Reflection

Well...when the honeymoon is over and some fans are yelling for Mullen's scalp....I will be here to defend him since he will be OUR coach. Not that I think we may not succeed with Mullen...but the SEC and south in general is a home for rabid knee jerkers after a loss.

Mullen wasn't my choice, but I'm ok with it...but not the fake coaching search done by the AD. I'd like to see more swagger and a coach who is really innovative with offense.
My first two choices have had some issues and were not considered....which I understand.

It is correct to state that defense wins games...not throwing the ball 50 times or even 40 times. Mullen will run the ball a lot and play field position. Bama wins with defense....make no mistake about it. Some younger fans get bored with run game and fewer passing attempts, me, I never get tired of winning.

Me waiting on the spring game to get here.

We know Mullen's offense is good.

We know it works at Florida.

We know it works in the SEC.

Last time our offense was to UF standards, he was the man behind it.

Feel like the offensive issue days are finally going to disappear. We may be like 2006 for a little, but once he gets his guys on board...we can see a 07-08 style offense soon. Also..can we clone Percy?

I won't defend blindly. When a coach proves he isn't good enough, it's our job as fans to help our program to me. Noise in the system does help remove poor coaching.

We can't sit idly by and watch someone destroy our University.

I try to be fair about it. Mac had three years, and it just showed he couldn't change and wasn't progressing. That Michigan game was it. It showed he just wasn't good enough.

Mullen has done nothing but show he is the man for the job so far. Very, very good staff. Big recruiting wins already. Has his name in a ton of big name recruits who had no interest in UF. Landed two big transfers.

He has pushed all the right buttons. He has my support majorly. But if year three..and UF still looks average...yea he loses it. UF doesn't take five years to fix.

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You surely must mean by the start of year 4. you don't expect Mullen to turn this around in just 2 seasons, do you?

I expect steady improvement and for us to be ready to compete at a National level after 3 years. Same argument as I had with McElwain, if we are not there after 4 seasons or close, we should start asking questions.

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I expect to see improvement year 1. 4-7 and shitty offense should make it easy. Special teams were really bad outside of Eddie. Defense could not tackle.

My expectations:
Offense does not look lost and less procedure penalties.
Vanilla offense to start out as players adjust. Our offense will take a big step forward during bowl practice.


Special Teams coverage units are much better. Either return the ball or go after blocks. No more max protect and fair catch.
Returners know when take the ball out of the end zone.


Defense will be more physical and aggressive. There will be a learning curve but it will improve by the end of the year.
A lot more blitzes or 8 in coverage. Not as much vanilla base defense that Shannon liked.

It's also the fact that Mullen has more to work with than McElwain did when he came here. The team, for what it is, is returning almost all of its starters. The defense is a WIP, but the offense has a very good stable of running backs, several playmakers at RB and a senior TE. The line at least isn't a patchwork of transfers and undermanned.

Defensively the entire secondary is coming back, all of the linebackers have one year under their belt. Jefferson's coming back.

He should have an immediate impact and similar success. (if he's a good coach)

I don't know, the defense I think will be okay just because we're going to have a very different look up front. They really, really need to bulk up and get more athletic. The S&C was severely lacking. However...the secondary should be far improved, and I'm happy that Gardner is coming back to CB (or at least I'm going to assume he will), and honestly Trey Dean looks better suited at Safety.

I think we're going to see a lot of dead weight transfer, so hold onto your butts.

Also, like I said a week ago, we might get some very pleasant surprises -- if Mullen gets them on campus, they almost always sign.

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Well you and I never agreed about Muschamp who is a better coach than you give credit for.

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He wasn't a good coach at Florida and did almost everything wrong. A mess was what he left McElwain, Meyer left Muschamp the #1 class of all time just a year before and had a humming program that had two national championships and a Sugar Bowl blowout.

McElwain had a team that had just been beaten by an injury depleted Georgia Southern and a terrible losing season, then another pedestrian season with the recruiting falling off a cliff. Muschamp made his own bed with roster mismanagement and having no idea how to run a program.

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But back to 2016-17. Our defense bailed us out in 2016 over and over again. What burned my shorts was the failure to try jailhouse break screens with blockers more often to keep Franks upright. Teams blitzed the crap out of us and the middle screen would have slowed them down.

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We seemed to have an offensive mindset of not doing too much, which I understand to some degree because Franks' football IQ is near the lower end of the double digits. That being said, I don't think McElwain's staff was nearly as well-equipped as Mullen's. Mullen has brought in a veritable all-star staff of young, hungry guys who live and breathe football.

I also like the ''OC by committee'' idea that he runs, there are a lot of hands in the kitchen that can build an offense with a vast array of different ways to take pressure off of Jones.

Kelly's system is very simple, hence the fast pace. He relies on speed to cause an overreaction of the defense to open up plays and the auxiliary plays built off of them.