re: Who destroyed Florida Gator football?

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In all seriousness, I think the shoe toss played a significant role. Florida was #6, on a 6 game win streak (including against UGA) and needed to win for a shot at their first playoff appearance.

Instead, they lost to a 3-5 LSU because of the shoe toss, then lost a 1 possession game to Bama, and got pounded by OU by 35 points in the Cotton Bowl. Went 4-5 the following season before they fired Mullen. OOF.

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Dan Mullen's first year was 2018. Went 10-3 in 2018, 11-2 in 2019, and were 8-1 in 2020 going into that LSU game. They were 24-6 against P5 teams under Mullen going into that game. The remainder of Mullen's tenure (he got fired after the Mizzou game in 2021) they went 2-9 against P5 teams, one of them being Vandy and the other being 7-6 Tennessee in Heupel's first year. Overall they are 10-23 against P5 teams since that game.

In reality there's never really just one singular reason for these kind of collapses, but it's hard not to point to that 2020 LSU/Florida game as where it all began. It was all going very well for 3 seasons up until then and then the bottom dropped form under them.