Sometimes the ladder back to the top might have a missing rung or two. In the case of the players and any "lackadaisical" effort, that can be a beast that raises its ugly head from time to time with even the best and deepest teams. This is just a personal theory, but often some of the reasons that players aren't 4 or 5 star might not necessarily have as much to do with physical ability and development or coming from a an elite program or having camped for multiple summers with great instruction and competition. It could be that for whatever reason they haven't learned to give it max effort on every snap of a ballgame, not to mention practice, but they had other measurables that got them to UF (insert McElwain jokes here).
I don't think we are a roster of only this type of kids, but having watched how they played under the last staff makes me wonder if there isn't some of this in a group of them that was further reinforced by that staff. What this team has done so far under Mullen is better than many of us thought possible to this point and I believe that he has focused a lot of attention on changing the culture left behind. As has been mentioned ad nauseum, there's still work to be done, but Mullen seems to understand the importance of addressing proper preparation and training the players as such. At this point, you have to count on the learning from a game like UK or UGA to pay future benefits. Another part of the rebuild.
I agree with others who have opined that they have no qualms with Mullen not putting so much pressure to win certain games that it adversely affects the mental preparation. The idea most coaches shoot for is that every game is important and should be prepared for in like fashion in terms of effort, teamwork, personal responsibility, and replacement of the injured that is a requirement to win. The differences will be in the technical aspects relating to what to expect offensively, defensively, and from special teams where the upcoming opponent is concerned. It would be great if all we had to do was sacrifice 50 vestal virgins each Friday, but then what would happen to the Sororities?