The Gators just turned in one of the most embarrassing performances in the history of Florida football. They gave up a total of 52 points, which included a record 42, and 358 total yards in the first half to a 4-5 Samford team that is mediocre at best in the Football Championship Subdivision.

In a day of bad records to give up, Samford quarterback Liam Welch threw for 400 yards and at one point looked like he was going to surpass a 25-year-old record that was held by Peyton Manning, who threw for 492 yards against the Gators in 1996. I say all of that to pose the following question.

After this performance, will Dan Mullen make it through the rest of the season?

In a game they were favored by 36.5 points, the Gators were in a dog fight with Samford, no pun intended. Offensively, Florida essentially did what they were supposed to by putting up the highest point total in Dan Mullen’s tenure at Florida. However, defensively, the team looked uninspired and quite frankly looked like they didn’t want to be there. A group of players that told the media they had some excitement and “juice” when Christian Robinson was named the interim defensive coordinator played with anything but that.

I constantly saw players jogging in pursuit, lacking effort in tackles, and just having a blank expression on their face with no passion. The entire first half looked like a team that didn’t want to play for their coach, and when that happens, it will take nothing short of a miracle to get the locker room back.

Now the second half was a little better on the defensive end. The Gators came out with a little more juice and were able to force a turnover, fly around more, tackle a bit better, and slow down the Bulldogs offense to an extent, only giving up just 10 points and 187 yards, but they still let an FCS school rack up over 500 yards of total offense in the Swamp. I don’t care who you are playing or who you have out on the field; at Florida, you should never give up that many points and yards to an FCS team.

Florida now sits at 5-5 with two games left on the schedule: at Missouri next week and in the Swamp against FSU to close out the season. If today was any indication of the type of play we are going to see for the rest of the year, I don’t see another win on the schedule. That would make the Gators’ final record 5-7 on the year and would likely result in the firing of Dan Mullen.

So, the question is, do you stretch it out and hope you see improvement in the next couple games and try to keep Mullen for the rest of the year and beyond? Or did you think you have seen everything you needed to see to just rip the band aid off now after Florida’s lackluster performance against Samford?

I guess we will have to wait to see what the brass at Florida decides.