- Jun 13, 2014
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Founding Member
Here's the thing. He is what he is. If we wanted 9 wins a year , we could have kept butters. Sure , there doesn't appear to be a "definitive " upgrade on the market but at some point we need to keep swinging.To be clear, I won’t dispute your last sentence. He has to improve.
But UF has consistently had 2 really good teams on its schedule, a couple gritty opponents, and then a bunch of average to below average fluff. It’s just switched from ut, fsu and occasionally Aub or uga in the 90s, to Lsu, uga and occasionally some other random team like Alabama this upcoming year. Mullen’s path may be slightly easier than what guys like Spurrier and Meyer faced, but not by a great deal. And his starting point was far worse.
I’ve said before that I’m ok with launching him if we have a definitive upgrade. Especially if we continue to see the 9-10 win but no trophy type years a few more times, and if recruiting doesn’t pick up. So it’s not some blanket endorsement or defense of him. You just can’t base ease or difficulty of a schedule entirely, or even largely, on where the noles and vols are at the moment. It would be as equally flawed as raving that Mullen’s 5-0(6-0)against teams Spurrier was 2-4 against in his first 3 seasons. The story is still the same. It’s the characters that have changed.
If Mullen was actually trying to win, I'd be on board. If he was making staff changes and recruiting as hard as the other guys, I'd feel good about giving him a few years. Heck, I'd be excited about next year if Grantham woulda got shcit canned.The problem is he has this "I have arrived " attitude and the shine of anything good he's done is really wearing off.