Brenton Cox Jr. has been dismissed from the Gators [Cox Tweet at #213]

FYI I was meh when we hired Mullen and then excited shortly after when it seemed like we had a competent coaching tie to our title teams and someone who knew the expectations of the program. Frank's was a rocky qb and our offense was hit or miss because of it but we became competent at the end of 18 and had a defense that forced tons of turnovers and sacks while still having issues on 3rd down.

I wanted Mullen to be the guy for years to come but I had grown frustrated with his acceptance of Grantham and subsequently some wasted Trask lead offenses in 19 and 20. The bowl game fiasco was a major red flag and then there was a definitive change in demeanor after the 2nd Alabama loss.

As much as i wanted him to be the guy, it became apparent he was going through motions and not caring for the program. I'm grateful for the offensive overhaul but bitter for how he neglected his duty here.

 

Naquan Wright is the most productive player on the team from the Mullen era and he is probably tied for 3rd best RB on the team.

No receivers have made an impact really. We have hit a couple of bombs but that was taken away pretty quickly.

Defensively, we have Miller, a couple of DL, and the DBs have been underwhelming, whether that is due to talent, scheme, coaching, all three, I don't know.

I wish Cox nothing but the best. He gave it his all.

This does sound like BN had a talk and said "Hey, it might be best that you sit out the rest of the year and focus on the combine. I won't trash you to NFL teams or in the media, you do the same. Cool? I will put out a generic statement that we just needed to part ways and that it is best for everybody."

This doesn't doesn't really help Cox, but you have to explain why he isn't dressing out and playing somehow.

 

All that really needs to be said is that of our four best players two came with Napier, one is a freshmen, and the last is Miller.

 

I was meh on Mullen also, but then he had the O smoking right off the bat.
Franks was and still is Franks, but he somehow got drafted and played QB for a bit, so I don't know that criticism of Mullen starting him over Trask is totally fair.

The D was the biggest killer of 2019-2020 as for the bowl game I expected it. Pitts, Toney, Grimes all sat, and Trask had few options, OK was pumped and we weren't had all the writing on the wall ala Bama in 2007 vs Utah (Sugar Bowl).
Never thought much of EJ he was like Franks to me, but sometimes you're stuck with what you got.

Funny how many here wanted AR to start last year because he made some big plays, now they want the next guy because he isn't Trask... SMH

Part of my concern with dumping Mullen was who were we gonna get?
There really weren't any proven dudes so it's really a roll of the dice.
Many boosters didn't like Mullen from when he was here under Meyer, but he still is a great offensive mind, he can do more with less like SOS did.

It will be interesting to see how this goes, I don't want Napier to fail because that means we suck again for 3-4 years and I'm sick of it. But I look at his offensive mind set from ULL and see shades of a Muschamp offense, that may work in the Big10 but I don't see it leading to lots of rips to ATL and beyond consistently. Thats what I see right now.

 

AR isn't in the top 4??

 

2 things. The issue with the bowl isn't the loss because as you said we were down major personnel but how Mullen approached it.

The mess we are in now would absolutely not be corrected with Mullen still here. Assuming he was forced to fire Grantham, either Grantham would be here and we would continue our death spiral or he wouldn't and we would still have to deal with the wake of his mess, tweeners everywhere. Mullen still wouldn't be able to recruit and neither would any of that old staff.

I mean think about it, Mullen is an offensive guru and his offense generated the most prolific rookie tight end in NFL history, several wide recievers and a couple running backs and yet.......we could not recruit offensive talent going forward. Let that sink in.

 

It is ok to be pessimistic but full out bashing a coaching staff in year one can only be viewed as an uneducated opinion and trolling. There is simply too little information to make any definitive call. We are only seeing different views of the same team at this point.

If the product still looks the same in year 3 with little to no progress, then fans are fully justified to start making judgement calls on the HC. Year 4 will be the real litmus test IMO.

As for me, yes I am optimistic and I know changes cannot be fully realized in year 1 no matter how much we want them to. I've always felt large organizations are like a big ship. You can make moderate course changes or turn the rudder hard. Either way, the ship still takes time to change directions with the latter being quicker, but often more difficult path and you lose people in the process. The problem is, our ship was starting to run aground after the OU bowl game a couple of years ago so there wasn't much choice for BN to go for big changes.

I do feel BN should bring in an OC and wish Toney would get more aggressive. Those are merely my opinions though.

 

Mullen fired grantham before he himself was fired. I am in the camp to give Mullen more time. A Mullen coached team cannot be any worse than what we have today.

 

I am also in the camp to support Napier. But I think toney cannot be the dc, just like grantham shouldn’t be dc for Mullen

 

I listen to inside huddle, the spurrier podcast.

There was a rumor that spurrier was behind the firing of Mullen.

He denied it and was genuinely surprised by the firing. He did not swing for him just said that he thought he would get more time.

 

Mullen didn't deserve more time. After 4 years it was obvious that recruiting wouldn't improve, he refused to let underperforming coaches go, and he basically checked out after the 2020 SECCG. There were literally no signs whatsoever that the program was trending in the right direction after 4 years. Why on earth would you expect that to suddenly change in year 5?

 

Agree to disagree on this one. I'm not sure how much Mullen wanted to be here anyway. Maybe he really did but he let go of the program and it's been somewhat confirmed by much of what has come out since his departure.

I agree with supporting Napier and also having reservations about Toney. We'll see what happens but I find it hard to believe we should be this bad this year. Then again we did lose Zach Carter, Hopper, Elam and Davis from an already struggling defense so maybe we are wrong to expect improvement even with the Loss of Grantham.

 

Mullen checked out on his team. He acted like he wanted out - to keep him in the job would have had everybody screaming for Stricklin’s head.

Some of y’all say some really dumb things in any attempt to get rid of our coach who hasn’t even been here one complete season. The guy has already shown he can recruit far better than all his predecessors put together, he’s made inroads to in state high schools including IMG, he has won head to head recruiting battles against the best in the SEC, he inherited a chocolate mess of a roster and is batting .500 with it through the toughest part of our schedule. The naivety and impatience from the ignorant and spoiled newbies to Florida football is astounding.

If y’all succeed in running off Napier before he has 4 seasons to get this machine hitting on all cylinders, I’ll boldly predict another 10 years of mediocrity. @gatorpa used the word “childish” to describe those of us who are willing to stand behind our new staff through some rough times. The words I have for clowns like that guy would get me banned. Some of you on here just suck out loud

 

Great post..exactly how I feel..many of us have been thru worse..I was following Gator football during the Doug Dickie era

 

As an athlete, yes. As a passer, no.

 

Mullen would not have beaten Utah or USF. We would have folded up like a cheap tent.

 

Mullen deserved to be fired. He should have fired Grantham after the 2019 season when we knew he wasn’t working and his poor recruiting was going to catch up to him in 2020. To not fire Grantham after 2020 was inexcusable.

 

when you want to get down, down on the ground…

 

If we go from forcing one or two punts per game to forcing zero to one punts per game, the marginal loss is not terrible.

 

can you still suit up? we need help.