Buddy Martin Blog: Where Do They Go From Here? Honestly I Don’t Know. Does Scott Stricklin?

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a Great Fall….

Yeah, I can understand some Florida fans wanting to wear brown paper sacks on their heads, or eschewing orange and blue for all-black sackcloth attire. This is mourning time. Something appears to have died within their spirit, which now is on life support. After what happened Saturday, a deep abiding sadness has swept across the Gator Nation.

As somebody deeply ensconced with the fan base through GatorBait, social media and my live streaming show, I could feel and hear the excruciating pain during and after Saturday’s unexplainable 40-17 thumping by a heretofore weak and unimpressive South Carolina.

For most of the past half century, I’ve heard fans grouse a million times. However, this sounds like the hue and cry of good people who can’t bear the pain and disappointment anymore.

One of my most passionate and loyal Gator fan friends texted in the fourth quarter:

“This breaks my Gator heart.”

My response: “There are a lot of broken Gator hearts tonight.”

After the game:

Him: “Man so where do we go from here?”

Me: “To bed. See what tomorrow brings. Everything is on the table now. Everything.”

Today is here. And I still don’t have an answer. I’m having trouble finding a silver lining. Maybe not yet declaring Armageddon. But perhaps it’s trending.

Here’s the harsh reality:

I was wrong. This isn’t an 8-4 team. It looks more like a 4-8 team.

Clearly Dan Mullen’s future is murky, if not endangered. I won’t even go into the multiple scenarios that are portended, like buyouts and replacement candidates, because that brings into play more potential variants than a grandmaster chess match. And my math isn’t that good. Or my chess.

Let’s just say big changes are not just necessary, but mandated, before this program turns to shambles.

In what seems like just yesterday, Mullen was beginning to sparkle as a Golden-Boy-work-in-progress. Actually, only 11 games ago, Dan was on an upward trajectory which catapulted him into a financial stratosphere of the financially elite coaches, sixth highest paid at $7.6M. Which came at an odd time.

Going into the LSU game on Dec. 12, 2020 the Gators had lost only to Texas A&M, beaten Georgia and were headed to the SEC Championship game to play Alabama, whom they would challenge toe-to-toe before losing.

Almost concurrently, unbeknownst to us, The Great Fall was about to begin.

The volatility of coaching careers lives on a hairpin trigger and can change with the suddenness of a lightning bolt. Ten minutes ago, Mark Stoops was being hailed as the savior of the Kentucky program and maybe another Wildcat icon. Some thought Josh Heupel was about to be buried as yet another Vol Boot Hill Cemetery along with the other Tennessee mistakes.

In a complete reversal of fortune, Kentucky lost three straight after winning its first six. Tennessee beat the Wildcats Saturday, 45-42, and is looking like the second best team in the East, having also vanquished that same Gamecock team 45-20 a few weeks ago. Oddly, one of Florida’s only four victories came over the Vols.

What happened in Columbia? Honestly nobody saw this crash-and-burn coming. Not Las Vegas (UF was a three-touchdown favorite). Not Mullen, who said he had no clue of all this going amiss, but wasn’t “stunned” by the upset because he’s been around football long enough to see pretty much everything. And certainly not the media or the fans.

A lot us like and root for Dan, but that number is diminishing rapidly.

In all the many decades I’ve been covering Florida football, this may have been the most painful and disheartening loss ever for the Gator Nation fan base. Worse than the Nebraska beatdown in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl. More painful than the Georgia Southern upset Nov. 23, 2013. This was supposed to be the start of a four-game win streak/turnaround.

In Mullen’s fourth season, building on the success of his offensive scheme, this team was supposed to be a challenger for the SEC title – especially after strong back-to-back performances vs. Alabama.

Instead, the bottom had dropped out. And the Great Fall has slipped the Florida program into such a steep abyss that it might not be retrievable anytime soon.

As I sat listening to Mullen’s presser Saturday night, it occurred to me that Dan has almost lost his way. We could dial up the usual excuses, but that ship has sailed, and almost sunk by now. Frankly nobody has answers -- including me – but Scott Stricklin is going to have to find them in a hurry.

Of particular concern for me would be how oblivious Dan sometimes seems to his surroundings. For instance, when asked why his team didn’t stand and sing with the Florida band, which made a long trip on a cold South Carolina night to be there, he replied he didn’t even know they were there and “we’ll sing with them when we get back home in Swamp.” How could that be?

This was how one Tweeter wrote it in a mock description of a Mullen quote compendium from the last 11 games:

“I didn’t see the shoe.”

“I didn’t see the band.”

“I didn’t see the score.”

“I didn’t see players on their heels.”

It leads me to believe somebody needs to be assigned to Mullen’s side at all times just to remind him of the small things that could become big things. That role, in part, was often played by Senior Associate AD Steve McClain, who has been promoted pretty much out of sight. To my knowledge, nobody else has filled that void.

Flirting with the truth is not very flattering.

Among the challenges ahead for Dan Mullen -- and there are many -- is transparency. (Photo by Chris Spears)

Most troubling is Mullen’s lack of credibility due his to omission of facts in press conferences and a reluctance to level with the media. Forget that he won’t talk about injuries – OK maybe we can understand that. However, his statement that his squad had a “great week of practice” when in reality in some days there were “20 to 30 players out” because of some unidentified virus/illness is anything but transparency.

So I am left wondering why and what else is missing? I ponder questions like:

Is one of the missing elements Brian Johnson, who left to coach the Eagles quarterbacks? He doesn’t coach defense, but perhaps he’s a badly needed confidant for Mullen.

Why was a weak Gamecock rushing attack able to dominate Florida’s front seven and, only now, has Mullen begun to address the shortcomings on both lines of scrimmage?

And there are these endless criticisms of how the Gamecocks scored more points vs. the Gators than any team in history … the 23-point difference was the largest ever … and South Carolina allowed the fewest points scored by Florida (17).

That pales in comparison to Chris Doering’s point about getting beat by a squad with only 79 scholarship players and a third string quarterback who once played for tiny St. Francis.

One of saddest days in Gator football history. The sadness was reflected in this tweet from hard-playing LB/tackling machine Mohamoud Diabate:

“I’m sorry Gator Nation, On God I try to give everyone my all on the field, these moments are where you learn about yourself and those around you. Stay tuned.”

And this tweet from a dumb-founded, desperate Gator fan, trying so hard to hang on to one shred of hope: “Serious question: Is Samford any good?”

In the days ahead, Stricklin faces the enormous challenge of fixing the gaping hole in Gator football created by The Great Fall, best illustrated by the end of the end of the nursery rhyme:

“All the king horses, and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”