There are few coordinators in the country, much less the SEC, who have come under as much fire as Florida defensive coordinator Todd Grantham this season.

The Gators gave up 35 points in five games this season, including the SEC championship loss to Alabama, which was 52-46. The first half was particularly troubling when Alabama rang up a 35-17 lead, scored on every possession and collected 366 yards. The Tide were 7 of 9 on third down, and they were gifted multiple first downs by penalties after the Gators seemingly made a stop.

At a press conference to preview the Cotton Bowl matchup with Oklahoma, Grantham responded to questions about the defense, and if he expects to return in 2021.

“My concern’s always the next opponent. If you look over the last four years, we’ve put together some pretty good defenses,” Grantham said. “We’ve had some challenges this year with a lot of things that are going on, and you take the situations that come up and you take the situation you make the best of it and you find ways to win games. So from an evaluation standpoint, when you look at it, this will be our third New Year’s Six since coming here. We got to the SEC Championship Game and we were six points away. Last year we played Georgia and we were seven points away, and the comment was what’s the difference between us and Georgia, we said seven points. Right now, what’s the difference between us and the SEC Championship Game, it’s six points.”

He then spoke about the matchup in Atlanta, and how his defense competed with Alabama.

“If you look, Alabama’s a very talented defense, and at the end of the day, we gave up six more points than they did during the game,” Grantham said. “So we’ve got to find a way to eliminate that and to get the win because really it gets down to wins and losses, and how you’re going to go about winning the game. So that’s the process for me is how you go about winning games.”