Alabama Wins Sixth Title Under Saban; How Far Off Are Dan Mullen and the Florida Gators?
As the confetti fell on the Alabama Crimson Tide Monday night and Nick Saban won his sixth title with the perennial contending Tide—his seventh overall, passing Paul “Bear” Bryant—one couldn’t help but wonder, how much longer until the Florida Gators are standing in that confetti shower once again?
The Gators have won three of their own, including two in a short span (2006, 2008) but it’s now been 12 years since the orange and blue has been able to raise the National Championship trophy. In the world of hungry competitors and fans, that’s a lifetime. Meanwhile no Nick Saban recruiting class has ever left Tuscaloosa without at least one National Championship. Most have multiple.
So what will it take for UF to be back in the thick of that race? They seemed to be this season at least, having stayed in the Top 10 in the AP, Coaches and College Football Playoff poll the entire season. Heading into the final week of the regular season, the Gators were 8-1 with their only loss having come to No. 5 Texas A&M.
Then of course, came the three game losing streak with the not unexpected loss to the aforementioned Alabama being sandwiched by two inexcusable losses to a 3-5 LSU Tigers team and an embarrassing blowout to the No. 6 Oklahoma Sooners in the Cotton Bowl.
A historic offense was weighed down by an anemic defense and questionable decisions at different times of the season peppered what was otherwise considered a championship run. The loss to Alabama in the SEC Championship came down to the final play, with a chance for the win although it did not come. The Gators lost by six points.
“We got to the SEC Championship Game and we were six points away,” said Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham while previewing the Cotton Bowl.
“Last year we played Georgia and we were seven points away. The comment was, ‘what’s the difference between us and Georgia?’ and we said seven points. Right now what’s the difference between us in the SEC Championship Game, it’s six points. If you look, Alabama is a very talented defense and at the end of the day we gave up six more points in the game. We’ve got to find a way to eliminate that and to get the win.”
How does that happen? How does Florida “eliminate” those six points and get the win—and perhaps (likely) subsequently a championships?
Based on what we saw from the 13-0 Alabama Crimson Tide this season—and Monday night—here’s what the Gators are missing.
Recruiting
At one point during the Championship game, ESPN showed the lineup for Alabama’s secondary. All four players are from South Florida. An account on Twitter that follows Miami Hurricanes recruiting shared it with the caption, “This is why we paid up for TRob” referencing new Canes defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson.
T-Rob, as he is colloquially known, was a position coach and top recruiter under Will Muschamp at Florida and then followed Muschamp to Auburn then South Carolina. He and Florida attempted to work out a deal for him to join the Gators staff before hitting a wall.
That’s not to say missing out on Robinson—a noted excellent recruiter—means all of Florida’s recruiting hopes are shot. But it was a stark reminder that it’s an issue. For as much as Dan Mullen and staff are the best in the game at developing guys, you also just need pure talent.
Alabama and Nick Saban get that, year in and year out. Furthermore, as the Canes tweet shows, they come in to Florida and take it. Whether it’s by hiring guys like T-Rob or just putting extra emphasis on the area, the Gators can’t let talent continue to leave the state.
Very rarely does Nick Saban let a guy he wants leave the state of Alabama. In fact, only two have recently slipped his grasp: running back La’Mical Perine and offensive weapon Kadarius Toney, both out of Mobile and both who of course attended UF.
Mullen and Florida need the same attitude around the Sunshine State. South Florida—from which the Gators have four commits in the 2021 class—is too rich in talent for the premier university in the state to not have their pick. It’s an attitude that Mullen knows he needs to copy from Nick Saban, if not in specifics at least in theory.
“[Saban] has done a great job of establishing the program - been there a long time,” said Mullen before the SEC Championship.
“I think when you look at what he has been able to build, the program he has been able to establish, through the years the stability of it, the combination of a very well coached team on the field and they do an unbelievable job of getting great players in as well. I think he has kind of built a program that people want to model themselves after.
"I don’t know that you copy because everyone’s got to be your own person. You’d never copy anybody else’s program because it wouldn’t fit my personality as to who I am as a person and a coach and all of that stuff. You’ve got to build the program kind off around your own personalities of how you do things. But I do think they’re tough on both ends.”
Depth
When Alabama had players like Heisman winner DeVonta Smith leave the game injured or Najee Harris need a break, they rolled in the next guy like Brian Robinson Jr., Jahleel Billingsley or Slade Bolden. The adage with Alabama has always been, they don’t rebuild, they reload. A lot of that ties back to recruiting. Once you get players in, the development is crucial which is where Mullen and staff shine.
The key of course is combining the two and making it a consistent strength. It’s not about just recruiting one star player at a position at a time of need. It’s about signing players year after year across the board to create depth.
Florida started to do this recently at the most important position of all; quarterback.
After years of paying penance for the majestic Tim Tebow the Gators suffered at quarterback. Things started to look up with Feleipe Franks who was a major recruiting win over LSU at the time. Then there was the development of Franks and the Cinderella story of Kyle Trask. While Trask wasn’t considered a recruiting win, his path, story and development have become legendary. They are also proof of what coaching and commitment can do.
So often in today’s college football world, players—QB’s especially—are apt to hop into the transfer portal as soon as their playing time dips. While Mullen has been able to pluck from the portal, he’s lost very few to it and kept all of his quarterbacks (save Jalon Jones who was shown the door after facing sexual battery charges).
Instead, Mullen—like Saban—has been able to convince players to stay. Through that, he has the opportunity to develop them and turn them into Heisman contenders. It’s why Emory Jones is still here and why Jones is telling Anthony Richardson to be patient as well.
Said Jones this past November, “Honestly, [transferring] went through my head before, but I mean, I just look, like just seeing like how [Kyle Trask] handles his business like just keeps me motivated because I just, I just see how, how much he's grown over the years. And like I see myself still like growing and getting better every day. So I mean, I'm just, I just wait for my time, being patient."
With all of this in mind, Mullen signed two quarterbacks on the early signing day for the 2021 class; Jalen Kitna and Carlos Del-Rio Wilson.
“We got we think two guys that are excellent guys. I know they're competitors, love to come in and see how that,” said Mullen at the time.
“In today's football, you never know how things shake out and what goes on with it. One guy can play early, one guy can play late. You never know. But we're really excited about both of those two quarterbacks. Going into next year, at this point we're only going to have two quarterbacks on scholarship when we show back up in January. You're a trip getting on the bus and spraining my ankle away from having one quarterback here. So these guys are pretty close to competing for the backup job Day 1 that they get on campus.”
Coaching
This is where Mullen and Saban are actually pretty close. But there are still moments where we see the chasm more clearly. In the SEC Championship game, after scoring a touchdown and in a clear situation needing to go for a two-point conversion, Mullen called a timeout. That came back to bite the Gators on their final drive when they had no time to drive downfield for a win and no way to stop the clock for help.
Mullen admitted after the game he made a mistake.
“That was bad clock management on my part. We should have had it ready to go for two. Our thought, though, is we're going for two right there, we're going to try the on-side kick. We're here to win. Would have given us two two-point conversions. If we didn't get the first one, we'd have to get the second one to tie. If we got the first one, all we needed there was an extra point to win the game at the end. That was the thought process to go for two.
“That was a bad job by me, we had to use that timeout there. Would have loved to have that timeout and given us an extra 40 seconds of the ball to try to get the and-one touchdown.”
You can make those mistakes in regular season games against coaches on your level or just below. You can’t make those mistakes against Nick Saban and you can’t make those mistakes if you want to win a championship.
It isn’t difficult to imagine Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart still second guesses to this day having Justin Fields run a fake punt against Alabama in the 2017 National Championship. But Saban didn’t think twice in that same game about risking an on-side kick early in the game and benching Jalen Hurts for Tua Tagovailoa. Why? Because he had already weighed the risk and reward and knew he’d come out on top.
Nick Saban has really only made one big in-game mistake like that in his tenure at Alabama and it was so monumental that it created the best play in college football; the Kick-6 against Auburn.
Mullen also has to be willing to do something Saban has no problem with; cutting people loose. The head coach is known for being fiercely loyal and that’s admirable and pays off more often than not. But at times, it doesn’t. He has to weigh those options and make a change on his coaching staff if it’s for the betterment of the program.
Dan Mullen is considered one of the best in-game coaches in the game and he’s established himself as a program builder. It combines to make him one of the best head coaches in college. But if he and the Gators want to take the next step to being champions, these are the small tweaks he’ll have to make to his coaching philosophy.
Pick Back Up the Rope
The pillar of Strength and Conditioning Coach Nick Savage’s program is “holding on to the rope.” It’s meant to remind guys when the going gets tough, when the game gets hard and when your strength feels non-existent, hold on to the rope. Don’t let go. Remember that the person behind you is depending on you to hold on to your section to keep the entire team moving forward.
COVID-protocols and interruptions means the Gators didn’t get to participate in offseason workouts and camp, along with in-season workouts even, were greatly cut down. One would hope the lessons had carried over from previous years but as the season progressed, the rope began to slip. Versus LSU, they began to lose their grip. Versus Alabama, they grabbed back on with one final gasp but versus Oklahoma, let it go completely.
A 10-game all-SEC season was bound to be difficult. But as we saw in Miami on Monday night, it was possible to make it through and even go undefeated. Now as the Gators prepare for the 2021 season, the most important thing they can do to chase a championship is pick back up the rope.
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