The situation at Florida is uncomfortable.
That’s the best word to describe everything surrounding Gators coach Dan Mullen this week. Uncomfortable.
The reasons are obvious. The Gators limp into Saturday’s game at South Carolina 4-4 with seven losses in their last nine Power Five games. Recruiting isn’t going well by Florida’s sky-high standards, and Mullen’s refusal to talk about it has drawn even more attention to the unresolved problem.
On Tuesday, Florida State coach Mike Norvell shared his excitement over the momentum he feels with the Seminoles’ 13th-ranked class.
USF coach Jeff Scott turned one question at his weekly news conference into a seven-minute answer about why this will be one of the most important classes of his career.
Very different responses than Mullen’s dismissive “next question” Monday.
But the real problem isn’t what Mullen said or didn’t say. Nor is it the fact that the Gators took the highly unusual step of shutting down all other interviews with coaches or players this week.
Those are symptoms of something else. Something bigger than a 27-point loss to No. 1 Georgia. It feels as if the Gators are either circling the wagons or circling the drain.
Perhaps the silence is Mullen’s solution to fixing his team’s mindset. Perhaps he’s simply shielding everyone from the negativity swirling around a program stuck in one of its worst ruts in decades.
“I think it starts with positivity, because there’s a lot of negativity — a lot, a lot of negativity …” Mullen said Saturday. “They’re young kids, so it does feed in.”
Parse some of the players’ previous answers, and you can see the seeds of negativity. Defensive lineman Daquan Newkirk said UF was “out-schemed” in the LSU loss. Linebacker Mohamoud Diabate had an interesting answer after that game when he was asked about his confidence in the defensive schemes.
“I’m confident in my teammates and my teammates’ ability to play hard and be where they’re supposed to be …” he answered.
Of course, confidence in his teammates does not necessarily mean confidence in the schemes that come from the coaching staff.
At best, those are uncomfortable answers to legitimate questions. At worst, they sound like flecks of friction amidst the frustration.
It’s worth pointing out, too, that the man who hired those defensive coaches sounded different Monday. Mullen can be prickly after a loss — many coaches are — but he usually eases up the next week.
Not this time. And with no other media access, his unusually short news conference will serve as the program’s week-long message to a disgruntled fanbase. The fact that Mullen was still trending on Twitter on Tuesday suggested that message was not well received.
Things at UF haven’t felt like this since the Gators were 3-3 in October 2017. That’s when coach Jim McElwain began Georgia week by talking about death threats against members of his program. He declined to elaborate on them publicly or with his administrators. Six days later, he became former coach Jim McElwain.
There was a sense of inevitability four years ago that isn’t there this week. But things could change quickly in Gainesville. They already have.
Six and a half weeks ago, Mullen nearly upset No. 1 Alabama in one of UF’s biggest home games of this century. His future still looked bright. Three losses later, that future looks in doubt.
That doesn’t mean Mullen is on the hot seat yet. Athletic director Scott Stricklin hired him and gave him an extension and raise in the offseason. He’ll want to give Mullen time to fix this mess, as long as Mullen looks capable of fixing it. A loss to South Carolina, Missouri or Florida State — which looks tougher now than it did a month ago — would change things.
It would be enough to turn a situation that’s already uncomfortable into one that approaches untenable.
