Buddy Martin Blog: New Co-Signing Gator Defense Has No Room for ‘Independent Contractors’

It's a new day for the Gator secondary -- they're looking for 'actors.' Photo Courtesy: UAA

Oft times, the 2020 defense looked like the lights were on, but nobody was home. Call it the Tom Boudette scheme, not necessarily planned or endorsed by Todd Grantham. At times it was awful. Allowing 28 touchdown passes is certainly awful. What had gone wrong with the once-proud tradition known as DBU?

“Independent Contractors.” A term Dan Mullen has purposely used to describe the selfish nature of certain players on last year’s Gator team. No names, but clearly he was referring to those members of Todd Grantham’s defense, mostly in the secondary, who played primarily for themselves and an NFL contract.

As reprehensible as it sounds, flying in the face of team unity, one must ask: Isn’t that exactly what these players came to Florida to do? And in today’s “There IS a ME in Team” culture with side gigs allowed and encouraged under the NIL paradigm, shouldn’t they be expected to make economic decisions based on what’s best for themselves and their families?

Yeah, I know, you hate it – and so do I. Every time I hear an athlete say, “I’m taking care of my family first,” it makes me want to hurl. I guess buying a $100,000 car, a $35,000 gold chain and a $25,000 watch is a new way of doing that. And yet, this is America and the free market is a wonderful thing when you’re suddenly rich. After all, isn’t that what they’ve sort of been promised to expect?

To quote that famous philosopher Lee Corso, not so fast my friend. These young athletes are already endowed with a free ticket to college and a guarantee of celebrity status on campus, with facilities about to be upgraded from the Motel 6/Holiday Inn to the Ritz Carlton. And now they’re about to get a whole bunch of free stuff. Admit that you’re jealous. I am. Just keep it out of the lockerroom and the huddle.

As we move into Mullen’s fourth season, we must not forget the mental and physical anguish that resides from the taxation of pandemic stress and the instability wrought by sudden and often cataclysmic change. By the time we wake up in a few weeks, the NFL may have already secretly annexed the entire SEC as its development league. Which it sort of already has.

So where is the joy anymore in Gridville – let alone Mudville?

As we’ve seen in other venues, like the Olympics, high-performance athletes are subject to an overdose of anxiety created by the cruelty of unreasonable self-expectation. And now it is layered with the fears that come with a second wave of Covid, the Delta variant. Mental illness and depression are not just for the poor and downtrodden. Sometimes it is also the root of poor decision making.

So as they wound down the 2020 season, Gator players free-lanced and some tents were eventually folded. You might get by with a little of that improvisation on offense where the skill position players are taught to scramble. But defense demands one-voice unity and interaction with the person next to you. Which means clear communication, next level, is mandated. In baseball parlance, you step out of the box and get the sign, then you send back a signal of confirmation.

Oft times, the 2020 defense looked like the lights were on, but nobody was home. Call it the Tom Boudette scheme, not necessarily planned or endorsed by Todd Grantham. At times it was awful. Allowing 28 touchdown passes is certainly awful. What had gone wrong with the once-proud tradition known as DBU?

In recent weeks, as the media drilled down with coaches and players on some of this inefficiency as best we could via Zoom, members of the Gator beat worked diligently to identify and define these malfunctions. After hearing from about a dozen players and maybe half that many coaches – plus Mullen three of four times – I think we’ve uncovered a big part of the malady and what’s being done about it. Especially the Independent Contractors. They weren’t just on the wrong page, but in the wrong book, or maybe sometimes the wrong library.

Jules Montinar joins the Gators staff to transition the defense.

That’s why the two coaches in the secondary were replaced by Wesley McGriff and Jules Montinar, who began installing new methods with more attention to detail in the backend of Grantham’s defense last spring. That included an overhaul of attitude, work ethic and communication.

We’ve yet to see what this defense will look like but it’s generally felt personnel has been upgraded both by extraction and addition. It was on Wednesday this week when we heard from new secondary coach McGriff that the picture began to look clearer – maybe even brighter.

Quickly, McGriff made it clear that there was no hangover from 2020 and that defensive backs had not lost confidence. “Not at all,” he said. “There is a strong culture at Florida. These players don’t lack for confidence and play with a chip on their shoulder.”

Perhaps the most encouraging news was that his unit has learned the importance of playing as a unit. Independent Contractors need not apply. These days they do everything together, and they write it down. They’ve also been to acting school.

“I have to teach them how to be like Hollywood a little bit and be like actors, and make sure we call those signals out and make sure we hand signaling,” said McGriff. “And the biggest thing is not only just communicate with your teammates, but make sure your teammate co-signs off on it. That means now he has it, that he has the check, and I'll tell the safeties over and over again, ‘do not stop communicating till your teammate co-signs off on it.’"

In the Defensive Back Room they now preach brotherhood.Translated by a player, sophomore safety Rashad Torrence, who said “you do EVERYTHING together.” He took it to absurd infinitum to make his point. “If one goes to the rest room, we all go to the rest room,” he said. “If we need to get a pencil, we all get a pencil.”

They all needed to be reminded the two A’s: Attitude and Amnesia. They’re already playing with a chip on their shoulder, says McGriff. And if they screw up on a play, forget about it and move on.

On those matters, you’re hearing adjectives like “tremendous” and “great” and “unbelievable” from the coaches. And that’s about not just the veterans, but the fresh faces like Kamar Wilcoxson and Jason Marshall.

Back to the Independent Contractors. I think Mullen nailed it. Called it what it was. In fact, if I had a pickup band to busk on the street, that’s what I’d call them: “The Independent Contractors.” The problem is that the term infers you’ll never know who is going to show up or when. Believe me, it was like that when I played in a band. (And no, it wasn’t Tommy Dorsey or Benny Goodman, you smart asses!)

Now you know something of what challenge is ahead for Mullen and his staff. Florida’s 49-year-old coach is nothing if not introspective. And he will have a plan. Sounds like he is already implementing it.