Warm wishes from Dan Mullen

Stars matter if the players can play football. Mullen’s recruiting was a complete disaster from bad talent evaluation, taking injured player, kids that never made it to campus and a plethora of other reasons that you probably should know. Name the twenty best players that Mullen recruited while he was here and it would be obvious. Make another list of all the guys he recruited that never made it to campus or never made any impact anywhere. He took low hanging fruit that other programs weren’t interested in because he was lazy. Napier has brought some talent in and it’s not even close between the two.

 

Show me one excuse or one QUOTE I've made to blame Mullen other than saying we were in a hole when we hired Napier.

I support Napier just like I supported Mullen and will continue to do so until he quits on this team.

Honest question, do you think Mullen should still be the coach at UF?

 

At the time, I was all for this, because Grier soiled that Gator football brand... But then... after considerable thought, I changed my mind about what had happened to Grier. Grier made a bad mistake, but a mistake that was NOT unforgivable. I believe in second chances when the crime was NOT over the top, egregious.

But I do understand why many people just wanted this whole episode gone for good, and out of mind as well.

And what pisses me off about PED's and the NCAA is how they handled it... They made sure to crucify the Gators... And just a couple of years later 3 players each from Clemson and Bama tested positive to PEDs before the Natty and since it was the last bowl game, yes, they were suspended them from playing like they should, but not one word (well... I found out about it) was leaked to the point where those programs got dragged though the mud for it like the Gators were for Grier's use.

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No. He should bave been fired and I think the administration and fanbase was blind to his shortcomings for way too long.

My hope is that we don't allow the same thing to happen again.

 

You can't say stars matter and then when it doesn't "pan out" say well, not those stars, the other stars.

They are all evaluated the same way. Your class is based on the rankings at that time, you don't go back in retrospect and say we'll you got three 5 star players but they all sucked and this other coach got three 3 star players who were all pretty good so he's a better recruiter.

Plus, what are you really saying? Mullen sucked at recruiting but has a way better record than Napier who is so great at attracting and building talent?

 

Most fans wanted Grantham and Hevesy gone long before Mullen was forced to get rid of them. Not many believed in his paper tiger recruiting after year three either.

 

Stars matter of corse but Mullen either didn’t know what he was looking at or took the players highly ranked that no one else wanted. Other staffs were disinterested for good reason as it turned out. He didn’t much talent regardless of their star rankings.

 

Wanne, I usually agree with you and your posts, but in this case, you are holding Mullen responsible for things that also happened under Spurrier's last class at Florida and USCe, as well as Meyer's last class at Florida. The difference is that legendary coaches are given the benefit of the doubt, while hated coaches are being excessively blamed. I've seen this on this board since the late 1990s.

Mullen took this job for the potential as well as a financial benefit. He knew if he could strike gold, he would make millions here and be equivalent to Meyer (no one could ever equal SOS, even if they won four straight MNCs), but we also knew why he loathed the idea of coming here. When Megan said she had to go to freaking Orlando to shop for groceries, the message was clear. Everything bad that happened was invariably Mullen's doing, because Meyer and Strong were invulnerable to criticism. They knew what they were facing, and they dreaded it. Anyone who has been a Gator for more than two decades knows this.

All we have left is the record, and Mullen had a record of 34-15 (.694). IMO, your evaluation of Mullen's talent is a clear reflection of your loathing for Dan Mullen, and on this board, you are hardly alone. I like Billy a lot, and want him to be the next Meyer, but he has a losing record, and insofar as his recruiting is concerned, we have no idea how great a recruiter he is or what kind of foundation he is building. And I don't believe it is entirely Billy's fault, either. With the Portal and NIL, the entire Florida athletic department can be held responsible for the relative lack of proactivity regarding these new changes.

So, in short, you and many others need to stop with the scapegoating.

 

Mullens record with his own team year 3 and 4 was what? That was his record and it was who he was. Nothing to do with scapegoating. He's a great gameday coach. He ran a program into the ground with his own doing.

Napier is what he is. His record is poor. But he was building off the same roster that Mullen finished so poorly himself with. Napier made plenty of mistakes so far. I don't hink he utilized the portal well especially on defense. His game management miscues are well documented. He brought in inexperienced coaches instead of leaning on veteran experience.

But he has made significant adaptations to his staff. The optimistic fans see the improvements and hope the result follow this year. I'm on record saying he has no excuses this year including our strength of schedule. Being constructively critical of Napier is fine. The guy made mistakes. But some are reserving judgment until this season for the above reasons.

So in short, you and others need to stop acting like mullens total record is all that mattered and give Napier the chance to have the same amount of time to gauge where each program is at the same points in time come year 3 and hopefully year 4....

 

I have no problem with evaluating Mullen that way as long we’re holding Napier to the same standard this season. As you say, it’s Year 3. It’s Napier’s team now. If we can’t count to 11 or deconflict jersey numbers this season, then I’m not terribly interested in hearing how it’s still Mullen’s fault.

 

I don't see too many people if any trying to blame year 3 and more on Mullen. I'll say I disagree with those who say Napier is guaranteed year 4 even with a losing record this year. It would take some exceptional circumstances for that to happen. Again, year 3 is his. That's not to say he or someone else couldn't have done better his first 2 years but I think he has cleaned up a significant amount of issues this year. I'm also one who thinks the Miami game will tell us everything

 

Put it this way. By the end of year 2 I was excited about Mullen going forward. I was grateful he reinvigorated our offense from the depths of muschamp and maclwein. I thought he would capitalize on Trask, Pitts and company and make florida a destination for offensive recruits. Granthams defense created turnovers and sacks but we realized he was what held florida back from getting over the top in 2019 and many believed the man so closely associated to the meticulously detailed programs under Meyer would shore up the defense for 2020. It didn't happen. Maximum strain were just words. Wakeboarding instead of recruiting were his actions. Gator standard was what he preached. What we saw were excuses for thrown shoes and defenses that continued to fail along with desperate recruiting g takes to fluff up recruiting class numbers. Name one recruit Napier has taken that is similar to Arjei Henderson? Year 3 and 4 were the results of how he lead the program. Win totals don't nearly tell the whole story of who Mullen was.

I am simply holding Napier to that same standard of evaluation. We will know what we have this year in my opinion. Good or bad.

 

Mostly in line with how I see it. Mullen left the cupboard as bare as it’s been in forty years and it’s taking longer than most want to wait on the rebuild. Napier may or may not be the guy. The average player ranking of his last two classes are better than eeve seen in some time. When these players are upperclassmen, we will know if they live up to their ranking. The five star freshmen and rest of this class won’t mean much on the field this year. Napier is going to have to win with Shemar’s tiny class and a bunch of transfers if he is going to keep his job long enough to see his recruits grow up. If he can’t win with what he’s got, he won’t ever see the team he is building. It’s messed up but it’s probably true.

 

I really hope he can win 7-8 games and get his hs players in place a couple years down the road. It looks like we have the core of a good team coming if he can hold it together. I’d expect at least 8 wins this year if we had a normal schedule but 7 will probably do it for him this year. We have to beat some good teams to get to seven. I’ve said before though, if we can win seven, we have a shot at 9. 10 through 12 may not be realistic winnable games. I just hope we look like a well coached team, play solid football, and players get better as the season goes on. Maybe we knock off a playoff team or two.

 

100% agree

 

Or even made it to campus.

 

Nobody wants to watch what Mullen did ever again but until you see year three and four, you don’t know what year four is really like. It’s only your best guess. Firing Mullen after year three would have been questionable no doubt. It would’ve been the best move, but everybody would’ve questioned it. And firing Napier after year three with a six and six record, any other coach would be hesitant to jump into that mess. Coaches need to fail beyond a reasonable doubt to get fired so that the next guy feels like he will get a fair shot.

 

and so the guy currently in place gets a fair shot. The depth of the hole he stepped into should be factored in. It all comes down to what’s best for the program and every situation is different.

 

The beginning of the end was choosing Emory Jones over committed Matt Corral. Matt was a very good SEC QB. EJ was not. If not for Kyle Trask, Pitts and a few others we would have cratered even faster. Mullen was an excellent game play coach. He could dial them up. But he could not run the whole show, full time, all the time. He did not like to recruit. He did little to build off success. He "assumed" we would steam roll Lsu at home even without Pitts (shoe toss game). He was sending smoke signals to the NFL. All of this rolled into one ball ended into defeat of the UF program.

 

Agreed. And another factor that should be considered when evaluating CBN’s tenure is the fact that he stepped into a mess when the landscape of college football was dramatically changing. He had to immediately adjust to the portal going full bore and NIL becoming a major factor in recruiting. And at that time NIL was without any defining rules.