Telephone Call For ‘Coach Grumpy’: Just In Time For Baton Rouge. And Maybe Some Surprises To Come.
Updated: Oct 10, 2021
Dan Mullen didn’t like what he was seeing. Nor should he have. His players are running out of time to adjust to the learning curve. We are at the halfway point this season. It was time for an intensity adjustment.
Ah, October football. Here on Spectacular Saturday, while the Gators were fulfilling a homecoming playdate with the perennial SEC doormat Vanderbilt, around the country there was fearless balling going on. Some huge trees fell. Even if they may have fallen in the forest, everybody heard them – especially in Texas – with the shuffling of the college football landscape.
In Gainesville there seemed to be a new sense of urgency. Dan Mullen, criticized by some last week for not appearing engaged enough in his sideline demeanor during the loss to Kentucky, was highly animated and seemed to manufacture some badly needed fire. That’s not easy when you’re a 39-point favorite. He was engaged and enraged, stomping around the sidelines, getting chippy with officials, yelling at an assistant coach or two, personally expressing dissatisfaction at a wide receiver for going east and west instead of north and south. In general, being a grouchy coach. He was hot at halftime. Call him Coach Grumpy.
There was Mullen’s mea culpa for perhaps being dismissive to the TV reporter, sort of semi-apologizing and half-kiddingly saying: "I probably used some more words in the locker room, maybe. I mean, hey, I didn't mean it, I wasn't trying to be short with the reporter. She asked a question, I gave an answer. It wasn't her. She wasn't on the field doing it. But for the players I thought the first half, I thought there was things we did well, things you did poorly. But overall it's to me and that's on the coaching staff, of us, of making sure that we have crossed every T, dotted every I, that our execution is exact, it's not just, hey, looking at things as a whole but looking at it individually on every snap of the game.”
Lemme stop right here and say that while maybe some of the message board dimwits and media flame-throwers might disagree, this is the Dan Mullen that needs to be present and at the helm of the Florida Gators as they re-tee it in SEC Play in Baton Rouge. Coach Grumpy. It’s not the usually fierce Tigers, playing a noon game in what they call Death Valley, with Ed Orgeron barely hanging on to his job.
No matter what denials may be issued, these next two games over three weeks will define the Gators season. LSU is owed one after the way the Tigers embarrassed the Gators in LSUGate last season, starting the three-game side by Florida. The Gators need that Grumpy version of Dan to show up. The guy who delivered the wakeup call at halftime Saturday after his defense stunk up the joint and his offense sleep-walked through the first half with almost-undeserved 21-0 halftime lead over Vandy.
Dan Mullen didn’t like what he was seeing. Nor should he have. His players are running out of time to adjust to the learning curve. We are at the halfway point this season. It was time for an intensity adjustment.
“Are we playing at the level we need to play at with the intensity we need to play at?” Mullen said he asked. “I don't know that we did that for the first half as a whole. There's things I can circle in the first half that were great. And there's things I can circle in the first half that just were not up to our standard. And our job as coaches is to make sure we are up to our standard on every snap."
One of the defensive players said Coach Grumpy reminded the team that the first half vs. Vandy wasn’t acceptable “and playing defense that way was not our brand.” Except for two missed goals and had a touchdown called back, Vandy would have been in a one-score game after the second quarter.
Sometimes players don’t listen. Fans don’t listen. The media doesn’t listen. Mullen has been trying to tell us for weeks that Emory Jones is – and should be – the starting quarterback because Anthony Richardson isn’t ready. Yeah, but what about that leap over the would-be tackler? The 80-yard touchdown run? The across-the-body dart he completed vs. South Florida? What about those?
Well, there are things like knowing how to set protection, how to check down, how to get in and out of the right play – all the nuances of playing quarterback. A four-year guy knows that stuff.
Frankly we expected to see more snaps for AR#15. Clearly he wasn’t ready, for whatever reason. And Jones was on a bit of a roll, as he stepped up to click off two of his four touchdown passes – the first to Dameon Pierce for a 61-yard score, the other a 25-yard touchdown to Jacob Copeland.
"Well I think all quarterbacks have a learning curve,” Mullen explained. “That's why there's development that goes into it. I do think Anthony works his tail off, has a great approach in what he's doing. Great approach getting ready at practice. I see him improving. The nice thing, we're throwing him in, he's getting some opportunities during a game to go show what he can do and he's got to continue to improve."
I have no doubt that Richardson is going to show up in a big way somewhere in the near future to make a big play in a big game. We’ll just have to learn to trust the instincts of Mullen.
The good news is that as the 2021 season unravels, Florida is not out of this thing. Don’t ask me how, or what scenario must take place for the Gators to make Atlanta. But as I watched Spectacular Saturday unfold, it looked like the beginning of Moving Month. You could feel the heat of a late summer, just as you could pressure, which could also be seen on the faces of coaches and players.
Oklahoma with a 21-point comeback win over Texas after benching its Heisman-hyped quarterback, only to bring Spencer Rattler back for the winning two-point play. A field goal victory for Michigan over struggling Nebraska. Arkansas and Ole Miss in a dogfight, won by the Rebels on a missed two-point PAT. And of course, Alabama is down, even if not necessarily for the count.
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