The Good News: There’s No Scandal Amidst Mullen’s Team. The Bad News? They’ll Just Be Mailing It In.

His days may be numbered, but Dan Mullen has more problems than Todd Grantham. (Photo by Chris Spears)

Mullen and Grantham can look forward to the worst week of their lives, but Saturday’s embarrassment was a total team effort.

By CARLTON REESE

GatorBait Columnist

There is one piece of good news if you are Florida Gators fan: Absolutely no players are on the juice. There will be no steroid scandal in Gainesville to explain the bestial nature of its players that overwhelm the opposition through the sheer might of their grotesque sinew.

Now, it’s the small person who beats up a man when he is already down… so here goes: The Florida Gators have mailed it in, just in case you hadn’t noticed. Fact is, that letter was postmarked in Jacksonville around 5:30 p.m. Oct. 30. Not sure if Samford will receive the news, but South Carolina certainly did while Missouri and Florida State are eagerly anticipating their copies.

Saturday night in Columbia marked for many Gator fans the most humiliating moment since Georgia Southern rolled into the Swamp and thumped Florida in 2013. They would be wrong, however, because this was worse. That 2013 team had already lost five straight with half its starters watching from an infirmary, so the excuses were built in and expected. The team that showed up in Columbia had a few head colds and no heart.

Down 30-10 at halftime, the Gators were still within striking distance – all that was needed was a defensive stop and a drive to inject the inevitable doubt and panic within the South Carolina ranks.

Just kidding. This game was over the moment ZaQuandre White tore off a 54-yard run on the first play of SC’s second possession. We’d seen this before: an opposing running back negotiating the turnstiles of the Florida ‘D’ which served as a mere spoiler alert to the ending of this horror movie. The other guys just looked bigger, faster and stronger.

But this was the South Carolina Gamecocks, right? This is the same team that may be a half notch above Vanderbilt, but clearly looked miles ahead of the Florida Gators. This means Florida is a bottom feeder in the weaker sect of the Southeastern Conference: Georgia is better, Kentucky is better, South Carolina is better, Tennessee is better (that 38-14 victory in September clearly an illusion) – leaving only Missouri and Vanderbilt to contemplate.

Before Saturday’s laydown, one might explain away Florida’s record this season by noting that the Gators’ losses up to that point might have even been a bit fluke-ish: A sleepy first quarter and a missed PAT cost them the Alabama game; a blocked kick returned for a TD and eight false starts cost them the Kentucky game; a bizarre defensive meltdown cost them the LSU game in which 42 points should have been enough. Even the Georgia loss came down to two and a half minutes of Bulldog smoke and mirrors surrounded by 37 other minutes where Florida looked the equal of the No. 1 team in the country.

But in the loss to South Carolina, there could be just one conclusion: Florida got its teeth kicked in. On the sideline, there was defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, who looked like General Burnside at Fredericksburg. A few steps away stood head coach Dan Mullen, with that 2,000-yard-stare at his play card as though it were written in Mandarin. The scene, if not at least funny to Florida’s rivals, was downright pathetic.

Coming into the game, South Carolina ranked 106th nationally in rushing, but one would never have known it Saturday night against Florida, which has a penchant for turning mediocre running games into the re-birth of the Csonka-Morris backfield. Two running backs went over 100 yards with four of the rushes going for gains of 54, 39, 40 and 22 – numbers one might expect to see in a youth football game.

Some might even claim South Carolina was merely a sleeping giant that had not found its true self until just now – that Florida had no way of knowing just how good the Gamecocks really were because they hadn’t shown it. They would be wrong. The Gamecocks are a bad football team playing with a third-string quarterback who transferred in from St. Francis of Pennsylvania. But next week, South Carolina will get drilled at Missouri, exposing the fool’s gold accumulated during a win over Florida.

What has happened to that genius offensive game-planning we all expect from Dan Mullen? The Gators seemed ill-prepared while on the other sideline there seemed to be little need of much preparation. The blocking schemes used by LSU and South Carolina had all the complexities of the Walnut Grove school playbook, yet the Gators couldn’t find any answers.

Mullen’s plan was to avoid the running game altogether as the Gamecocks were undoubtedly preparing for just such a scenario. What we witnessed were passes on each of Florida’s first 10 offensive plays, eerily reminiscent of Leeman Bennett who once started a game with nine straight handoffs to James Wilder when coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Such is not too flattering company for one possessing the mind of Mullen.

Even the reverse to Jacob Copeland failed to fool anyone wearing a red shirt and became a microcosm of Florida’s fruitless attempts at creativity. Mullen became the magician reaching into his hat and pulling out nothing but lint – the spectacle worth a chuckle.

Mullen and Grantham can look forward to the worst week of their lives, but Saturday’s embarrassment was a total team effort. The players are finished, the coaches have run out of sticks and carrots; hell, even radio announcer Mick Hubert was contemplating the 4-5 record just after the second half started.

Where is the leader in this locker room? Perhaps if someone steps in to take charge, it will be not of a turnaround, but a mutiny.

At least probation isn’t on the horizon. Knock on wood.