing sentiment that there’s still an anti-athletics culture in the Admissions office, I do worry that the next Ben Hanks would never be admitted to UF today.
Coaching Oil Check
I did this at the end of last year, and will likely do it periodically until all of these 4 coaches are either clearly established as far as what they are as head coaches at their current stations, or they’re no longer there. Of course I am talking about the much followed, much more opined upon head coaching search the UF’s Athletics Director Scott Stricklin performed to fill the role of head Gator, vacated on Shark Week, fall of 2018. We know the back story. Half of Gator fans wanted Chip Kelley, who was the biggest name coach on the market since Urban Meyer, circa 2014. He had the stellar track record at Oregon and an NFL pedigree of varying review. The other half of Gator fans wanted Scott Frost, the young upstart “Midwestern Spurrier” who was making national champions out of UCF a few miles south in the Land of Make Believe. He had a very short track record, but like Kelly, he had a high-flying offensive scheme that Gator fans would kill or die to have once again. Another half of Gator fans wanted Willie Taggart, a guy with a very long track record of taking down and out programs and taking a long time to get them to one winning season before bolting as fast as he could to the next stepping stone. Only his last stop was only one season, it wasn’t a good one, and he jumped ship anyway. No matter which of the three head coaches Gator fans wanted, more than 130% of them emphatically did not want Dan Mullen. I was one of them. I thought we had to have a big-name, big-splash coach, and I didn’t like a few things he said about Florida while at Mississippi State, such as the “lateral move” commentary. Even though I knew that’s what any coach would say in that position. It took me about 0.12 seconds after the hatch to UF’s private jet flew open and Mullen walked out on the Gainesville Airport tarmac, for me to disavow myself of all those inaccurate misgivings. This was not the Dan Mullen of 2006, nor 2008, nor even a couple years ago when we poached his defensive coordinator, the future head coach of Georgia Tech. That was Dan Mullen, 2018, stepping off that plane, and he was unequivocally the right hire. Might not be the best head coach in the game today, but he’s the best head coach for Florida by leaps, bounds and a country mile.
Don’t believe me? While Florida was basking in the glow of being only 1 of a mere 2 Florida football programs to win its first game of the season (the other being UCF, which doesn’t seem to miss Scott Frost one bit in the win-loss or national ranking categories), Scott, Chip and Willie were floundering much the same way they did last year while Mullen was racking up 10 wins in the SEC with a 4-win inheritance.
Much of the buzz about Frost and Kelly was that while overall their teams sucked out loud last year, they got better at the end of the year. Which could have merit – after all, that’s the primary way to measure improvement…did they improve? But it did not look like they carried any of that over the offseason. There was Nebraska again being beaten on the line of scrimmage by a Group of 5 team, unable to move the ball, being saved by three fluke plays that they will not be able to count on the whole year. And there was UCLA, getting dominated by Group of 5 Cincinnati, just like they were in last year’s opener.
One of the reasons I was steadfastly against hiring Scott Frost was that he had no real track record as a head coach, and while his kind of resume was not much different from that of Urban Meyer’s or Steve Spurrier’s when they came to Florida, I was determined that we couldn’t make a fourth roll-the-dice hire in the last 5 coaches (3 of the previous 4 of which were unmitigated disasters). I was in the Kelly Corner because of his record, but it’s beginning to look like his record was a 45, not a 33 1/3.
Then there was Willie and the Poor Boys getting barbecued in their own backyard by some kids from Idaho. Whereas Nebraska and UCLA look the same as last year, FSU looks worse.
Many Gator fans still insist that Frost will make a winner out of Nebraska. Given that the Big 10 is only a 4-team league, I don’t disagree. And to be clear, a 4-team league is pretty darn tough, given that the Big 12 is a 2-team league, the ACC is a 1-team league, and the PAC-12 is a 0-team league. But we still made a better choice with Mullen.
If Frost does evolve and grow and get the experience to maximize his coaching potential at UN, I don’t think Frost will be as good as Mullen is now. But even if he does become as good as Dan one day, we got to start with the polished, finished product from Day 1 with Dan Mullen, which is much better than going through the on-the-job training and growing pains (and long term uncertainty) for several years had we hired Frost.
Even if Frost and Mullen end up equals in coaching chops, we still got more bang for our buck hiring a plug-and-coach HBC while the Huskers has to endure the catch-up time.
Maybe as important: Dan loves UF and this is the ONLY place he wants to be. He’ll retire here if the fans let him. No matter how long Frost may have been here, no matter how successful he may have been at Florida, he’d have always been gazing across the cornfields longingly at Nebraska. And he’d likely have left here for there eventually, maybe sooner than later, leaving us once again in the lurch, with no succession plan, with no smooth transition on the field, in the locker room, or on the recruiting trail.
And with respect to Kelly, consider this: while we were trying to reel in our bag of Chip, Dan Mullen waited patiently, ready to sign with Tennessee as soon as we signed Kelly. Can you imagine the horror? This scenario is actually what pried open my eyes to just how valuable Mullen is. When Kelly was in limbo-land between Florida and UCLA, the prospect of Dan Mullen being next in line did not jazz up my dance floor. But then I heard what we all eventually heard or read: that if we do sign Kelly, then Mullen is a done deal to Tennessee. With Kelly still on the line and looking like he was still coming to Gainesville per many sources that were lied to as often as Kelly lied to UF, and some were saying he may have already signed with us, the thought of Mullen skippering the Vols literally sent shivers down my spine. I bellowed, “NOOO!” And in the moment, I involuntarily blurted out to nobody in particular that I’d rather drive Chip Kelly to UCLA myself and hold the contract steady for him to sign with UCLA, than to have Dan Mullen the head coach at Tennessee for a New York minute.
Immediately after saying this, I realized it was true.
Chomps from the GC Staff & Columnists —
ANDREW SPIVEY
The Gators lost TE Jeremiah Johnson from the class on Tuesday but it was to surprise to many as Johnson never received an official offer from the Gators on August 1st. The Gators have been recruiting Alabama athlete/tight end Dee Beckwith to fill his spot in the class. Beckwith also picked up an offer from Mike White to play both sports in Gainesville. Beckwith is a guy to watch closely.
September 1st was a big day for the Gators in recruiting because it was the first day that the staff could contact 2021 prospects and it paid off quickly as the Gators picked up a commitment from 2021 cornerback Clinton Burton Jr on Sunday night. Burton Jr is very close with Torrian Gray and that was a big reason for his commitment.
While Saturday’s game will be light on 2020 prospects visiting Gainesville, I expect several 2021 prospects to be in the Swamp for Saturday’s game.
NICK DE LA TORRE
I think we should all feel better about the Gators after watching the first week of college football play out. Same old Will Muschamp up at South Carolina and, oh my goodness, what is Jeremy Pruitt doing with Tennessee? Good for Georgia State.
Also, if Ray will allow it we should get a Go Fund Me going and see how much Gatorade we can buy as a GC family here and send it over to Tallahassee so Willie Taggart doesn’t need to worry about his team being hydrated when they play next week.
(Note from Ray: I’m GAME!)
How about the disaster we avoided two years ago in the coaching search. Chip Kelly is 3-10 at UCLA and just lost his season opener. Taggart looks completely lost over in Tallahassee and is now blaming hydration as a reason they lost to Boise State?! The kids from Idaho didn’t seem to mind the heat and that’s after they flew into Jacksonville and bussed over to Tallahassee. I’ll take Dan Mullen any day over those two.
On to this week and how the Gators have handled Hurricane Dorian.
First, I know I said I’ll take Dan Mullen but I did disagree with how he handled this past week. Mullen told me after practice Tuesday (8/23) that he was giving the team and the staff off for four days. (I posted it in the VIP tidbits last week) so make sure you’re reading them before he announced it at his presser Wednesday.
Mullen explained to me that when the UF-UM game was moved up that it took away about a week of what was planned vacation time for him and the staff as well as time off for the players. His idea was that they had an extra bye week because of it so the team would get Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday off before coming back as a team for dinner Sunday. I know there is a delicate work/life balance that Mullen likes to keep but the season is only so long. I wouldn’t have given that time off, it’s time you could have been using to clean up things from week one when you didn’t have an opponent to prepare for. Almost like another extension of camp. I wouldn’t have done it but no sense in crying over spilled milk.
The team made it back in safely and everyone is accounted for. Luckily for everyone here in Florida and Gainesville, Dorian will largely not effect us. The Gators were back on the practice field Monday and Tuesday and this week is going off without a hitch in that sense.
Expect to see a lot of guys play this week. I have been told that when the game is at hand we will see Emory Jones and Kyle Trask both play. Expect to see more of guys we’ve been clamoring to see (Jacob Copeland, Dameon Pierce, Zach Carter, etc…). This should be a good week to get those guys in and get them reps when the game is all but decided. I’d expect that to be most of the second half.
DAVID WUNDERLICH
On Saturday, a number of true freshman quarterbacks shined in their debuts. There were a couple in the upsets of future Gator opponents like Boise State’s Hank Bachmeier and UNC’s Sam Howell. Then Auburn’s Bo Nix led a comeback with heady play in the clutch to beat Oregon.
I’ll admit that I looked at some of those situations wistfully considering Feleipe Franks is still a work in progress in Year 4 of college and Emory Jones apparently can’t overtake him yet. There are a growing number of high school quarterbacks ready to play in their first years thanks to the proliferation of private QB coaches. Florida hasn’t signed one really since Chris Leak in 2003, as even Tim Tebow needed a year to work on his passing. UF doesn’t have any in the pipeline either since 2020 commit Anthony Richardson and 2021 commit Carlos Del Rio will need some seasoning before they’re ready.
It’s not that Mullen avoids such players. He made a hard run at Carson Beck, a now-UGA commit who has a decent chance of starting the Bulldogs’ 2020 opener. He also tried to get Justin Fields along with Jones in 2018. It’s just that Mullen has tended to go for guys like Jalon Jones and Richardson who have elite athletic tools but who aren’t polished passers. It’s a sound strategy for a guy renowned for developing quarterbacks: recruit what you can’t teach and then teach the rest.
Mullen has always preferred experience to potential when deciding who starts, and that may work against him with attracting these kinds of players. He’s still trying to build a QB pipeline where guys sit 2-3 years before making their first starts. That model is increasingly rare and requires recruiting for personality type as much as anything.
Nothing says he can’t make it work, but it also means Florida probably can’t sign one of these elite 5-star guys who are on the fast track to the NFL from their junior years of high school. Oh well. Both models can work, but the burden is on Mullen to prove that the old one still works in today’s game.
ERIC FAWCETT
Mike White’s 2019 recruiting class was a monster one and he’s looking to build on it with another elite class in 2020. The next few weekends will see some elite recruits on campus so here are some names to keep an eye on. This weekend the staff will host 4-star wing Micah Peavy, 4-star point guard Lynn Greer, 4-star wing Niels Lane, and 3-star power forward Elijah Taylor. The biggest name to watch in my mind is Niels Lane, a physical perimeter player who offers great toughness and skill at the position.
Some Gators past and present are also taking part in the FIBA World Cup Of Basketball this week with Andrew Nembhard playing for Canada, Scottie Wilbekin playing for Turkey, and Nick Calathes is playing for Greece. All three have big roles on their team so if you have the chance to tune in I suggest you catch a game. Any basketball in September is good!
That’s all, folks!
We’ll send you off with our photo of the week below. Until then, see you in your inbox next Wednesday. : )
All the best,
Your friends at Gator Country
…where it’s GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!