Mullen is an elite x and o’ s guy. He is a great coordinator but doesn’t have the ceo gene. The head coach thing doesn’t have to be a great football mind but they do have to be a great leader.
I’ve always wondered if he was financially supported to recruit. Players are bought even before nil so if I don’t have the bags to recruit, I would lose interest too.
Our best year under Mullen with Trask, we fielded a historically bad defense. Mullen should have fired Grantham but he accepted the bad performance and lack of recruiting from several of his coaches. A decent defense with Trask would have given us a great shot at a ship.
All y’all jumping the shark with this Mullen love smdh Must be Winn Dixie shoppers. The time frame for turnarounds has been blown up by the portal and NIL. Ymmv. Talent wanting to showcase for their final year. A lot of improvement will be needed this year, even if just sound fundamentals, or the burner will be on simmer. Right or wrong.
That might be. I wonder sometimes what would have happened if he would have gotten another season with the forcing function of having to make some of the obvious changes that needed to be made on the staff (after the 2020 season, frankly) to improve defense and recruiting. If he really was checked out, then none of that would have worked. But I think (unpopular opinion and impossible to prove, of course) we probably would have won three more games under Mullen last season by simple virtue of better in-game coaching decisions.
6-6 shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows if you look at the team objectively. If we get 8 wins, this team will have overachieved. Don’t expect more than you should.
I think we would all love to see a quick turnaround but sometimes patience pays off. See Harbaugh and Dabo.
I believe we saw with USCe and Missouri what we would have seen an entire last year of with Mullen by that point. Mailing it in.
This kind of thinking is going to lead a lot of entitled fanbases to disappointment. Only one team in the conference wins the conference championship each year. Only one team in the nation wins the national championship. If every major program in the 2nd-4th year of their coach’s tenure thinks they should be in the mix, then we will see a lot of firings. The reality is that NIL and transfers didn’t really change anything except perceptions. Players have been getting bought for decades. The same teams that win now are the same teams that generally won before. All it is was give a little more power and a lot more money to the players. Programs turned around quickly in the pre-NIL era too. Look at Florida’s rise in the mid 90’s in football and basketball. This impatience is doing more harm than good. I’m not trying to apologize for Mullen… I’m just hoping to hat we don’t turn on Napier if it takes more than four years.
I don’t disagree. The reaction will depend on the record. 4-8,6-6, 8-4 are all completely different animals. My only point was that the dynamic for rebuild times has changed due to the ability to impact it through different means. It is what it is. Our schedule is incredibly tough for rebuilding. I am optimistic as a number of redflags from the past are getting addressed. Some coaches will never look into the mirror to self assess. CBN doesn’t seem to fall into that category.
We could have a terrible qb situation tge next two years and not have as many wins as we would like. Tge team as a whole could make great progress and it still not show up in the win column. Progress won’t be based solely on wins and losses the next couple years. 6-6 isn’t exactly terrible in 24 if we are losing close games to ranked teams.
I can’t suggest keeping him or firing him. My 35 year love of all things gators and football have me hoping for better days. He will get 4 years. my 2 cents
The interesting thing about the QB thoughts above is that the Wisconsin transfer will be the most experienced QB in terms of starts we have had since Tebow. He had a few brilliant games at Wisconsin and was an Elite 11 QB out of HS. He could surprise us
You have to have the players to call tge plays. I believe there’s a reason we didn’t have a two minute offense last year. Probably a disaster waiting to happen. Our coaches surely ran it in practice against a horrible defense and decided not to try it at all.
6-6 is terrible and is inexcusable going forward. I understand you want to manage expectations and keep the fanbase patient, but he’s going to have to do better than that. He just is. The resource advantages at Florida are just too great to settle for two more seasons like the last in hopes that it will get better by Year 4. Last year was a mulligan. This year less so. And next year not at all. If he’s not putting a solid product with a winning season and a bowl win on the table by 2024, then we will need to open the bank vault to a prick like Lane Kiffin who will come in here, recruit like his life depends on it, and make this team hate losing as much as he does.