A year ago, Dan Mullen entered November with a top-5 ranking and a head full of steam. His Gators had just steamrolled archrival Georgia in the Cocktail Party and were on the verge of clinching the SEC East for the first time since 2016. The Gators, led by a Heisman candidate in Kyle Trask and perhaps the greatest tight end in the history of college football in Kyle Pitts, appeared capable of winning the SEC Championship Game and advancing to the College Football Playoff. And even if they failed in Atlanta, the 2020 Gators certainly seemed to be building on what had already been an impressive start for Mullen at Florida, as the Mullen regime became the first staff in college football history to advance to 3 consecutive New Year’s 6ix/old BCS bowl games in their first 3 years on campus.

What a difference 12 months makes.

The Florida coach now enters the November portion of the schedule firmly on the hot seat, coming off a 34-7 blasting by Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs last weekend. How bad is it in Gainesville right now? Mullen’s 2021 unit is 4-4, which isn’t good; his program is 2-7 in its past 9 games against the Power 5, which is worse; and at his press conference Monday, Mullen refused to answer questions about whether systemic recruiting answers are the problem, which is plain embarrassing. Mullen’s Wednesday clarification of those comments — that he wanted to focus on the season for now — are fine, except that Mullen can likely walk and chew gum at the same time and plenty of Power 5 coaches have said plenty about recruiting at press conferences and still managed to field competitive football teams.

Is there time for Mullen to turn things around? Certainly, though it will take a genuine change of approach on the recruiting trail and a significant staff shakeup, at least in the view of this writer and several others.

But how did we get here?

Here are five ways things have gone wrong for Dan Mullen over the past 12 months.

5. The Shoe Game

Florida’s stunning 37-34 loss on Senior Night in The Swamp to a mediocre, middling LSU playing with only 52 scholarship players is the only place to start. There’s simply no way Florida, with a Heisman finalist at quarterback and a future 1st round NFL Draft pick and plenty of talent on defense should have dropped a game, on Senior Night at home no less, to a shorthanded, 3-5 LSU team starting a freshman quarterback.

But Florida did lose. And while Marco Wilson’s boneheaded decision to toss a shoe gave LSU the vital first down they needed to extend their game-winning field goal drive, Florida didn’t lose because Wilson tossed a shoe.

They lost because they couldn’t get consistent stops on defense against a freshman quarterback. They lost because they didn’t protect the football, a problem that has become a plague in 2021. They also lost because they didn’t respect their opponent. They simply didn’t think LSU could come into Gainesville and win. Florida quarterback Emory Jones admitted as much before the LSU game this year (which Mullen also lost, because of course he did). But Jones didn’t need to admit it. Other actions showed it. Florida was vanilla on offense in the game and did little to rattle Max Johnson on defense. And while we will never know whether Kyle Pitts, who warmed up but did not play, was truly unable to go or simply held out for precautionary reasons, the fact he didn’t play in a game that would have pushed Florida to 9-1 and assured the nation of a top 5 battle in the SEC Championship Game will forever feel “fishy” to most Gators fans.

Mullen was 29-6 as Florida’s head coach entering that game, a mark that tied Urban Meyer and bettered Steve Spurrier’s. Including that loss, Mullen is 4-7 since.

4. The Cotton Bowl embarrassment

The opt-outs didn’t help, but Florida gave up a Cotton Bowl record 435 yards rushing to Oklahoma on their way to the 2nd-largest bowl defeat in school history. Opt-outs or no, that’s terrible, and it’s clear the Gators simply weren’t interested in being there or interested in playing hard or having a plan to win. After the game, Mullen told the media that the Florida team in the Cotton Bowl “wasn’t the 2020 team.” That’s fine. As Rivals’ Nick de la Torre suggested on the Stadium and Gale podcast, that just means the 2021 Gators are 4-5.

3. Mullen flirts with the NFL in December and January instead of fixing his systemic recruiting problems

Florida played one of its best games under Mullen in Atlanta, losing a classic SEC Championship Game by just 6 points to perhaps the best Alabama team ever assembled. Instead of building on that game with a huge close to recruiting and a big year in the most talent-rich transfer portal the sport has ever seen, Mullen went fishing for NFL jobs, putting his name out there in December and doing nothing to quell the rumors as recruiting heated up before the February signing period in January. Yes, the December signing period is the big one in the sport now. But while Mullen’s peers were out recruiting and selling their programs in January, Mullen had wanderlust. It’s fair to wonder if that “foot out the door” attitude has contributed to Florida’s disappointing (to date) 2022 recruiting class, which is ranked just 22nd in the country. 

Mullen’s recruiting issues at Florida are now well known, but when he reeled in top-10 classes in his first 2 full recruiting efforts, Florida fans were optimistic. But last year, after Florida played electric offense and fun football all year long, he signed only the 12th ranked class and it is just getting worse. Perhaps being committed to the job he has would have helped? And if he is committed, fine, but perception matters.

2. Mullen retains Todd Grantham after the 2020 season

In Florida’s final 3 games of the 202o season, Todd Grantham’s defense surrendered an average of 48 points per game. If that statistic isn’t itself fireable, Grantham’s defense surrendered a Cotton Bowl record 435 yards rushing to Oklahoma, allowed a true freshman quarterback to win a shootout in The Swamp, and failed to get a stop on 5 of Alabama’s first 6 possessions in the SEC Championship.

Obviously, realizing he had just finished 8-4 with one of the 5 best statistical Florida offenses of all time (1995, 1996, 2001, 2008, 2020), Mullen made a change at defensive coordinator, right? Wrong.

Instead, the CEO who preached about “the Gator Standard” agreed that a Florida defense that had finished ranked outside of the top 10 nationally in total defense just twice since 2005 prior to Grantham’s arrival was “good enough” despite just 1 top-10 finish in 3 seasons under Grantham.

Mullen blamed COVID and a lack of spring football for some of the problems. But anyone with any football sense saw the writing on the wall before COVID, when in late December 2019 Florida gave up 375 yards, 6 yards a play and 28 points to an overmatched Virginia offense that had been shut down 62-17 by Clemson in the ACC Championship game. That was a red flag. Mullen not only missed it, he threw gasoline on a tire fire by retaining Grantham a season later after Florida’s worst defensive season since 1979.

1. The festering quarterback controversy in 2021

Emory Jones is a capable Power 5 caliber quarterback. We know this because the numbers say it is true and the eye test agrees if you watch film of Jones dominating Tennessee or moving up and down the field against Alabama. Jones has exceeded 300 yards of total offense twice this season and eclipsed 275 on another occasion. He’s also made significant mistakes, which, first-year starter or not, are tough to swallow for a player in his 4th year in an offense.

Mullen, whose résumé of quarterbacks is nearly peerless in the sport, may have outsmarted himself on this one. Whether he started Jones because he wanted to be loyal to a kid who has waited his turn in the Florida program and done everything he’s been asked to do on and off the field or he truly felt Jones was the best quarterback is a fair question.

But it hasn’t helped anyone to play two. Jones’ best football has come in games when Anthony Richardson was unavailable or didn’t play. And Mullen did Anthony Richardson, the ultra-talented redshirt freshman quarterback of Florida’s future, no favors by waiting until he played one of the best college football defenses this century to give Richardson the opportunity to start.

Call Mullen a quarterback whisperer if you’d like. He’s earned it. He’s also mismanaged this quarterback room terribly.