Dan Mullen: 'This year hasn't gone the way we wanted it to go'

Five wins, five losses, two assistant coach firings and a number of decommits later, Florida head coach Dan Mullen is ready to admit the obvious: this season has not gone as planned for the Gators.

Florida entered the season with high hopes in Mullen’s fourth year at the helm of the program, and understandably so — the Gators strung together a 29-9 record in his first three seasons, and they even went to the SEC Championship game last season. With that, Florida earned an AP Preseason ranking of No. 13. But as it soon became clear, perhaps Florida hadn’t done enough to earn that distinction.

The Gators did open up with two wins, setting the stage for a highly-anticipated home matchup with the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide, a game they lost 31-29. That was the turning point; the ship sunk after that, and Florida lost four of its next six games to Kentucky, LSU, Georgia and South Carolina. After the 40-17 blowout to the rebuilding Gamecocks, Mullen fired two longtime assistants in offensive line coach/run game coordinator John Hevesy and defensive coordinator Todd Grantham.

“It sounds like coach talk, but every year is such a unique year with a unique team in unique circumstances that occur,” Mullen said. “We played a very different schedule this year with a very different team and there are very different circumstances. So, it’s not like, ‘Oh, this happened.’ This year hasn’t gone the way that we’ve wanted it to go unfortunately.”

Perhaps Mullen is downplaying Florida’s struggles through the season’s first ten games. Some of the storylines out of Gainesville have been downright unbelievable and have hampered the Gators on-field performance. Take, for instance, losing quarterback Anthony Richardson, a freshman with an incredibly bright future, after he allegedly hurt himself dancing in the hotel locker room last weekend (he then confirmed the rumors on Twitter). Even when things do go right for Florida — like this weekend, when Florida put up 70 points and quarterback Emory Jones had one of the best performances of his career, throwing for 464 yards, six touchdowns, and rushing for 86 yards and another score — things don’t really go right for Florida. Because Jones’ performance happened to spark a come-from-behind victory for Florida, which desperately needed his help after Samford’s 42-point first-half performance.

Samford in that contest had its way with the Gators’ defense, and that was after Mullen fired the defensive coordinator allegedly responsible for the subpar play. Samford’s 52 points broke a record and became the highest-scoring performance by an FCS team against an FBS team in college football history, and the Bulldogs’ 42-point first half was the most Florida has ever surrendered in a half. Mullen’s defense let up 530 yards to an FCS team, but he’s still not ready to say the defense should shoulder all the blame.

Mullen said it’s hard to compare this year’s team to successful units he’s coached in year’s past. It could be more than just the defense at fault.

“There are multiple — you can point at a lot of different things of why that happened and different reasons with where we’re at,” Mullen said. “But that’s this year’s team. And it’s hard. I can’t compare one year to the next because each team is so independent.”

As Mullen’s seat continues to warm, the Florida head coach can only hope that he has another team to compare next year.