How ‘Bout Them Gators?
If you know me, you know I reveled in that Florida loss on Saturday. Loved it. And now, my baby is asleep, my fiance isn’t far behind, and I’m writing this blog about how bad Florida is, and how bad they will continue to be in the near future. They have hit their ceiling with Dan Mullen in control. As Georgia fans, we know what that ceiling is from Mark Richt, post 2008. Every few years threaten to get to the SEC title game, but need every duck to fall in a row to win. This is now Florida’s ceiling.
First, let’s recap my precap of the WLOCP 2020 version. In May I went over each of their position groups. No one on their defense would start for us. I said Kaiir Elam would be the only one to threaten playing time for us. Now I’m not so sure. He hasn’t looked great this year. He looks as allergic to tackling as CJ Henderson was. Marco Wilson looks awful out there. Their safeties are still nothing to write home about. Their ILBs aren’t getting it done and none of the highly regarded freshmen have taken a spot. Brenton Cox has shown who he was. Georgia fans tried to warn Gator fans, but they wouldn’t listen. Now they’re finding out. And their DL is suffering from a lack of recruiting.
On offense, I will give credit where due, Kyle Trask looks better. He also hasn’t played a tough defense yet. When he plays us, his OL will get exposed, his RBs won’t be able to run the ball, Toney will get hit early and often, and Pitts can’t catch every pass. They’re still going to lose to us because we may never let that offense on the field. We can run it down their throat and they can’t stop it.
And you know what’s better?
The cavalry isn’t coming to save Dan MuLLLen.
His 2018 class has 20 commits. Let’s have a look at the impact players signed: Kyle Pitts, Evan McPherson. That’s it. I don’t want to hear Emory Jones because no one knows what he can do. Jacob Copeland hasn’t shown anything, Richard Gouraige starts for a not great OL, Trey Dean is not good, Dameon Pierce is a good RB, but had his job stolen, Amari Burney has been getting abused, Lucas Krull and Chris Bleich have transferred, and Noah Banks had to medically DQ. That’s 11 guys there. The other 9 I’ve barely heard mentioned. But it was MuLLLen’s bump class, so I’ll cut him some slack.
His 2019 class has 24 commits. Five never played a down for the team. Two went the JUCO route and could still showed up. Their highest rated player transferred before fall camp. They kicked the QB signee off the team. Their next highest rated player is Kaiir Elam who is contributing, but not playing fantastic so far. The rest of the mix are guys who haven’t contributed, contributed some, or transferred already. Their lowest rated recruit overall might be their best offensive lineman. It might be too early to call here, but early signs aren’t good. That’s two back to back boners in recruiting.
His 2020 class had some highly rated studs like Gervon Dexter, who is playing and Derek Wingo, who isn’t. Their top rated OL left before the summer. One of their top rated CBs had hip surgery last month even though he was an early enrollee and had this problem in high school. They probably could use him right now. They need help on the DL, signed some in this class, yet none of them are playing. Some of their young safeties are seeing time, so I guess that’s good even though the defense is terrible. To top it off, they signed a punter who got beat out by a walk on and took a transfer from a RB who has yet to register a carry. Fantastic roster management.
Put the poor recruiting of Jim McElwain and this is going to spell disaster for Dan MuLLLen. They aren’t going to beat Georgia any time soon barring a fluke. Too many WRs and not enough OLs. Too many CBs and not enough DLs.
Mullen signed a six year contract so he is in town until at least 2023. He has a $12M buyout which would be hard to justify in these lean times. I also think if he keeps taking down Florida State, he might hang around a while. They were already talking extension and I hope it gets done. I want Dan Mullen in Gainesville for a long time. I started the train on calling him their Mark Richt. At least Mark Richt won the SEC twice. Mullen has never even sniffed the game. Then I said he might be their Jim Donnan, although ol’ Donnan never seemed to get higher than third in the east. Mullen might wind up like Ray Goff. And I would love it.
