Florida's football spiral that began with a loss to LSU on December 12, 2020, has hit rock bottom, or that is at least the hope.

That a 40-17 loss to a 4-4 South Carolina team starting a quarterback who spent last season playing Division II football and was only playing against the Gators because South Carolina's first and second string quarterbacks were injured, is rock bottom for this football program.

What Dan Mullen and the team did on Saturday night was reduce that thought — that it can't get worse than it already is — to just a hope.

How the program has sunk to this point is hard to wrap your mind around but let's try.

Florida entered November 2020 fresh off of a dismantling of Georgia and a top-five ranking. The Gators had a Heisman favorite in Kyle Trask, the eventual John Mackey Award winner in Kyle Pitts, and one of the most exciting players in the country with Kadarius Toney. Mullen was rolling and the Gators looked capable of getting into the College Football Playoff.

One year later the Gators are 4-5 and will finish with a sub .500 conference record for the first time since Jim McElwain's last season.

Florida has lost eight of its last 10 contests against Power 5 opponents with the only wins coming against hapless Vanderbilt and Tennessee. It's not just losing games, it's the on and off-field embarrassments that have followed Florida. Losing to LSU in 2020 as the Tigers sputtered to end a season bookmarked by departures and injuries. The Gators lost to Alabama but gave the Tide a hell of a fight in the SEC Championship. Then they completely no-showed the Cotton Bowl.

Mullen, who has spoken of his competitiveness, challenged reporters to a thumb wrestling match, simply shrugged off the loss.

“The last game the 2020 team played was 11 days ago,” Mullen said following the game.

He also uttered the sentence, "I thought our scout team played well."

The Gators had several players opt out of the bowl game but that answer following a 55-20 loss to Oklahoma is grossly disrespectful to the players who did play in the game and a slap in the face to the fans that love the program.

Then ESPN reporter Adam Schefter flipped Gator Nation on its head with just 13 words.

"Dan Mullen, of the college ranks, is open to going to the pros."

This also needs context.

Dan Mullen had just finished the third year of a six-year contract. In college football you want your head coach to have at least four years on his deal, given that that's the length of time a recruit would spend with the coach. When your coach doesn't have that year it's easy for other schools to negatively recruit against your coach. It's likely that Mullen's agent, Jimmy Sexton, tipped off Schefter with the thought that Mullen, who had a stellar record at Florida despite a tumultuous end to the 2020 season, potentially leaving would help his cause during contract negotiations. Does Mullen really want to go to the NFL? It's possible but it's far more likely that the news that he would be "open" to it was used because he was in the middle of negotiating a contract extension, which he received.

One interesting note, pointed out first by Andy Staples of The Athletic, is that while Scott Stricklin gave Mullen a raise and extension, the buyout for Florida to get rid of Mullen without cause remained $12 million dollars. Mullen would be paid half of that within 60 days of being fired and then receive $1 million dollars a year until the $12 million balance is paid. For an example of how sideways some college head coach contracts can be, if Texas A&M were to fire Jimbo Fisher without cause, the Aggies would be on the hook for about $95.6 million if he is fired without cause on Dec. 1 of this year.

So, ignoring Mullen's comments about wanting to pack the Swamp during a pandemic, only to come down with the virus himself less than 72 hours after that statement, the 2020 season was going well before a crash landing. Then the coach, even if it was a negotiation tactic, was openly flirting with the NFL in the eyes of the fanbase. That rubbed people the wrong way and led into the 2021 season.

Mullen also opted to keep defensive coordinator Todd Grantham employed at the University of Florida despite Florida's defense giving up more points per game than any Florida team since 1917. On Saturday, Florida's defense allowed South Carolina to score more points than any other Gamecock team has ever scored against Florida. The 23-point margin of victory is the largest in the series for South Carolina (22 in 2010). The 17 points allowed by South Carolina are the fewest in the series since 2013 (14).

Florida's season started well with two wins but as Emory Jones struggled — throwing four interceptions in the first two games against FAU and USF — his understudy Anthony Richardson shined. Mullen shrugged off ESPN sideline reporter Cole Cubelic when asked if he would make a change at quarterback and continued to be dismissive when repeatedly asked by local media. He stuck by Jones, who had stuck by him for three years waiting for the opportunity to start. The perception, however, was that Mullen was again making the wrong choice at quarterback. Mullen picked Feleipe Franks twice over Kyle Trask, only going to Trask as his starting quarterback when Franks' leg was broken at Kentucky. Now, Richardson — who many view as potentially a generational talent — was wasting away on the sideline while Jones' interceptions multiplied weekly.

Even in their first loss, the Gators looked promising. Florida gave Alabama a hell of a fighting Gainesville, coming just two points short of the Crimson Tide. Many fans left that game, a loss, feeling better about where the team was than after their first two wins.

The Gators bounced back and mauled Tennessee but quickly shot themselves in the foot with a 15-penalty-aided loss in Lexington. Mullen was asked if he felt that he was out-coached.

"I don't know. We had 382. They had 211 yards. I wouldn't think that would be the case. I think guys did some pretty good things right there, moving up and down," Mullen responded. "I think we got to really look at the penalties that we have and how to get ourselves in a better situation that way. I got to a better job coaching up the PAT/field-goal group. They’re a physical group. We outrushed them. We outpassed. We out-total gained them. The time of possession, we were better on third downs.”

Then Florida beat Vanderbilt the following week 42-0 and Mullen showed that fire and passion that he had displayed in previous seasons. He was furious with his team going into the locker room at halftime and took responsibility after the game saying they need to coach the team better. It was the kind of press conference you'd expect after a loss to Kentucky, not after a shutout win.

Little did we know it at the time but Florida's season was about to turn.

The Gators traveled down to LSU, where unknown to the public, LSU Athletic Director, Scott Woodward, and Ed Orgeron had agreed that this would be Orgeron's last season. The Gators lost 49-42 to a team that had fired its head coach days earlier. The bye week came and Georgia dismantled Florida. Mullen was asked about recruiting, a topic that has become as comforting as a canker sore to Mullen, and he dodged it. In another room at TIAA Bank Stadium, Kirby Smart was also asked about recruiting and he gave an impassioned plea to just how important recruiting is.

"You have to recruit. There's no coach out there than can outcoach recruiting," Smart said. "I don't care who you are. The best coach to ever play the game better be a good recruiter because no coaching is going to outcoach players. Anybody will tell you our defense is good because we have good players."

Mullen was asked again the following Monday and his response went viral, mostly taken out of context.

“We’re in the season right now, we'll do recruiting after the season – when it gets to recruiting time we can talk about recruiting.”

Fans and media ran with the quote saying Mullen doesn't recruit. Of course, he and his staff are recruiting. You have to recruit constantly. He doesn't want to talk about recruiting because he's still under a show cause for a recruiting violation and Florida's class ranks behind FSU, Arkansas, Kentucky, Purdue, Indiana, Georgia Tech, and South Carolina, to name a few.

That led Mullen to shut down all media last week. He said on the SEC teleconference that he wanted the team to focus on the game. Florida was on a losing streak, the noise around the program was becoming suffocating and he wanted to limit the distractions.

The Gators responded with a dud in Columbia.

South Carolina finished with a season-high 459 yards of total offense — the most yards Florida has allowed this season. The Gamecocks scored on their first five offensive possessions of the game for the first time since scoring on their first six against Coastal Carolina on Nov. 23, 2013. The Gamecock defense held Florida to 82 rushing yards, their fewest of the season.

After the game, Mullen was asked about his team.

"I certainly don't think we gave up. I give our guys credit, they battled," he said. "They faced a lot of adversity and then continued to battle. I mean we faced all kinds of adversities this week, and those guys continued to battle."

Saturday's loss is just another to be thrown onto a growing pile of unacceptable losses during Mullen's tenure.

No opinion, just facts.

Florida hasn't won a football game in 30 days. The Gators are 2-8 against their last 10 versus Power 5 opponents with the only wins coming against Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Florida is 1-6 in their last seven road games. The Gators will finish with a losing conference record for the first time since 2017.

Most of the season could have been written off as just a bad year. Saturday's loss puts the trajectory of the program into perspective. Florida isn't as good as their head coach thinks they are and with the 35th ranked recruiting class in 2021, help isn't on the way. Georgia is likely to sign the top-ranked recruiting class this year. That will be their fourth top-ranked class in the last five seasons.

I"s Dan Mullen on the hot seat is a question" that I've been peppered with more than we've asked Mullen about recruiting and I've stood firmly by my answer that I believe Mullen is safe. His boss, Scott Stricklin, was part of the team that hired Mullen away from Florida to be the head coach at Mississippi State. Stricklin then was promoted to Athletic Director at Mississippi State and worked with Mullen for six years in Starkville. Stricklin then brought Mullen back to Gainesville in 2018 and the two enjoyed immediate success. Mullen got the Gators back to Atlanta and they had the ball with a chance to win the game on the final possession. The previous two coaches couldn't get there (Will Muschamp) and looked like a scout team while getting blown out by Alabama (Jim McElwain). Florida football stock was soaring.

While I believe that Mullen's job is safe, should it be?

The last 12 months have been calamitous and Saturday's game leaves only a thin hope that this is rock bottom. In 12 months, Florida has gone from a top-five team to hoping that a historically bad loss to South Carolina is as bad as it will get.

If Florida were to make a move away from Mullen they would owe him $12 million dollars but Florida has six assistant coaches who are in the final year of their contracts — Tim Brewster, Greg Knox, John Hevesy, Billy Gonzales, David Turner, and Todd Grantham — (they make a combined $4.23 million) meaning you wouldn't be paying Mullen's buyout on top of paying any assistants that aren't kept around by a new head coach.

Firing a coach isn't always the answer. When Ron Zook was dumped in the middle of the 2004 season Urban Meyer was hired and won two National Championships but that isn't the norm. Florida fired Will Muschamp and just three years later was looking for another coach.

What seemed inconceivable at the beginning of the season should be an actual conversation now.

To steal a line from Stricklin's predecessor, Jeremy Foley, "What should be done eventually must be done immediately."