To put things in perspective, here are the winning percentages for recent Florida head coaches:
- Spurrier 79%
- Meyer 79%
- Mullen 74%
- McElwain 65%
- Zook 62%
- Muschamp 57%
Mullen’s winning percentage before last year’s LSU and the beginning of his 1-4 skid against Power-5 teams was 79%!
The 2020 LSU loss appears to have broken Mullen’s mojo.
Interesting. I suppose I kind of “FELT” that, knew it intuitively somehow already, had I been asked.
As I said earlier though, this WASN’T “just another loss”.
Where the LSU LOSS and subsequent slide to end our year seemed a kind of “turning point” then, perhaps even a warning, it WAS at the END of a season and there SEEMED every opportunity to change direction—to adapt and evolve!
And in every way that appeared to be exactly what ensued:
Even if it appeared a little sloppy at times, the TWO “new” QBs, the wholesale shift in the KIND of offense Mullen so quickly adapted, even the at least SEEMING improvement of our Defense and a number of personnel stylistic moves on BOTH sides of the ball far as I could tell had us heading higher, FASTER than the usual shallow “window dressing” of any “half-HEARTED” effort to satisfy casual fans, to just LOOK like we MIGHT be getting better...I BELIEVED, man!
I bought and DRANK “the Cool-aid”!
And so now, after last night, I just can not go BACK to “settling” again! I can’t just let go of “The Dream” with a flick of the switch. So far, in fact, I can’t even go on YouTube to see and hear Mullens’ rationales and ipso facto explanations designed to minimize the apparent consequences and repercussions...As far as who we were SUPPOSED to be, what we’ve been through, how long we’ve been THROUGH it, how far we had gotten and where we were supposedly HEADED, well, all that has been smashed and is lying by the wayside!
October 3 and we’re now supposed to gather what we can and “hope for The Gator Bowl”??? That may be the sane and realistic “fall back position”—but are we really supposed to simply wave the white flag and shift our goals, now aspire to mediocrity because we somehow bumbled our way into losing to KENTUCKY??? A team we have made a long habit of BEATING and whom we KNEW and ACKNOWLEDGED COMIMG IN had made us the measure of their OWN progress.
We weren’t ready...and it is now (among a whole RAFT of other things) up to players, Coaches and staff to look deep inside themselves, make whatever CHANGES (among MANY no doubt required) and APPLY them on the way to SOMEHOW making this NOT simply a “SETBACK” but a fundamental MOMENT OF CHANGE.
It is the only way any of us can find hope and a return to our positive journey. I am NOT ready to just “aim lower”...
If that’s all we aspire to, that is all we are likely ever to ACHIEVE! And oh, by the way?
THAT (along with mainly just their OWN self-centered fantasies) is all the caliber of RECRUIT we’ll have to settle for will likely be aiming for too!
Not a pretty picture:
Players, coaches, fans ALL shooting for their own short-term, STILL probably “unrealistic” goals...soon consigned to the “Sleeping Giant” roll once more.
NO! We can’t let that happen!
—And by the time it becomes clear that THAT is where we are headed it will take YEARS for us to come BACK from!
So we MUST, all of us but ESPECIALLY starting at The Top, one would HOPE with this COACH but if necessary the AD and BEYOND to our HISTORY, our “Legacy-at-Large”—Spurrier, Tebow, even Smith and others who’v been quiet but are OUT there...
In happening when, where and HOW it did, we now are left with the better part of a WHOLE SEASON to solve and learn from whatever has broken in our Program; We can find, learn and come back STRONG NEXT SEASON. That HAS to be our aim and focus now, I truly believe.
We are not who or WHAT we THOUGHT we were. Instead of forcing Mullen to “salvage what he can” from THIS season, as you suggest and would normally, inevitably be the “only way forward from here”,
here’s a vote for a BETTER, a SANER and more POSITIVE one that could have us BACK ON TRACK THIS YEAR, even if we don’t see it (in any dramatic way) so much on the scoreboard or rankings until NEXT SEASON.
Mind you, it would take courage, independence, trust and GUTS on our Coach’s part to MAKE that choice, to WALK that road. Many fans would fail to see or recognize what he was doing—what the long term benefit to the team and program would be. Even the Boosters and UF Administrators might have problems with it—They tend to think short term by definition themselves...
So I’m not even sure if he could DO, from a practical P.O.V., what I am recommending he OUGHT TO DO...What I AM recommending though I truly believe is the one TRUE AND BEST WAY OUT OF THE BIND WE ARE IN—Our way out of “almost”, a way finally AWAY from “Close—but NO CIGAR!”
Sadly, it is BECAUSE it is unlikely, that no one ever FACES this sort of thing squarely, that I remain pessimistic, down, even “HOPELESS” now!
Whatever happens from here, the one path I DO NOT expect us to embark upon is the one that I believe is best true and effective key to our quickest, most dramatic mid- and long-term recovery!
Saturday’s loss at U.K. was MORE than “just a bad day for UF football”, like I SAY:
It was a SIGN...either a Dramatic One DOWN, OR a marker on “the Way OUT”.
We were/are “sicker”, more troubled than we realized—but still eminently FIXABLE...
Otherwise we wouldn’t have still been so close to catching, even BEATING them (at THEIR place, packed with fans, playing their best game and—despite their whining throughout—EVERYTHING going their way) there at the end but for our OWN REPEATED MISTAKES, PENALTIES, OVER-CAUTIOUS and UNIMAGINATIVE PLAY CALLING and all the rest...
(For example: THAT’S when we needed that trick play/double throw—NOT to beat Tennessee (whom we are WAY more talented than) but on a day like yesterday, behind one score and with TWO trips inside the red zone to at LEAST give ourselves a proper chance in overtime!!!)
It has been a while since I have experienced extended angry frustration like I had to endure last night! Even last season’s LSU loss, bad as that was, didn’t take me down as far as THIS one.
I understand if Coach feels constrained to try and avoid a similar collapse, this early in our season, comparable to how we fell off the table LAST year...
But it is my fervent HOPE that he is smarter, BRAVER than that. Try being STRAIGHT, Coach—with yourself, your players, then even with US:
Explain what you’re trying to do to “get back to playing Gator-ball”—NOW, in the course of THIS season as (at this point and from here onward) a run-up to a Championship run NEXT year, we more or less look at the balance of THIS season’s schedule in EXACTLY that light.
I know it’s “Out There”...Whether it has actually been DONE, or at least in truth done so surreptitiously, is another discussion. But “SHshshsh...” Be very quiet...
How bout we give it a shot, not SAY anything while we TRY this? It might LOOK a little strange, a little different in the way some of our games play out—especially if you don’t KNOW or GET that this is what we are doing, how we are approaching these games now, but in this way we remain PATIENT with some of the stranger moves and decisions—all aimed at maximizing the growth, health and eventual success of NEXT SEASON’S TEAM and program, you see?
“Crazy—Like a Fox!” Right?
I doubt this is what happens, but I mention it—for HOPE’S sake, yes, PLUS the idea I guess I put out there now “just in case”:
WE’LL KNOW IT IF/WHEN WE SEE IT!
-from-the-blue TD and ties this one up so we get a shot in overtime.
