GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Dan Mullen’s weird and mediocre season took another twist on Monday when the Florida coach canceled media…
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Dan Mullen’s weird and mediocre season took another twist on Monday when the Florida coach canceled media access to players and coordinators for the rest of the week.
It came two days after a 34-7 thrashing of Georgia in nearby Jacksonville, the program’s seventh loss in its last nine games against Power Five opponents.
Mullen appeared frustrated earlier Monday as he asked a recruiting question during a 12-and-a-half-minute media session that was described by school officials as coming in a “narrow window.”
“We’re in the season right now,” said Mullen, who can’t be on the road to recruit due to NCAA penalties that included a one-year penalty for cause. “We will recruit after the season. When it comes to recruiting, we can talk about recruitment.
It became a sore subject for Mullen and a hot topic for Florida fans. Georgia has signed a higher-ranked class every year since 2014, waves of talent including 26 more five-star recruits than the Gators have landed.
Florida’s Class of 2022 now ranks 22nd in the nation after two recent disengagements; Mobile, Alabama linebacker Shemar James and Houston cornerback Julian Humphrey have withdrawn verbal commitments following LSU’s incredible upset in Florida last month.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart intentionally or inadvertently fired Mullen and the Gators after Saturday’s game.
“There’s no coach who can top recruiting,” Smart said. “I don’t care who you are. The best coach who has ever played the game better be a good scout because no amount of training is going to outplay the players. »
Smart was just getting started too.
“It’s 25% assessment, 50% recruitment and 25% coaching,” he added. “But if you don’t recruit guys, you don’t stand a chance. Go watch the best teams out there. They have good football players. And that’s why I believe in recruiting and I believe it’s always better to recruit because if you don’t, someone else will.
Florida has other issues, none involving more than 16 turnovers in eight games, but a lack of talent and depth would be near the top of the list.
Still, the Gators (4-4, 2-4 Southeastern Conference) were just games away from winning close games against the then No. 1. 1 Alabama, Kentucky and LSU.
“We have to live in the world of reality, not the world of perception,” Mullen said. “Noise is in a way the perception of the outside, in large part. We live with our guys, who focus on how we’ve improved, what we’ve done well, what we’ve done wrong.
“You forget these guys are 18, 19, 20 year olds, a lot of them, so they’re on social media all the time. … I do enough (careful) that I know what our guys are going to be up to coping, but then it comes back to reality. ‘Hey, here’s some things we did right. Here’s some things we did wrong. Here’s the areas we need to improve on. We kind of live in this world to deal with things.
The Gators play South Carolina (4-4, 1-4) on Saturday, the first of four straight games in which Mullen’s side are expected to be double-digit favorites. Florida is already an 18½-point favorite against the Gamecocks, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
The regular season home stretch also includes games against Samford (3-5), Missouri (4-4) and Florida State (3-5). Winning all four could help Mullen change the narrative.
“That’s six inches from a back pat and a back kick,” Mullen said. “In the SEC, you get either one or the other. There’s no in-between. There’s no ‘I guess it’s okay’. That’s why I say the perception and the reality. The perception is that everything is perfect or everything is horrible. In reality, we are probably more in the middle somewhere and you are just trying to figure out how to improve and improve yourself.
“When it seems to be going well, it’s probably not as good as everyone thinks it is. There are probably issues that we need to address,” he said. “When it’s bad it’s probably not as bad as it’s going and we just have a few things, we have areas where we need to improve.”
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