First, we must face facts:
This team and program is not simply “underachieving” now, it is in a steady, observable downward trend where the supposed “high point” is lower and reached notably EARLIER each season, year-by-year.
Second, the above is true even though our talent level across-the-board has trended UP.
Take a ruler and compasses, track it visually in 2 dimensions and you can SEE CLEARLY where it inevitably leads, where the two trends converge, and what it all implies:
We will CONTINUE to self-destruct earlier and earlier each season—As we’ve done so far under Mullen/Grantham...and, it must be noted, Mullen PUT himself in that pairing of joined-at-the-hip responsibility when he RETAINED Grantham after LAST season! He had to KNOW that: “Loyal to a FAULT!”
Where does that leave US?
Completely “OUT of it” by mid-October, barely mid-SEASON!
Don’t just take MY word for it.
Go back and LOOK at the whole Mullen record here as Head Coach: Match headlines, scores and overall records, along with dates and corresponding public standing and what we were playing for by WHEN, and you’ll SEE: If anything, I’m going EASY, staying pretty calm and and patient with my emotional tone and analysis of our Coach’s tenure.
I like Mullen.
But I LOVE the Florida Gators—and his stubbornness may well be in the process of WRECKING any proximal “coming success” now!
I still have no immediate suggestion or “returns on the coaching radar” to offer regarding even a “possible competent replacement”, let alone an “exciting one”!
(My “only possible one out there”, Sarkisian, was swept up by Texas...Not that THAT was any “slam dunk”—just the only one I had out there AT ALL).
So I can’t, WON’T begin hollering for his head. Not me. Not now...NOT YET, at any rate.
But he MUST now make radical “mid-season course corrections”—and I just don’t know that he has that IN him.
Bite-the-bullet and at least begin to sub in AR early and often—and leave him IN there longer...if not at SOME point make him “QB1” THIS season, at least make him the clear “heir apparent”, preparing for his eventual full on installation as he masters the playbook.
You just can no longer be concerned with their (the two quarterbacks’) “ideal relationship” to the exclusion of “what is best for the offense”!
I don’t know WHEN or HOW you handle the “Grantham Question”—But YOU’RE THE COACH, Dan! Do it your way, but DO SOMETHING!
You just GOT to, damnit!
Finally, agile as you are with this “transfer portal” business, it just ISN’T completely fitting the bill in terms of a competitive “steady and full upgrade, season-by-season.
We need another LEVEL of improvement in recruiting if we are to catch up, even maybe PASS SEC programs already ahead of us—with more coming, even passing us perhaps in the near future if we DON’T. You need some HELP there.
The writing’s on the wall, Coach; if you wanna stay, see it through, and ultimately see history written as you intended when you CAME here, as “the next Gator coaching-HERO”, you must begin making Big, DRAMATIC changes NOW.
Please, for your sake and ours, begin to MAKE them!
This team and program is not simply “underachieving” now, it is in a steady, observable downward trend where the supposed “high point” is lower and reached notably EARLIER each season, year-by-year.
Second, the above is true even though our talent level across-the-board has trended UP.
Take a ruler and compasses, track it visually in 2 dimensions and you can SEE CLEARLY where it inevitably leads, where the two trends converge, and what it all implies:
We will CONTINUE to self-destruct earlier and earlier each season—As we’ve done so far under Mullen/Grantham...and, it must be noted, Mullen PUT himself in that pairing of joined-at-the-hip responsibility when he RETAINED Grantham after LAST season! He had to KNOW that: “Loyal to a FAULT!”
Where does that leave US?
Completely “OUT of it” by mid-October, barely mid-SEASON!
Don’t just take MY word for it.
Go back and LOOK at the whole Mullen record here as Head Coach: Match headlines, scores and overall records, along with dates and corresponding public standing and what we were playing for by WHEN, and you’ll SEE: If anything, I’m going EASY, staying pretty calm and and patient with my emotional tone and analysis of our Coach’s tenure.
I like Mullen.
But I LOVE the Florida Gators—and his stubbornness may well be in the process of WRECKING any proximal “coming success” now!
I still have no immediate suggestion or “returns on the coaching radar” to offer regarding even a “possible competent replacement”, let alone an “exciting one”!
(My “only possible one out there”, Sarkisian, was swept up by Texas...Not that THAT was any “slam dunk”—just the only one I had out there AT ALL).
So I can’t, WON’T begin hollering for his head. Not me. Not now...NOT YET, at any rate.
But he MUST now make radical “mid-season course corrections”—and I just don’t know that he has that IN him.
Bite-the-bullet and at least begin to sub in AR early and often—and leave him IN there longer...if not at SOME point make him “QB1” THIS season, at least make him the clear “heir apparent”, preparing for his eventual full on installation as he masters the playbook.
You just can no longer be concerned with their (the two quarterbacks’) “ideal relationship” to the exclusion of “what is best for the offense”!
I don’t know WHEN or HOW you handle the “Grantham Question”—But YOU’RE THE COACH, Dan! Do it your way, but DO SOMETHING!
You just GOT to, damnit!
Finally, agile as you are with this “transfer portal” business, it just ISN’T completely fitting the bill in terms of a competitive “steady and full upgrade, season-by-season.
We need another LEVEL of improvement in recruiting if we are to catch up, even maybe PASS SEC programs already ahead of us—with more coming, even passing us perhaps in the near future if we DON’T. You need some HELP there.
The writing’s on the wall, Coach; if you wanna stay, see it through, and ultimately see history written as you intended when you CAME here, as “the next Gator coaching-HERO”, you must begin making Big, DRAMATIC changes NOW.
Please, for your sake and ours, begin to MAKE them!