Dan Mullen: Firing Todd Grantham was in cards before South Carolina

After an abysmal, 40-17 loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday, Florida head coach Dan Mullen fired two of his assistants in defensive coordinator Todd Grantham and run-game coordinator and offensive line coach John Hevesy.

Firing Hevesy came as a bit of a surprise to most, as the Mullen disciple has been on the head man’s staff for over 20 years. They worked together at Bowling Green, then again at Utah, Mississippi State and Florida, a relationship that began back in 2001, only for it to end in abrupt fashion. Grantham, on the other hand, hardly came as a surprise.

Florida’s defense has failed to stop most opposing offenses under Grantham, and his firing was long expected by fans and media alike. Mullen on Monday confirmed that the decision to fire Grantham came before the loss to South Carolina, where the Gators were torn apart by last-resort quarterback Jason Brown, a transfer from St. Francis, an FCS school in Pennsylvania. Despite making the biggest start of his career, Brown had no problems executing against Grantham’s defense. He completed 14 of his 24 passing attempts for 175 passing yards and two touchdowns.

“I think it was weighing on me,” Mullen said of the decision for Florida to move on from Grantham. “You’re always thinking, what do we need to do, how do we get better? And the hard part for me has been our inconsistencies throughout the year. I think Todd is an excellent, excellent football coach. There are times where we’ve played great defense, we just haven’t done it consistently. … At this point of the season, I think that was something that hit me as, ‘do we get through the season and look to make changes after the season or do we just make that move now?’ If it’s something that I think I was going to do after the season … I thought if we’re going to do it at the end of the season, we might as well do it now and move on.”

Dan Mullen further expounds on Grantham, Hevesy firings

Florida beat reporters continued to press Mullen on Monday about the timing of his decision.

“It was something that I was looking and saying, ‘Hey, I’m probably going to make changes at the end of the season,’ and I thought for the health of the program, for the health of everybody, let’s make that move now and get us headed in the direction,” Mullen said.

“I look at the way we played Saturday and some things that build up to it of we weren’t where we needed to be. Are you a better team than you were at the beginning of the year? We’re not better than we were earlier in the year.”

Still seeking bowl eligibility, the Gators host a middling Samford squad on Saturday before closing the season with games versus Missouri and Florida State.

Florida is eighth in the SEC in scoring offense and in scoring defense this season. The Gators started the year nearly beating Alabama in the Swamp.