It Was Much Worse Than We Thought!

Left the program better than he found it?
Not to be rude, but what planet were you on between the Meyer and the Mullen eras?

Between the Muschamp and the McElwain UF did have some good recruiting years and some decent seasons when you look at the Wins vs the Loses.

One of the biggest issues UF had was the coming of the Portal in the 2018 season. Mullin did have some decent recruiting season under Mullin. But the rising numbers of player leaving UF via the Portal, eroded those good recruiting classes.

Under Mullin, the rising number of players leaving UF was a bad omen that we all should of picked up on.

The article that this thread refers to, refers to what was behind that bad omen. The displays of team discipline and unity was there for all of us to see. In other words, Mullins head coaching methods/style drove many players to leave UF. Thus Mullin left the UF football program in worse shape than when he got it.

 

Mullen would be a -1 to the recruiting effort.

 

Understood. But like Urban, Napier seems to be able to recruit well enough to compensate. The proof is in the pudding. With good talent Mullen did good things on offense.
I’m not even arguing whether it could even happen. It never will. I’m just arguing the point that some here think Mullen lucked into 2 of the highest scoring offenses in UF history.

 

I was over the moon, I thought UF had finally made THE hire, for once beating other schools to the draw and hiring the guy that was in the tip of the media’s tongue every time there was a vacancy.

I have a personal story about Dan Mullen, one that influenced how I think and felt about him. It was 2010, Mullen was the head coach at MSU and Tim Tebow was in the Senior Bowl, along with Riley Cooper and I was the vice-President of the South Alabama Gator Club. The Thursday night before the Senior Bowl all of the alumni association clubs have access to their respective players for club events. We were having our event downtown at a restaurant that belonged to a friend of mine. Tebowmania was in full force and we had sold 100+ tickets to the event and folks were pumped to meet him and Cooper. Everything is going great, the place is packed, people are happy, food is great and people have tons of merch ready to be signed…………..there was just ONE small problem. The responsibility for getting the players to commit to the event and get them in the door was commandeered by the club president, who was………difficult to get along with, he could rub people the wrong way and at that moment he told me that he had struck out on this minor piece of the puzzle when we had a room full of people half finished with their meals and looking forward to meeting Tebow and Cooper. I walked outside, dejected and fearful of what was about to happen. Could this be any worse? Standing out on the sidewalk I happened to notice that two restaurants down there was a sign out front for the Mississippi State Alumni Club and that Mullen was standing outside. So I came up with the idea to go down there and ask if he had a moment to come down and say hi, to try and salvage the impending disaster. He said his folks had just started eating and that he would be happy to. Dan Mullen came over in his MSU Bulldog shirt, shook hands, kissed babies, signed autographs and took pictures for everyone there. He was delightful, entertaining and gregarious, fielding many questions about coming back to coach at UF.

I felt certain at that moment he would be open to coming back and that if it happened it would be great for the football program, which makes what happened in 2020 all the more puzzling. I think we’ve heard some portion of the story but not all of it and we never will really but I don’t think it’s as simple as we’ve been lead to believe.

I realize I won’t change anyone’s opinion of Dan Mullen and that’s not my intention but I don’t think he is as bad of a guy as he is being made out to be either. I certainly owe him a debt of gratitude for what he did that night.

 

A lot of wishful thinking here about the UF football program.

The UGA-UF game thread must be the “reality check” thread

 

Guess what! It is not much better now.

 

We dumped on Muschamp, then we dumped on McElwain, then we dumped on Mullen, then…

 

Since the last time we beat Georgia, we've gone 21-20 while Georgia has gone 41-1 and we've gone through 2 coaches while they won 2 NC (and was one play away from 3 NC)

 

And may be a few games away from a third consecutive natties.

 

Yes, yes it was

 

I don’t think anyone said we didn’t give Mullen enough time. The first 3 years were good, but when the wheels came off year 4 it was clear.
But even those who thought Mullen would work never said he didn’t have enough time.

 

Losing to the #1 team(# years & counting) is not much of a measuring stick!

 

I guess we can keep talking about culture and the previous guy...

Or maybe it's just because we are their Super Bowl.

 

I think the national championship is their Super Bowl game for maybe 3 years in a row.