Priceless article by Mike Bianchi of Orlando Sentinel from October 28, 2018.....

Mike Bianchi wrote this the day after #7 Georgia defeated the #9 Florida Gators, 36-17, in Jacksonville. This followed up the previous year's win by the Dawgs, 42-7.

Now, read this article from 2018 in light of yesterday's Dawgs win, 34-7, and pay attention to the comments about Mullen regarding his recruiting and other things, etc.

As far as I know, Bianchi didn't have much to say in today's paper. Gators fans would be interested in this, too!

"The biggest thing I hear from a lot of fans is they love having a guy who really wants to be here." Question is: do Gators fans want Mullen to be here [at UF]???

Worth framing and displaying....

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JACKSONVILLE — Enjoy this, Georgia.

Savor this second consecutive victory over the Florida Gators.

Relish your clear superiority over your rivals during Saturday’s 36-17 victory in the World’s Largest Outdoor Talent Discrepancy Party.

Every Dog has its day.

But your Dog days aren’t going to last as long as you once thought.

In less than a season, new Gator coach Dan Mullen has at least put some chomp back in this rivalry after taking over a doomed, done-for, dysfunctional program that completely quit on former coach Jim McElwain during last year’s 42-7 loss to the Bulldogs.

Mullen has done everything right since he took over as head coach of the Gators. He has engaged the fan base, established a culture of accountability among the players and out-schemed and outsmarted other coaches during his remarkable inaugural season.

Now, he has to go out and accrue the talent and sign the players to compete with Georgia, whose coach, Kirby Smart, has already proven he is an elite recruiter.

“We have to recruit that way, and we will,” Mullen said after the game.

It was clear Saturday, especially on the offensive side of the ball, that the Gator quarterback, running backs and wide receivers are not nearly the caliber of Georgia’s players. The fact that the Gators were ranked No. 9 in the nation heading into this game was a miracle in itself.

Let’s be honest, shall we? Florida is simply not in Georgia’s weight class in the personnel department; maybe nobody is except for Alabama and Clemson. The Gators have won this season based on great coaching, creating turnovers and being opportunistic. The only reason the Gators were in the national championship conversation heading into this game is because they played better than the sum of their parts.

On Saturday, they played worse than the sum of their parts. They didn’t take care of the ball, quarterback Feleipe Franks regressed and the defense couldn’t stop the run or get to Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm.

The Gators were third in the nation in turnover margin coming into this game, but turned the ball over three times to Georgia’s zero.

During the past three games, the Gators have only allowed opponents to convert on 9-of-41 third downs, but on Saturday Georgia scored four of its touchdowns on third down.

“Every game I think we’ve played better from one week to the next, but I can’t say that today,” a dejected Mullen said. “… We’re a young team and we haven’t play in a lot of big games like this. We’ll learn from this and get better from it.”

Obviously, there are no moral victories in big-time SEC football, but think about where the Gators were a year ago when McElwain invented those bogus death threats during Georgia week and was fired immediately after the demoralizing loss to the Dogs. UF’s program was in disarray and lacked any semblance of structure or discipline. The team’s strength and conditioning program was so bad that Gator players sought out their own personal trainers because they didn’t feel McElwain’s staff was working them hard enough.

Just the fact that Florida was in a game of this magnitude after last year’s debacle of a season is a credit to the job Mullen has done. Georgia played for the national championship a year ago and Smart signed the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation. Eight months ago, it appeared the Gators were a zillion light years behind the Dogs, but now it seems like they are only a couple of recruiting classes away.

When asked the biggest difference between McElwain’s final year and Mullen’s first, UF athletics director Scott Stricklin told me, “Dan has been such a perfect fit — from the moment he got off the plane doing the Gator Chomp and wearing his Gator national championship rings from 2006 and 2008. The biggest thing I hear from a lot of fans is they love having a guy who really wants to be here.

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