Culture Shock, Part I: inside the Florida Gators’ implosion under Dan Mullen

I think Scot S panicked, DM wasn’t his first choice, I think the top 2 candidates said no and when TN was interested in DM he panicked and hired him.
Perhaps thinking Dan did well there that just maybe he would do even better at UF. First 2 years he did however a cancer was spreading.
It is clear DM doesn’t have what it takes to be a good HC at a big time program. His lane is as an OC but even then there’s issues..
I’m grateful for what BN is building at UF and hope Gator nation will be patient.

 

WOW! That explains a lot.

Have recently been watching documentaries about Lombardi and what I gathered from all of them was how much his players loved him and had nothing but the utmost of respect for him.

It must have meant something, they named the Super Bowl Trophy after him.

 

Mullen the person was the problem, he wouldn’t do his job on many, many levels. Let’s just say he jumped the shark, or um well you know

 

I'm not so sure of this as many here, offensive genius and such. Here as OC, he had Tebow and Harvin; who couldn't call plays around those 2??? Running TT 10-20 times doesn't take much of animagination, though. People say how much our offense dropped after Mullen left, but I would argue that losing Percy Harvin hurt more. That and Meyer wouldn't hire an OC and gave the job to his buddy (no one else uses an OL guy as OC).

Mullen was never my guy as HC and I drew a lot of flack for my grumblings here, even being accused of being an uga fan once.

 

The bench is a coach's greatest ally. It will take a couple of more years before we have real, high-level competition at every position.

Napier has a comprehensive plan and integrity. He will have us contending. Even talking about how much time you're going to give him at this point of a total rebuild shows an utter lack of perspective and patience.

Especially given the new era of recruiting, portal, NIL, and the established behemoths at the top of our league, and 2 more serious programs coming on board.

 

I would say that the fact Toney isn't around this season is a good indicator. Let's just hope AA was a keen choice...

 

Foley made the hire but he reports to SS now.

 

Watching the 2020 fla/ga replay today. Danielson reported florida had the lowest number of offensive possessions in the country. At this time Trask was one of only two QBs to throw at least 4 touchdowns in each of the first 4 games of a season. This was done while having a completely ineffective defense and a coach that would sub Trask out for Jones intermittently.

S.....M....H

 

When you factor in that the annual UF budget is $90 million per year, the the UAA does have a lane in the operations of the football team. Ignoring the Mullen BS that we saw in the attached article was poor oversight by the UAA.

Edit: Fixed the quote mistake. I didn't change anything else. /ETGator

 

If you look back to the last year or two of Meyer's stay at UF, you will see the same scenario repeat itself with the HBC's that followed. Have you ever wondered why this crap keeps happening? My guess that it is poor oversight my the UAA. I am now saying that UAA has to get into the day to day activities of the team. However, there needs to be some oversight and by the UAA and action by the UAA to keep small issue to grow into bigger issues. The salary of these coaches is small change when you look at the annual budget of the UAA.

 

You are referring to the UAA. Which is the Ad and its Board of Directors. Almost a hundred million dollars per year are under their watch. Having coaching experience is a "nice to have" but having leadership experience is a must have. The UAA and the AD should of see that Mullen's leadership style was garbage.

 

His job is more than just about how he treats the players. His job is the ensure that players are treated with proper respect by all of his staff. Criticism, even harsh criticism is one thing, abuse and denigration is something else entirely. It is plainly obvious he failed to hold his staff accountable in this regard, and in many others.

As to playing the best players I think it can be a bit more complex, but would certainly agree that his player choices were creating quite obvious hindrances to the overall success of the team. Which is the ultimate goal when choosing who sees the field and when.

 

Lombardi was a lot of good things. His best thing was being a leader.
Ray Graves and Steve Spurrier were good leaders.

 

I read most of the attached article and I just could not believe how the status of the football coaching and the football team hit rock bottom. UF is not in some backwater college where this situation can go on unnoticed as long as it did.

Dan Mullen was 100% responsible for letting his players, the players parents, and the fans down.

Mullen was just part of the problem. The University Athletic Department was also the problem. I am referring to the UAA Board of Directors and UF Athletic Director. They are also 100% at fault for letting Dan Mullen turn the football program into a total train wreck.

It appears that the Board of Directors and Scott Stricklin did not have the necessary controls in place to monitor what was going on in the UF football program. Some of you will say that the UAA does not need to be poking their noses into the coaching of the football team. To a degree, that is a true statement. They do not need to get in the way.

However, they do need to have a monitoring system to ensure that goals are being achieved and, that the annual football budget of $90 plus million is well cared for, and more importantly, that the status of the team is healthy.

I have some question I have about this saga:
1, Did the UAA require quarterly feedback from the UF athletes, and aides, throughout the year?
2, Did the UAA use this feedback to question Mullen about issues and to evaluate if he was meeting the goals of the UAA?

At this time, I doubt that the UAA was monitoring anything with the football team. If this is true, then the UAA was mismanaging $90 million dollars a year. It is also gross mismanagement of 85 scholarship players and the walk-ons too.

If the UAA was doing this monitoring, Mullen's management style would have not accepted and his would have been a very short one.

 

No fricken way you're serious. Hey, lets go ask the staff and players why they are underachieving and set up a system to monitor how the head coach manages the team (based on the feedback from those players). I can guarantee the majority will say "I'm not the reason we suck. It was someone else's fault." (which is all that article accomplished)
That is an ineffective way to fix a broken business.

That article told the fans exactly what we wanted to hear. Dan Mullen didn't do his job and refused to fire the two coaches that every fan wanted out of Gainesville. Because that was his message, he got 10x more people to read that article.

The timing of the article is perfect -- one week before the first game. Hmmm...

Mullen wasn't good enough and was fired. Probably one year late but he's gone and now we have a great coach in place.

 

I sat through a Spring game and voiced out loud that it was OBVIOUS that Trask was leaps and bounds a better QB than Franks. I could not wrap my mind around why Mullen continued to start Franks. In the vacuum of ZERO info, I filled in the blanks that perhaps Franks was the "players guy" and that in the atmosphere of BLM that Mullen did not want to insert a white guy to replace the team's favorite and destroy team unity. After reading this article, I, to my shame, sold the players short. THEY saw it with their own eyes every day in practice. The sh__ show that we all witnessed is 100% on Mullen. All of it. And I was a Mullen sunshine pumper.

 

To revise an earlier opinion: in terms of damage to the program overall Mullen was worse than Dickey. This is a harder rebuild than Pell faced. Goes deeper than w-l at this point.

 

didn't think I could respect Pierce & Trask more, but after that article, I do.

 

Don't know why, but every time I see this it makes me laugh